Inside-out beauty ‘storm’: Skin microbiome firm Gallinée sees huge uptick in probiotic supplement

23-Feb-2021 - Last updated on 23-Feb-2021 at 11:26 GMT

Gallinée launched its Skin & Microbiome supplement in August 2020 and the item now accounts for 70-80% of its sales in France (Image: Gallinée)

French skin microbiome beauty firm Gallinée launched its first pro, pre and postbiotic supplement last year targeting sensitive skin, and the product is now its best-selling item in France, according to company founder.

Gallinée’s Skin & Microbiome supplement – an ultra-concentrated blend of four live probiotic strains, inulin, selenium enriched yeast and vitamin B2 – launched in August 2020 and had been designed to help fight signs and causes of skin sensitivity and inflammation. Sold online on the brand’s direct-to-consumer (D2C) website, the 30-day supplement jar was now Gallinée’s main source of sales in its home market France.

Beauty supplement ‘storm’ with strong interest for acne skin

“In France it was like a massive storm. It’s now 70-80% of my sales in France,” said Marie Drago, founder of Gallinée.

“I didn’t expect that because we were not making it easy for ourselves; we were pitching around the gut-skin axis, and no-one was really doing that before, and we had never done supplements,” Drago told NutraIngredients and CosmeticsDesign-Europe.

However, the company had worked hard to educate its consumers on the science behind the gut-skin axis, she said, via its ‘Microbiome Académie’ tab on the website. Gallinée also offered a “little cookbook to go with the supplements” to help consumers reach their 30g daily fibre intake because this dosage couldn’t fit into the capsules, she said.

Gallinée's Skin & Microbiome supplement contains an ultra-concentrated blend of pro, pre and postbiotics (Image: Gallinée)

Now Gallinée’s “best performing product” in France, the supplement had also started to spark interest in the UK, Drago said, and the overall repurchase rate compared to its skin care items had been impressive, with many consumers repurchasing on a monthly basis.

Asked what type of consumers had engaged most with the supplement offering, Drago said that despite it being designed and positioned for sensitive skin because of certain probiotic strains, there had been a clear uptake amongst consumers with acne.

“I think it makes sense because it’s very highly dosed in probiotics, so it reduces systemic inflammation in some way, but that’s not what I was expecting,” she said.

Developing supplements for other skin issues was, however, on Gallinée’s future agenda, including a targeting anti-ageing, she said.

Beyond inulin – supplement innovation will need ingestible prebiotic advances

While Gallinée remained highly specialised in skin microbiome topical skin care, Drago said it was supplements that probably held most promise in contributing to future growth of the skin microbiome category.

“It makes so much sense because the science is progressing enough so we can develop supplements that will help from the inside, with probiotics. The technology is progressing too,” she said.

However, there was currently a lack of options when wanting to work with ingestible prebiotics, she said.

“In topical, we’ve got access to a full range of prebiotics, but I was really surprised at the lack of anything ingestible; it’s inulin or inulin.”

“…Probiotic supplements are so easy – you can select our strains and study their good – but with prebiotics it’s really hard to find anything you take orally and any [with] beauty claims, and I’ve been looking a lot. People don’t seem to be in that segment yet.”

For skin microbiome-targeted supplements to advance, Drago said innovation in ingestible prebiotics that carried beauty claims would also have to advance.

“Honestly, I was surprised because people have been doing supplements for such a long time.”