# Your skin has trillions of tenants, and soap evicts them > Researchers now treat the bugs on your skin as an organ worth protecting, and one company bottled a bacteria that horses roll in dirt to get. - Title: Your skin has trillions of tenants, and soap evicts them - Summary: Researchers now treat the bugs on your skin as an organ worth protecting, and one company bottled a bacteria that horses roll in dirt to get. Skin health is… - Keywords: microbiome, skincare, bacteria, dermatology, probiotics, skin, trillions, tenants, soap, evicts, them, Naturallydannyseo - Source: Naturallydannyseo — https://naturallydannyseo.com/2025/06/health-19 - Published: 2025-06-26T14:10:05+00:00 - Read time: 3 min - Topics: microbiome, skincare, bacteria, dermatology, probiotics ## Your skin is crowded Trillions of bacteria, viruses and fungi live in and on your body, invisible but busy. Every hand wash and scalp scrub is a decision about how they fare. ## The map nobody had In 2008 the National Institutes of Health assembled scientists for the Human Microbiome Project to chart the microbes of healthy adults. Four years later they reported that every person's microbiota is unique. ## One big super organism What lives on you shapes your health, and your food, address, genes and even your moisturizer shape what lives on you. Dermatology professor Adam Friedman says trouble starts when diversity drops. > The evolving concept is that we're all one big super organism. ## Sunscreen protects bacteria too Ultraviolet radiation kills bacteria, so an unprotected beach day can wipe out a population of helpful bugs along with burning you. Friedman's first piece of advice is the daily SPF. ## Be gentler with soap Skip harsh antimicrobial washes. Choose mild, surfactant-free soaps labeled gentle, or made for sensitive skin and eczema, and avoid sodium lauryl sulfate, which takes out a lot of bacteria. > all of the things that dermatologists have been preaching ## Skin is the canary New York dermatologist Whitney Bowe links rosacea, psoriasis and eczema to what people eat. The microbes on the surface and in deeper layers are in constant conversation with the immune system. > they communicate with our immune system ## Feed them from inside Probiotics are live bacteria, prebiotics are their food. Yogurt, dark chocolate, kombucha and apple cider vinegar can help steady the immune system, regulate circadian rhythms and fend off infection. ## Strains are not interchangeable Each strain does a different job. Lactobacillus lives on us naturally and shows up in fermented foods, but most of its strains die in heat, which is why refrigeration matters. ## What the jar can do La Roche-Posay builds on thermal spring water that acts as a prebiotic. Lancome's Genifique serum carries Bifidobacterium longum, Aveeno's oats improve skin pH, and Marie Veronique's mist claims 34 probiotics. ## Nobody defines probiotic Most of these products never need FDA approval, and the agency has no firm definition of probiotic or prebiotic. Working out whether a bottle holds live, useful bacteria falls to you. > It's very overwhelming for the consumer to know what they're getting. ## Why horses roll in dirt Chemist David Whitlock was dating a woman whose horses rolled in dirt every March like clockwork. Insects were the obvious guess and it was wrong, so he went looking. > I was trying to impress her. ## Meet the peacekeeper Dirt gave the horses Nitrosomonas eutropha, a bacteria that eats the ammonia and urea in sweat and turns it into nitrite and nitric oxide. Less irritation, less itch, more balance. ## He sprayed it on himself Whitlock figured humans once carried N. eutropha too, until soaps, shampoos and antibacterial products scrubbed it off our flora. So he cultivated the strain and started misting his own skin. ## Thirty people, no soap Volunteers dropped all personal care products, took water-only showers, used the AO+ Mist twice daily and got swabbed weekly. Journalist Julia Scott wrote up her turn in The New York Times in 2014. > My skin began to change for the better. ## A mist becomes a brand The story set off a rush of interest, and AOBiome spun up Mother Dirt in 2015. Users report needing less moisturizer, makeup and deodorant over time, with 60% cutting back on deodorant. > consumes the irritating parts of sweat and converts it into beneficial things for the skin ## Bacteria by prescription AOBiome's pipeline puts the same bacteria into clinical research on allergic rhinitis, hypertension and migraines. The science is early, but the direction is clear. > In the future, we might see doctors prescribing different strains of live bacteria for the treatment of actual diseases. ## Key takeaway Skin health is less about scrubbing harder and more about protecting the microbial diversity already living on you: sunscreen daily, gentle soap, skip sodium lauryl sulfate.