Meet Symbiome: The Skincare Brand Made to Support Your Microbiome

It’s no secret that modern-day life isn’t kind to our skin. From chronic lack of sleep to blue light exposure from screens, the realities of our increasingly high-tech, high-stress lifestyles don’t make it easy to achieve the dewy, glowing, healthy skin of our dreams. Enter Symbiome: a skincare brand using cutting-edge research on the skin’s microbiome (aka the community of microorganisms found naturally on our bodies) to help undo the damage of modern life. By studying our ancestral microbiome, Symbiome’s scientists believe, we can identify what our skin is missing—and restore the balance and resilience that our skin once had, long before UberEats and Zoom calls. Ahead, we sit down with founder and CEO Larry Weiss, MD, to dive deeper into Symbiome’s mission.

Why were you inspired to start Symbiome?

Over 30 years ago, I left the practice of medicine to embark on an epic journey to understand human health. Like every other physician, I was trained in the “Germ Theory of Disease,” where germs were bad actors that could make us sick and had to be treated aggressively with antibiotics. Since then, advances in microbiome science have fundamentally transformed our understanding of the microbial world. This has led to a more nuanced and comprehensive “Germ Theory of Health,” in which networks of beneficial microbial ecosystems nurture and support our health. A resilient and balanced microbiome is the best way to prevent skin problems and disease. In 2017, I started Symbiome, a microbiome biotechnology company, to translate this new science into skincare that restores our skin’s natural resilience, health, and beauty. We chose the name Symbiome because it is a scientific term describing the amazing co-evolving microbial ecosystem that is the foundation of our health.

“Symbiome is the first skincare brand to formulate products that restore our skin’s natural resilience so that these problems are much less likely to occur.”

Describe Symbiome’s approach to skincare. How is it different from other skincare brands on the market?

Most skincare products today are mixtures of individual (often “buzzy”) ingredients formulated to fix the appearance of specific skin problems much in the same way that medications are formulated to treat diseases. This approach doesn’t address the important question of why there are so many skin problems and diseases in the first place. Symbiome is the first skincare brand to formulate products that restore our skin’s natural resilience so that these problems are much less likely to occur. After years of research into the evolutionary biology of the ancestral skin microbiome, Symbiome scientists discovered that we have lost most of the ancestral microbiome that protected and nourished our skin. Based on our research, Symbiome’s products are minimally formulated with fermented organic botanical postbiotics that we call Postbiomic™. Our Postbiomic™ ingredients are sustainably derived from the Amazon rainforest to restore the functional contribution of the microbes that we have lost in the modern world.

Symbiome’s Postbiomic™ fermentation process occurs in the Caatinga Biome in Brazil, where sustainably harvested Amazon rainforest plants are naturally fermented with microbes derived from the plant’s microbiome. Because these plants and their microbes co-evolved together over millions of years, our Postbiomic™ fermentation is optimized to unlock the maximum benefit and potency from these ancient biological relationships. The fermentation typically takes weeks but can take longer, depending on the product. The ingredients are then formulated and packaged in California.

Why is our microbiome so important to our skin’s health?

Although you can’t see or feel it, your skin microbiome is as much “you” as the skin that you can see and feel. It is a complex and diverse microbial ecosystem that is deeply engrafted into your skin and serves as your first line of defense. Two of the most important functions of your skin microbiome are “colonization resistance” and “immune modulation.” Colonization resistance is like your skin’s bouncer. It is how your skin microbiome prevents potential invaders from gaining a foothold that might cause disease. Immune modulation is the coordination between your microbiome and your immune system to regulate the intensity of your immune response to invading microbes, stress, and pollution. It is your bouncer’s backup team, in case things get rough. Together, your microbiome and your immune system synchronize their efforts to serve as peacekeepers and prevent infection and inflammation.

Symbiome’s research into the evolutionary biology of the skin microbiome has revealed that our modern skin microbiome has lost almost 80% of the diversity and at least 25% of the metabolic function. Our skin used to be blanketed in a rich biofilm of microbes that harmonized our skin with the environment, protected us from UV and oxidative stress, and nourished our skin with a rich ferment of essential nutrients. Unfortunately, because we live a modern lifestyle in an industrialized environment, we have literally washed away our biofilm blanket. Without this protection and nutrition from this biofilm blanket our skin is rusting (oxidizing) and starving. Fortunately, Symbiome research has found a way to bridge this gap and restore much of the contribution of the missing biofilm blanket.

How do Symbiome’s formulas work to restore our skin microbiome?

Despite efforts of many research groups around the world, scientists have not yet found a way to restore even individual “missing microbes,” much less the hundreds of missing species that we have lost. Instead, Symbiome’s ingredients are natural ferments of sustainably harvested rainforest botanicals. These are blended to produce biologically intact skincare that restores much of the protection and metabolic support that we have lost. The result is healthy, resilient and beautiful skin.

Symbiome donates 1% of sales to the Amazon Conservation Team—why did you decide to focus on this project?

ACT is an amazing organization that was founded in 1996 by legendary ethnobotanists Dr. Mark Plotkin and Liliana Madrigal in response to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and the corresponding loss of biological and cultural diversity. Over the past 25 years, ACT’s efforts and success stories have been focused, effective, and inspiring. What makes ACT unique is its inclusion of the cultural diversity of indigenous people who live in the Amazon. The fate of the rainforest is interwoven with the fate of people who have lived there for millennia. Our lack of a sense of connection to the biome in which we live enables and contributes to many of our unsustainable behaviors and environmental practices. ACT’s commitment to preserving biodiversity at all levels in the Amazon rainforest resonates with Symbiome’s commitment to preserving the incomprehensibly complex continuum of biodiversity that supports all life on earth. It is our privilege to support and collaborate with ACT. We encourage everyone to consider doing the same.

We also support and collaborate with The Good Project, a nonprofit NGO that works with isolated communities of Yanomami hunter-gatherers to support and preserve their way of life. The Good Project was founded by David Good, who is half Yanomami and one of the leading field microbiologists practicing today. Our collaboration is a unique international academic scientific research project to investigate the evolutionary microbiology of the human microbiome.

If you had to pick one Symbiome product to take with you to a desert island, which would it be and why?

Since I am also the chemist who formulated these products, that is a bit like asking a parent, “Which is your favorite child?” And, because Symbiome’s products are the children of nature, one parent is botanical, and the other is microbial, the metaphor holds. Each product has its own unique lineage, history, and personality. They are the rare and precious children of the rainforest, each with a distinctive sensory experience that reconnects us with ancient botanical, microbial, and ethnobotanical traditions. Each Symbiome product has a story to tell that speaks to each of us differently. I enjoy the dialogue with all of them, but if I could only take one, The Answer Reparative Serum would probably be my choice. But for a desert island climate, the combination of The Answer, The One, and The Renewal would be perfection!

Images courtesy of Symbiome