The science of
microbiome skincare

Every skin is an ecosystem of unique microbes and beneficial bacteria. Our
products lead the way in the science of rebalancing the microbiome,
restoring your skin’s natural ecology.

70% of women claim to have sensitive skin

Many people with sensitive or problematic skins have lost diversity and balance in their skin microbiomes, often through the use of harmful skincare products. When harmful microbes dominate its ecosystem, skin’s health suffers.

  • Beneficial microbes like Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Corynebacterium kroppenstedtii, & Lactobacillus plantarum.
  • Pathogens like Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, Candida albicans.

A healthy microbiome means resilient skin

Your microbiome is a diverse ecosystem of billions of microbes that protect skin from pathogens. Similar to your gut, these bacteria, fungi, and viruses have essential roles in protecting you and educating your immune system. They also help skin produce Hyaluronic Acid and other moisturising factors, while maintaining the skin’s pH and helping produce calm, healthy skin that not only looks better but ages slower.

The big issue

Our modern lifestyles don’t do our microbial partners any favours. Indoor lifestyles and limited contact with nature result in reduced microbial diversity. Using skincare products with harsh preservatives and surfactants also affect our microbiomes. The result is a relentless increase in skin sensitivity, acne, and other skin problems.

Biotechnology that shifts and rebalances

Esse offers a sustainable solution with scientifically-proven, organic biotechnology. Our professional-grade products create an environment on skin that allows natural microbial diversity to return and thrive. Probiotics and prebiotics in organic formulations help restore the balance, resulting in healthier and younger-looking skin.

The restless pursuit of better

In 2007, the Human Microbiome Project provided new insights into the incredible and diverse ecosystem of microbes that inhabits our bodies and skin. It also provided answers as to why sensitivity and other skin problems were on the rise. We pursue innovation, not as an end in itself, but to provide better and more sustainable solutions for healthy skin – like the world’s first probiotic serum, with more than 1 billion living probiotic cells per ml.

Probiotics & prebiotics

Probiotics are live microbes that can shift the skin’s ecology to favour a diverse ecosystem healthy enough to resist attacks from pathogens. They also slow the skin’s rate of ageing by reducing inflammation. Esse seeds the skin with probiotics and feeds it with prebiotic nutrients, ensuring a microbial intervention that balances skin’s ecology.

Find out more about probiotics & prebiotics

Manage your skin concerns

Find out more about your skin concerns and how to manage them below.

Acne

Acne is a growing skin concern, affecting more people every year. While it is particularly common in teenagers, it can affect people of any age. The driving force behind acne is chronic inflammation in the skin, often caused by challenges in our modern lifestyles. This inflammation can cause the barrier inside follicles to break down, disrupting the follicle microbiome and leading to the formation of inflamed pustules.

Esse’s approach to acne

While it’s possible to reduce acne appearance by treating the symptoms, Esse seeks to address the underlying causes of the condition to truly resolve it. To achieve this, we have developed the Esse Clarifying range, using cutting-edge microbiome science to bring proven, sustainable results.

The Esse Clarifying range contains a powerhouse of active ingredients, targeting all the hallmarks of acne in a way that builds the health of skin and its microbiome for the long term.

  • Live Probiotics to calm the immune system and repair the follicle barrier
  • Bakuchiol to reduce inflammation and normalise oil production
  • Provitamin D to increase Vitamin D levels and calm the immune system
  • Pre- and Postbiotics to rebalance the follicle microbiome
  • Salicylic Acid to clear follicle blockages and control yeast populations
  • Niacinamide to boost barrier function and target inflammation

While acne is associated with increased oil production in skin, Esse recognises oil production as part of healthy skin function, helping skin produce healthy oil in healthy quantities rather than stripping skin oils and suppressing their production.

Dryness

There are two types of skin dryness – lipid dry (lacking oils) and dehydrated (lacking water). The two are often linked, present at varying levels in each dry skin. Lipid dry skin tends to look dull and may be rough and flaky, sometimes feeling taut after washing. Dehydrated skin is tight, shows fine lines, and often reacts easily to climate extremes. Both types of skin dryness are associated with premature ageing signs.

When optimally healthy, skin acts as a barrier, preventing the loss of too much water. The production of healthy skin oils is an important part of this barrier function. However, some elements of our modern lifestyles can disrupt skin’s barrier and affect its oil production, causing skin to lose more water than it should.

Esse’s approach to dryness

All Esse products are formulated to respect skin’s barrier, building its strength and helping skin maintain proper hydration. Our moisturisers and hydrating serums boost hydration according to the needs of each individual’s skin.

Esse also prioritises skin’s healthy oils, working to help skin produce healthy oils in healthy quantities. We avoid harsh foaming ingredients in our cleansers, as these strip skin of its oils and can disrupt barrier function. We mimic healthy human sebum with the oils we choose for our products – the Protect Oil and the Repair Oil both showcase this principle.

