A lesson on bacteria

[flexagon]

Well, wackysauce. After posting about my bacterial friends three weeks ago, I actually got a quite nasty breakout... I got cocky, in part, and ate something with peanuts in it just to see if I could get away with it, and I did this right before getting my period AND as my bottle of bacteria was getting kind of old. So that's four possible factors... sigh. It's so hard to run a good n=1 experiment while also having a life.

More interesting, though, I got a survey from the AOBiome people asking how it was going; so I pasted most of my last blog post in there. Next thing I knew, I got very unexpected email:

Thank you for your interest and support. I am the Chief Medical Officer for AOBiome and I really enjoyed reading about your experience with our products. If you are interested, I would like to schedule a phone call...

What!? WHOA.

So I did spend about 35 minutes on the phone with this guy -- I guess it's a pretty small company -- and he told me some fascinating things I hadn't known before.

• Ammonia doesn't appear on the skin in a way proportional to sweat. It's related, but is partitioned off from the blood separately (important because these bacteria eat ammonia).


• A lot of bacteria have a quorum-sensing mechanism that can turn them from symbiotic to a problem. Each cell makes an indicator compound, and when this reaches a certain level, it triggers bacteria to kind of stop acting like individuals and act like part of a mob. And then the immune system will show up there, and if it's p acnes you get a zit. As if that isn't cool enough, one of the ways the AOBs work is to change the sensitivity of other bacteria to their quorum-sensors, so that the same density of them may not trigger a mob in the future. Which is neat.


• They're going to give me some of their biome-friendly cleanser and shampoo to try out.

In the meantime, my skin's been steadily calming down; maybe the new bottle of bacteria has helped, or maybe it's the cleverly staying off peanuts and dairy. I'm planning to stay the course on this stuff for now, because it's really interesting. And the one time I washed my face for real in the last six weeks (after doing full-face makeup for a fancy anniversary date) felt terrible, all dry and painful.

Comments

[a-kosmos.livejournal.com]

I'm not doing the bacteria thing, but just a thought before you do the make up face wash thing, you might consider doing the oil face wash thing. I wear makeup most week days, and clean my face with extra virgin coconut oil, sunflower oil, or - in a pinch - olive oil. I massage it in while steeping a washcloth in as hot of water as I can comfortably wring out, let the wash cloth steam on my face for a bit, and then use the washcloth to exfoliate as I need to.

Your face won't feel tight or oily, and the oil disolves all of your make up. Between this and adding a daily moisturizer, my breakouts have been really minimal, even before my period. I don't know if you would want to do the oil thing every day.

[flexagon]

Yes, this is a good idea. I have DHC oil soap, which is basically just saponified olive oil and always used to make me feel not-dried-out... but this apparently isn't good enough anymore, AND it turns out that natural saponified stuff is the worst for AOBs! Go figure.

I have extra-virgin coconut oil... I'll try that next time, thanks.

[nevers.livejournal.com]

for whatever it's worth, coconut oil is pretty comedogenic (https://www.beneficialbotanicals.com/facts-figures/comedogenic-rating.html, among others). maybe shea butter or sunflower oil if you have either of those on hand?
i'm assuming that comedogenic = bad, because that's what i've heard and of course clogged pores = acne, but because i'm also a skeptic i also have to give a disclaimer of, who knows, maybe it doesn't really matter?

[apfelsingail.livejournal.com]

I love your posts on stuff like this. And I love the fact that you actually treat it like a proper experiment where you try to control known variables.

My totally non-scientific experiment has been konjac sponges- I have to say, these have to be the most gentle exfoliant I've ever encountered and the fastest face wash. My face feels all silky afterwards, too. So far, I'm happy.

[flexagon]

Oh yes, you mentioned those before. I've ordered one this time, now that I'm apparently going to try the biome-friendly cleanser stuff. I'll let you know how it goes!

[a-kosmos.livejournal.com]

OMG... am totally in love with konjac sponges!