Spoiled Rotten: Fermented Ingredients In Beauty and Skincare

You’ve likely already ingested something fermented, or rotten, and not known it- wine, balsamic vinegar, cheese…but would you consider incorporating rotting ingredients into your skincare regimen?


(Photo: GlowRecipe.com)

In a W Magazine post, “Why the Korean Beauty World Is Going Natural, and Why You Should Too,”  Gillian Sagansky quotes Sarah Lee of Glow Recipe as stating that the hot ingredients in beauty right now are “Cactus, artichoke, and black truffle.”  She later went on to comment on fermented ingredients:

Fermented skincare ingredients are those that have been through a lacto-fermentation process. Lacto-fermentation is an anaerobic (free of oxygen) process that uses a probiotic called lactobacillus to break down the sugars and proteins in organic matter over a period of time, converting those sugars and proteins into lactic acid. As the fermentation environment acidifies, bacteria and harmful microbes die off, and the ingredients break down into smaller, nutrient-dense constituents, which also allows desirable by-products such as amino acids and peptides to emerge. The end result is a preserved, concentrated, more nourishing version of the original ingredient, which can now be better utilized by the skin.

The Whamisa sheet mask retails for $4-9

Do You Soy Milk Facial Cream’s product claims states, “The fermented soy beans broken down to instantly and deeply penetrate the skin, effectively nourishing, brightening, and firming the skin.”

According to an article on Racked.com, “An Amore Pacific rep” stated that the fermentation is breaking down complex substances into something that can more readily be absorbed into the skin, which could not otherwise process ingredients “since the skin does not have the same micro-organisms as the internal body [or stomach]” (Carusillo, 2015).


Are you spoiled rotten enough to try fermented beauty products? comment below.

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