The skin microbiome plays a crucial role in maintaining skin’s barrier function and in delivering hydration to skin. By optimising the health of this ecosystem, our products work towards a skin that protects itself and maintains its own hydration. We use high quality hydrating ingredients and have optimised our Live Probiotic strains to produce moisturising factors like Hyaluronic Acid when applied to skin.

Eye area

The skin around the eye area is thinner and more delicate than other facial skin, making it more susceptible to puffiness and broken capillaries. Some common concerns include dark under-eye circles and early fine line development.
Because of its structural differences, this skin can benefit from a tailored set of actives and formulation style.

Esse’s approach to the eye area

Esse has formulated targeted products to address the unique qualities of the skin in the eye area, selecting actives that work to resolve its most common issues while avoiding irritation.

The Sensitive Eye Cream from the Esse Sensitive range, Eye and Lip Cream from the Esse Core range, and Eye Contour Cream from the Esse Plus range are all effective options, catering for different needs and budgets.

Albizia Julibrissin Extract, present in the Sensitive Eye Cream and the Eye Contour Cream, consolidates the capillaries under the eye to reduce puffiness and dark circles, building collagen and elastin structures to address signs of ageing.

The Eye Contour Cream also offers Bellis Perennis Extract to address pigmentation under the eye, targeting dark circles even more effectively.

In all three eye creams, Probiotic extracts and Prebiotics work to reduce inflammation, strengthen barrier function, and balance the microbiome for more resilient skin, while Hyaluronic Acid calms and hydrates.

Devil’s Claw Extract and Kigelia Africana Extract are other useful ingredients, reducing inflammation and firming skin for a youthful appearance.

Oiliness

The production of oil is a natural skin function, to be optimised rather than opposed. Skin oils are an important nutrient source for the microbiome, cultivating a healthy ecosystem for optimal skin health.

Skin that produces sufficient oil resists the signs of ageing for longer and maintains hydration more easily, but excessive oil production leads to a shiny skin appearance that many prefer to avoid. Genuinely oily skin tends to show slight thickening with open pores. Make-up does not hold well, and blackheads, blemishes, and congestion are common.

Esse’s approach to oiliness

While many respond to oily skin by stripping away the oil with foamy cleansers, this approach can signal skin to increase oil production and is likely to affect the quality of skin oils.

Esse cleansers are formulated to cleanse gently but effectively, avoiding the stripping of skin oils to keep natural production regulated.

Esse carefully selects its oils to mimic those present in healthy human sebum. These oils integrate with skin function, helping to regulate its own production.

Our moisturisers offer a range of nourishment to suit varying levels of oiliness, with lighter formulations available for oily skin types.

Pigmentation

There are cells in our skin, called melanocytes, which produce dark pigment (melanin) and deposit it into the cells that travel to skin’s surface. This is an important process, necessary for the tanning that protects skin from sun damage.

However, when in a state of stress, melanocytes can deposit pigment in an uncontrolled manner, leading to irregular pigmentation and an uneven skin tone. This could be in the form of dark spots (hyperpigmentation) or light spots (hypopigmentation).

While many choose to avoid sun exposure due to the belief that it causes pigmentation, Esse advocates for short, safe sessions in the sun, as healthy vitamin D levels are crucial in avoiding this concern.

Esse’s approach to pigmentation

Pigmentation can be a challenging concern to resolve, because once melanin is deposited into skin cells, it is very difficult to remove. To address this concern, a good long-term approach is to reduce the triggers that cause melanocytes to lose control. This means calming skin’s immune system to reduce inflammation, while strengthening skin’s barrier to stop the penetration of potential triggers.

All Esse’s products are formulated to achieve these goals, as they benefit skin health in many ways.

For those looking to actively address pigmentation, the Ageless Serum offers a powerful trio of skin brightening ingredients, which slow the production of melanin and even out skin tone. The Bakuchiol Serum is another effective option, as Bakuchiol has been shown to improve both pigment intensity and the size of pigmented spots.

Sensitivity

Over 70% of adults experience skin sensitivity to some degree. This indicates a problem with the effects of modern life on skin health, as well as a failure of the products people use to properly care for the health of their skin.

Sensitivity is caused by weakened barrier function allowing unwanted substances and microbes to penetrate, provoking an inflammatory response from an aggravated and hyper-sensitive immune system. This inflammatory response is what causes the redness, puffiness, and discomfort that appear when sensitive skin flares up.

Esse’s approach to sensitivity

To address this prolific skin concern, Esse has developed the Esse Sensitive range.
With ingredients carefully chosen to minimise the chances of reactions, a simple but attractive fragrance system, and advanced biotech ingredients, this range works to resolve the underlying problems that drive sensitivity.

Probiotics and their extracts communicate with the immune system to calm its reactions while building resilience in skin’s barrier.

Prebiotics feed a healthy microbiome, which regulates immune reactions.

