We humans produce a greater amount of oils (sebum) than any of our closest relatives (e.g. chimpanzees. The sebum serves as nourishment for the majority of the microbes (bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc.) that live on our skin and requires a lot of our energy to manufacture... Despite this extremely energy-demanding process, our body produces about 14g of oil per day. This corresponds to about 132 calories per day, which in turn means about 7% of our daily energy consumption. It seems high unlikely that evolution has "forced" us humans to increase our daily dietary intake so that our bodies can produce a greater amount of sebum for no specific super important purpose?

 
Evolution is far from perfect but its solutions for life on our earth are and have been extremely efficient and elegant. It is clear that we produce sebum to maintain our skin's barrier function and at the same time provide nourishment to the microbes (bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc.) that live on and in our skin. In exchange for this sebum, we get protection from the skin's microbes.

 
For the past 100 years, advertising campaigns have tried to convince us that facial cleansers and warm water are the foundation of the daily skin care routine. We have become convinced to rinse off our skin's natural oils and wash away the microbes that live on the skin's surface. This in turn has forced our skin to increase its production of oils and the consequence has been an increasingly poor quality of our sebum.

If this were not bad enough, we have been advised to replace our sebum with other oils (often synthetic). The oils produced by your skin are extremely complex and unique. Trying to imitate these oils is like imitating breast milk… Almost impossible. It's time we keep this super effective oil on the skin's surface… as we have for the past 300,000 years.

Besides, we will save a lot of energy 🙂 !