Inulin
Cichorium intybus (chicory root) · INCI Inulin
Most skincare ingredients are chosen for what they do to the skin. Inulin is chosen mainly as food for the microbes already living on you. That shift, from acting on the skin to feeding what lives on it, is one of the ideas behind the range.
Its main job is to feed the microbes living on your skin, and in laboratory studies it favours the helpful ones.
What it is
Inulin is a plant fibre, a chain of fructose units, drawn from chicory root. You may know it from nutrition, where it is the fibre that feeds helpful gut bacteria. The same principle has been tested on skin microbes in the laboratory.
The mechanism is neat. Your skin's helpful residents, Staphylococcus epidermidis and others like it, carry the enzymes to break inulin down and use it as food. Several less welcome species largely do not. Adding inulin is less like intervening and more like laying on a meal that only some of the guests can eat. In laboratory studies, the helpful species grow on it and the less welcome ones largely do not. That has not yet been shown on human skin. It is what "support, not control" means in practice, and inulin is where the idea is most literal.
What it does in our formulas
Inulin is food for the skin's microbes, favouring helpful species in laboratory studies, and a mild humectant.
It feeds the microbes you want
Inulin is a chain of fructose units, a plant fibre. Your skin's helpful residents, Staphylococcus epidermidis among them, can break it down and use it. Several unwanted species largely cannot. Laboratory studies have shown this selective feeding, which would tilt the balance in the helpful species' favour if it holds on skin.
Emerging evidenceIt holds a little water
A secondary and more ordinary benefit. Inulin is a mild humectant, so it draws a little water into the skin's surface alongside its main job.
Well characterisedWhat the research does not show
Microbiome skincare is a field where the marketing has run some way ahead of the evidence, inulin included.
Marketed as Clinically proven to rebalance your skin microbiome
Marketed as A probiotic
On the label and in the range
Inulin appears in every one of our formulations, toward the end of the ingredient list, which is where you would expect a prebiotic used at a low level. On the label it reads Inulin. The exact percentage is published on each product page.
Is it suitable for me?
Inulin is a plant fibre with a long safety record, well tolerated on sensitive skin, and suitable for a vegan routine. It carries no restrictions under UK or EU cosmetic law.
As with anything new, if your skin reacts easily it is worth patch testing first.
The research behind this page
We review the published literature. We do not conduct the studies below.