I accidentally made an awesome DIY miracle essense. Advise?
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free skin care · Sat Nov 12, 2016 4:56 am

It's been a very long time since I've logged in. I will keep this brief so people will actually read it and comment on it, but feel free to ask questions and I will answer them later.

Anyhow....I fermented soy milk with dairy kefir. I separated out the whey in the hopes of making soy greek yogurt. (Don't ask)
I've been applying the whey to my skin for about a week now, because I had no other use for it and I ran out of my niacin toner.
My skin looks amazing.
Yes I am refrigerating the whey.

I have tried researching this but I'm coming up blank. I need your help. I managed to find one study of a fermented soy extract causing skin models to produce more ha, but I already apply lots of antioxidants and glucosamine and ha. So it's not that.

Any ideas? There are like a dozen species of microbes in kefir and it's looking like I'm going to have to look up every single one individually. #suckage

Sat Nov 12, 2016 9:18 am

Searching for "topical fermented soy milk" comes up with quite a few articles some of which contain references:

topical fermented soy milk

It's an interesting read!

free skin care · Sat Nov 12, 2016 11:28 am

I'll definitely type that phrase into google scholar and/or pubmed later. I can't believe I accidentally made something that's already been used for skincare purposes before....makes me want to go with my gut more often! LOL.

I don't understand why something like this isn't used for homemade skincare more often if it has so much research behind it? It seems like the only fermented ingredients that survived into the mainstream are lemon peel and various seaweeds. Supposedly rice and red ginseng are good for the skin when they are fermented but those are not for sale at DIY suppliers. Maybe stability issues, or just a lack of customer interest? I don't know. I just wanted to chat this out with someone but I know everyone is busy for the holidays at this point. Maybe later.

Sun Nov 13, 2016 8:43 am

I have been researching fermented ingredients lately to include them on my DIY. Fermented ingredients are a craze on Asia for their properties on skin.
I found a supllier that sells some fermented ingredients like gingsen but haven't checked yet quantities.
Years ago I tried a "toner" alcohol and preservative free for acneic skin. The brand its Yipsophilia. The toner was full of plant goodies. It worked really well but it was expensive. I bought all the herbs to make an infusion but it was not the same. Later I discovered that they fermented all of their herbs and that's why their products are so special.
Anyway there seems to be a lack of suppliers for fermented ingredients for DIY so maybe its a good idea to make them yourself. For example fermented rice water:

Sun Nov 13, 2016 8:49 am

The website: naturehelps me hair-care fermented-rice-water-remedies-great-hair

She has kefir recipes for hair and face too.

Fermented ingredients seems to be amazing.

free skin care · Mon Nov 14, 2016 8:03 am

I've used sour brown rice water on my hair since I was a teenager. (We call it "sour rice water" in my family, but it's just fermented rice water.) It's suppose to help with grays but I still have a few trying to form at my temples. Everyone is suddenly getting into it again and asking me about it. Did Dr. Oz or someone famous make it popular? I'm trying to figure out where the sudden interest came from. There are people who use it on their skin too so maybe I should try that.

But yes, fermented ingredients are something of a mystery to me. I know there's a lot of research behind some of them. I guess it's like ascorbic acid serums, where it's better to DIY? An active ferment seems like the sort of thing that would have severe stability issues in a commercial product that gets shipped long distances. But then there's the issue of unfriendly bacteria infecting the batch, too. Ug! Why can't anything ever be easy?! Lol.

I've flirted with the idea of making my own lemon peel ferment, but I have to use quite a bit of pink salt to keep out the bad bacteria. Maybe I could try inoculating it with some of the juice from a regular batch, that way there's only a small amount of salt and tons of good bacteria at the start? I don't know. There's just so much that could go wrong with all this. Makes me feel like a newbie all over again.

Btw, I started mixing a dry powder into my soy whey right before I put it on. It's niacinamide, glucosamine, and carnosine. It's working out great so far. I picked those three because they very easily dissolve in liquid without a solvent, and they were what I had in skincare storage.

Tue Nov 15, 2016 12:04 am

You gave me food to though. Regarding the positive effect of some ferments on face, that could be due the good bacteria on it. At the end of the day a whole chunk of us are bacteries. It like when you take the right pre and probiotic. The results on health can be amazing.

The brand cosmetics I have seen used bacteria or yeast to create their subproducts. Not salt as far as I remember.

If you find out more about this, please, let us know. I definetly have the gut feeling that fermented ingredients can be amazing for skin and hair.

Thu Nov 17, 2016 2:37 am

Ok, I found something more on why fermented ingredients can be good for your skin. This is from futurederm best-creme-de-la-mer-alternatives

Quote:

And there’s also yeast, in the form of Galactomyces ferment filtrate, which SK-II calls Pitera. In the past, I’ve been skeptical of SK-II and its marketing claims around Galactomyces ferment filtrate, which you can read here. However, there is research demonstrating that yeast is an excellent source of peptides, proteins, amino acids, carbohydrates and nucleic acids, as documented in the journal Household and Personal Products Industry — and while proteins are often too large to fit through the skin and carbs and nucleic acids don’t have much substantial backing, it’s the peptides and amino acids that make all of the difference.

Years ago, I never believed peptides or amino acids did much in skin care. After all, peptides are too large to fit through the skin, and I just looked at amino acids like components of proteins that probably didn’t do much other than hydrate.

But it turns out I was wrong. Topically-applied peptides have functions ranging from the temporary skin-freezing effects of argireline to the skin-firming effects of Matrixyl. Topically-applied amino acids have also been found to do all of the following and more....

free skin care · Thu Jan 12, 2017 7:18 am

If anybody was curious about this, I've stopped making this due to stability issues. The whey only lasts about a week in the fridge (after which it gets a weird sulfer-like smell) and it doesn't seem to have the same effect on my skin after it's been frozen.

It just isn't viable to make on a regular basis unless I want to make fresh soymilk every four days or so. I suppose I could keep experimenting with it (adding a large percentage of alcohol for long-term storage, etc.) but I have a feeling it just won't work.

This truly, TRULY sucks. I don't know what it was, but this made my skin look FANTASTIC. :'(

Mon Jan 16, 2017 5:47 pm

I didn't read all the replies, but kefir, especially fermented, is a probiotic which is good for the skin. Like Cleopatra used to bathe in raw milk and was said to have great skin. I occasionally use fermented kefir on my face. Probably not enough to notice a difference, but now I'm going to pay attention and try it!

free skin care · Tue May 30, 2017 7:23 am

Chlorophyll:
What type of soy milk did you use?
What type of kefir?

free skin care · Sat Jun 03, 2017 6:49 am

It was full fat lifeway kefir, and whatever brand of shelf-stable organic soy milk Target had when I went shopping. I think the box was blue? But lifeway has an exact list of all the species of bacteria and yeast that are in their kefir if you look on the website. It's quite varied!

But again, as I previously mentioned, I have stopped making this recipe due to stability/practicality issues. If there are any stay-at-home housewives out there who can make this recipe fresh every couple days, I would be MORE than happy to share my exact technique with you. You'd probably be able to improve upon it and we would both be the better for the knowledge! LOL. I was ONLY using the strained whey as the toner, NOT the entire opaque liquid kefir.

I have started working so many hours that I really don't even use the fermented rice water on my hair any longer. I don't have much free time in the spring/summer. Pardon me for not coming back to the forum sooner.

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