Biomimicry: the chemistry word your skincare brand never explained

CHAPTER THREE  ·  THE RESILIENCE GUIDE

Biomimicry

On the importance of biomimetic lipids in hormonally-changed skin.

By Barbi  ·  6 min read  ·  Founder, PHILOGENI

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On the importance of biomimetic lipids in hormonally-changed skin.

In a clinical consultation about hormonally-changed skin, there is one concept I find myself explaining more often than any other — because once it is understood, almost every other question about what to put on your skin becomes simpler. The concept is biomimicry. The chemistry word that almost no skincare marketing has bothered to explain to you properly.

Biomimicry, as the word is used in cosmetic chemistry, means a substance whose molecular structure is so close to something the body makes on its own that the skin recognises it, accepts it, and incorporates it into its existing architecture. It is not a marketing term. It is a structural description. A biomimetic ingredient does not sit on the skin. It joins the skin.

This matters in hormonally-changed skin for a specific reason. As we saw in Chapter 1, the skin in perimenopause and menopause begins to produce less of the lipids it once made for itself. The lipid scaffolding thins. The barrier weakens. The substances most useful to it at this stage are not the ones that mimic its function on the surface — the moisturisers, the occlusives, the humectants — but the ones that step into its scaffolding directly and replace what it can no longer produce on the inside. Those substances are the biomimetic ones.

Squalane

The clearest example is the one most people have heard of without ever being told why it matters. Squalane is a saturated lipid extracted from olive oil — and it is structurally near-identical to squalene, the lipid your skin produces as part of its natural sebum. 1 The molecular difference is one chemical bond: squalene has a double bond that makes it less stable; squalane has had that bond hydrogenated for shelf life. The two are functionally interchangeable on the skin. The skin recognises squalane as squalene-like, takes it in, and integrates it into its own oil composition.

This is why squalane behaves on the skin the way it does: weightless absorption, no residue, complete compatibility with the skin's own sebum environment. It is not a moisturiser working from the outside. It is a sebum top-up, working from within the skin's existing lipid economy. For a skin that is producing less of its own squalene with every passing year of the hormonal transition, this is a meaningful difference.

Ceramides

The next clearest example is more recent in skincare formulation and more chemically subtle. Ceramides are a family of lipid molecules that hold the stratum corneum's barrier together — the mortar in the brick wall described in the previous chapter. 2 There are nine ceramide subclasses found in human skin, of which the most clinically relevant in skincare are Ceramide NP, Ceramide AP, and Ceramide EOP — labelled with these short codes because their full chemical names are unhelpful to non-chemists.

Biomimetic ceramides used in skincare are synthesised to match the molecular structures the skin makes on its own. When applied topically, the skin does not have to convert them, process them, or react to them as foreign. It incorporates them directly into the stratum corneum's lipid matrix, in roughly the same positions and proportions as the ceramides it has lost. The barrier is reinforced. The water-holding capacity increases. The substance recognised as self has done what only a substance recognised as self can do.

Hemisqualane

A newer biomimetic worth knowing by name is C13-15 alkane, more often called hemisqualane. It is a shorter-chain version of squalane, derived from sugarcane through plant fermentation rather than from olive. It carries the same biomimetic compatibility as squalane, with a lighter, drier finish on the skin — useful in formulations that need to deliver fat-soluble actives without a heavier feel.

The principle holds across these molecules: each one integrates into the lipid environment the skin already maintains. None of them is a synthetic moisturiser doing its work on the surface. Each is a lipid the skin has effectively no objection to.

The reverse principle — what is not biomimetic

The clearest way to understand biomimicry is to look at what is not. The cosmetic ingredients most often mistaken for biomimetic by consumers are the silicones — dimethicone, cyclomethicone, dimethiconol. Silicones look biomimetic. They are oily. They are silky. They sit on the skin smoothly and they fill in the small textural irregularities of the surface. They are entirely synthetic and not present in the body in any form. The skin does not recognise them, does not integrate them, and does not benefit structurally from them. They occupy the surface, and they wait to be washed off. Silicones are not bad substances — they have legitimate uses in primers, sunscreens, and colour cosmetics. But they are not building blocks. The skin does not put them to work.

The same caution applies to the synthetic fatty alcohols — cetyl alcohol, stearyl alcohol — that appear high on the ingredient lists of many anti-aging creams. They are emulsifiers and texture modifiers, useful in their place, but not biomimetic. They are doing rheology, not chemistry. A formulation that promises hydration and lists cetyl alcohol high in the ingredients but no biomimetic lipids until much further down is, structurally, a moisturiser that does very little for the underlying barrier.

What to look for on a label

A simple test, applicable to any product you encounter.

Among the top five ingredients, are any biomimetic? Squalane, hemisqualane, ceramides (NP, AP, EOP), cholesterol, phytosphingosine — these are the substances the skin recognises as its own. If the top five are water, butylene glycol, silicones, and a humectant, the product is a moisturiser working on the surface. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is doing one job: temporary hydration. It is not closing the Lipid Gap.

If you are choosing skincare for hormonally-changed skin, look for biomimetic lipids high in the ingredient list. Look for them at percentages high enough that they are doing structural work — which usually means they appear above any humectants and ahead of any silicones. The skin you have at this stage of life is no longer producing what it used to produce on its own. Replacing what it has stopped making, with substances it recognises as its own, is the most useful thing you can put on it.

Biomimicry is the chemistry word for substances the skin recognises as its own. At this stage of life, the substances the skin recognises are the ones that do the most for it.

Sources cited in this chapter

1. Huang ZR, Lin YK, Fang JY. Biological and pharmacological activities of squalene and related compounds: potential uses in cosmetic dermatology. Molecules. 2009;14(1):540-554.

2. Coderch L, López O, de la Maza A, Parra JL. Ceramides and skin function. American Journal of Clinical Dermatology. 2003;4(2):107-129.

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