Other powerful ingredients provide calming hydration and offer impressive anti-ageing results despite the elegant simplicity of the formulations.

This range is the perfect starting point for newcomers to Esse, but many choose to stay with its products for their feel and efficacy.

Skin ageing

Though ageing is inevitable, the onset and nature of ageing signs are greatly affected by our lifestyles.

The processes that lead to ageing are accelerated when skin is in a state of chronic inflammation – a common problem in those facing the challenges of modern life. When the skin microbiome is out of balance, the immune system lacks the healthy signals it should receive from a healthy ecosystem, leading to an elevated level of inflammation. Probiotic microbes work to calm immune activity, reducing inflammation, while also increasing collagen production to improve skin firmness and reduce wrinkle depth.

Esse’s approach to skin ageing

All Esse products work to slow the ageing process, bringing results that stem from an improvement in microbiome balance and underlying skin health.

Our premium anti-ageing range, the Esse Plus range, brings industry-leading biotechnology and cutting-edge active ingredients to deliver maximal firming, wrinkle-reduction, and brightening results.

Healthy skin ages at a slower rate. We refuse to compromise long-term skin health for short-term results. Instead, we work to build true skin health, bringing anti-ageing results that last a lifetime.

Redefining skin health

The Human Microbiome Project, which began in 2007, revealed the extraordinary complexity of the microbes that live throughout our bodies, including our skin. These findings are reshaping our product design and our understanding of skin health in profound ways.

A bottle of Esse probiotic serum with a metallic cap is placed in front of a green petri dish containing a floral-like pattern. The petri dish appears to be a decorative background element.Microbial diversity and skin health

The skin hosts a vast array of bacteria, fungi, and viruses that contribute to its overall health. This discovery helped us develop products that support microbial diversity, paving the way for prebiotic and probiotic skincare that nourishes beneficial microbes.

Balancing the microbiome to address skin conditions

Microbiome imbalance, known as dysbiosis, is often associated with conditions like acne, eczema, and psoriasis. By restoring microbial balance, skincare can naturally help manage these issues without relying on aggressive treatments.

The skin microbiome as a protective barrier

The microbiome contributes to immune function and protects against harmful microbes and environmental damage. We build products that support this microbial shield, leading to more protected, resilient skin.

Skin’s ideal pH level for microbial health

Beneficial skin microbes thrive at an acidic pH of around 5, helping keep the skin balanced and protected. Our products maintain this natural acidity, preserving beneficial microbes and encouraging healthier skin through mild, pH-aligned formulas.

Anti-Inflammatory microbes for skin health

Some microbes produce anti-inflammatory compounds that reduce skin redness and irritation. A well-balanced microbiome can calm inflammation, guiding our development of skincare that works with microbes to help support sensitive skin.

Ethics before profit

We maintain the pH of all our products at 5, using mild preservatives and rapidly biodegradable foaming agents. Staying true to our core principles, we are fair-trade certified, certified organic, vegan, cruelty-free, and both carbon- and plastic-neutral.

Certified organic

Since inception, Esse has subscribed to EcoCert’s organic standards and percentages. We’ve omitted ingredients deemed unsafe or unsustainable, and this is verified through production facility audits to ensure full traceability of all raw materials. EcoCert regulates our packaging, ensuring that the materials used are safe, recyclable, and don’t leach into the product over time.

Find out more at EcoCert

Carbon-neutral

Esse is on a mission to reduce carbon emissions year-on-year. We audit our energy consumption annually to maximise efficiency and continually improve. But because we believe we can still do better; carbon credits are purchased to offset the company’s carbon emissions.

Find out more at Credible Carbon

Plastic-neutral

Esse has stepped up to help protect the ocean by being plastic neutral. We’ve partnered with Cleanhub to ensure that the plastic equivalent of our usage is collected and recycled. Cleanhub collects plastic waste in the world’s most highly polluted locations, through a global network of local Collection Hubs, before it enters the ocean.

Cruelty-free

Esse does not test products on animals. We will not source ingredients from suppliers who do. There are many alternatives to the use of animals in research, and our products are tested on human volunteers. We are accredited members of PETA’s cruelty-free company programme and Beauty Without Cruelty, who educate the public about the exploitation and abuse of animals.

Find out more at PETA

Vegan

Esse is accredited by The Vegan Society – the worldwide standard for products free from animal ingredients and animal testing. We will always endeavour to use animal-free ingredients in our formulations and will never support the unethical practice of animal testing on our products or their ingredients. We will only consider using animal ingredients when no plant-based alternatives exist, and when we do, we only use by-products that cause no harm to the animal in processing. And we will always be transparent and open about where they are used and why. Esse is uncompromising about the integrity of our suppliers and products, putting the health of people and planet first.

Find out more at The Vegan Society

Let’s remake the skincare system

Our mission is to make sustainably healthy skin and effective skincare commonplace. Find out more about what drives us and why.