Image: Unilever/Pond's Skin Institute The tech is considered “a huge breakthrough” for Pond’s Skin Institute and its parent company, Unilever.
Pond’s Skin Institute has partnered with health and beauty retailer Watsons in the Philippines to pilot a new skin Microbiome Analyser tool.
The Unilever brand has responded to the increased curiosity around microbiome-based skin care, as well as the growing use of tech for personalised skin care regimes.
At Watsons’ stores, the brand’s experts will take a skin swab from a customer, which will then be analysed alongside a range of data points, to give customers tailored skin care recommendations in just 60 minutes.
According to Unilever, the skin microbiome is “an intricate ecosystem unique to every individual” that plays an important role in maintaining skin health.”
“It dynamically responds to external factors such as weather, pollution, UV exposure, cosmetics, stress, sleep and exercise,” continued the beauty multinational, and also highlighted that the microbiome has been linked to skin concerns like dryness, sensitivity, acne and premature ageing.
R&D platform lead for the brand, Lucia Liu, said that although it’s invisible to the naked eye, “the microbiome holds specific information about how to enhance your skin and guide your personalised skin care routine,”
Liu added that the new tool leverages “Unilever’s unrivalled expertise in microbiome science,” and called it “a game-changer in making that data accessible, comprehensible and actionable.”
“It’s a huge breakthrough for Pond’s Skin Institute,” she stated.
Unilever is focused on “scientific drivers behind consumers’ unmet needs”
Unilever explained that its scientists have worked with cutting-edge technology and that the Microbiome Analyser brings this expertise directly to consumers in a response to the growing demand for science-led skin care.
The company said that according to Google Trends, searches for the term ‘skin barrier’ sky-rocketed by 500% between 2020 and 2024, as just one example of this.
“We know that highly personalised skincare, informed by science, is a fast-expanding area,” explained Jean-Philippe Courtois, prestige operations and strategy lead from Unilever’s UK R&D hub.
“With the Microbiome Analyser we have been able to apply the vast amounts of data that our experts have gathered about this fascinating area of skin care science, and the end result is a point-of-care analysis tool that will help consumers select the right products to achieve real results,” he adds.
Earlier this year, when CosmeticsDesign-Europe spoke to Sam Samaras, who is global senior VP of science and technology for beauty and wellbeing R&D at Unilever, she noted that the business was now “centred around the focus of purpose, science and desire.”
“We are very focused on understanding the scientific drivers behind consumers’ unmet needs, in the beauty and wellbeing space, because more and more today, consumers of all ages – including young consumers – are interested in science-based solutions that really drive the differences that they’re looking for in their beauty products,” she shared.
“So, whether this is looking at acne, how to achieve beautiful, smooth skin, or looking at sun protection, this is what we’re really focused on for the future.”