What we call traditional skincare has one thing in common – it is skincare that contains preservatives and other additives that are there to conjure up unwanted odor and color and create the right feeling when using the product.

The main reason preservatives have become a staple ingredient in today's skincare is because they increase the shelf life of the product. Preservatives prevent the growth, or mold, in the cream caused by bad bacteria that the creams come into contact with when they are exposed to things like water, air, or simply our hands.

Preservatives are therefore added to the skin care cream solely for the sake of the product and to reduce costs for the producers. A longer shelf life allows manufacturers to produce large volumes (because it is cheaper) and then store it in stock for a long time.

When shipped to retailers and stores, the products can be stored on shelves at room temperature and under bright light. This makes it easy for manufacturers and retailers to handle the products, but is it good for the skin? No, hardly.

Recently, scientists discovered that the skin is home to trillions of microorganisms – bacteria, viruses and fungi – all of which are there and working hard to maintain good skin health. This composition of microorganisms on the skin is called the skin microbiome, which is the skin's own good bacterial flora.

Scientists believe that an imbalanced skin microbiome may be the cause of various skin conditions such as acne, rosacea, and eczema. So what does this have to do with preservatives in skincare products? Well, preservatives kill the “bad” bacteria that can get into your skincare cream.

Unfortunately, they also affect your good skin bacteria when you apply a traditional skin care cream, which can upset the balance of your skin microbiome. In the long term, this can negatively affect your skin health as the preservative unfortunately cannot distinguish between bad and good bacteria and your skin microbiome can thus be unbalanced.

Many times, traditional skin care also contains active ingredients, such as Retinol or vitamin C. Our founder, Dr. Johanna Gillbro, has researched and developed new active ingredients and noted several years ago that many active ingredients are affected by air and heat to the extent that they degrade.

They lose potency, they become less effective, when exposed to it. This means that skin care products with active ingredients become less effective over time and if they are exposed to light, air or room temperature, such as when it is on the shelf in the skin care store under strong, warm lights, when you open and close the jar or store it in a warm bathroom cabinet.

So even if the product originally contained an active ingredient, there is a high risk that it has degraded and is no longer effective. Of course, you can try to stabilize the active substances with even more additives, but many of these stabilizers are neither good for your skin nor our environment.

The fact that traditional skincare both disrupts the skin's microbiome and also fails to deliver on its promises on the packaging was the reason why we at Skinome created an alternative to traditional skincare, namely fresh skincare. Fresh skincare is about putting the best of your skin first. Not about what's best for the factory or what's best for the shelf.

Our products have a shorter shelf life and we manufacture them in small volumes in Sweden. Immediately after the products are manufactured, they are stored in cold storage before being transported to your home. We are the first in the world to do this, something we are incredibly proud of. This new approach to skincare in terms of manufacturing, storage, warehousing, logistics and sales makes it possible to develop microbiome-friendly and effective skincare.

Our products do not contain any unnecessary additives such as perfumes or dyes and instead of using large amounts of preservatives, they are preserved through our thoroughly developed method with minimal anti-microbial ingredients.