Esse

Esse is a South African skincare brand founded in 2002 by the chemist Trevor Steyn, who started it on his farm in Richmond, KwaZulu-Natal [8]. It began as a small organic line and, from 2009 onwards, turned toward the skin microbiome, the community of bacteria and other microbes that live on the skin's surface. The company describes itself as a professional microbiome skincare brand, and its products are sold mainly through skincare professionals, spas and salons rather than general retail.

Esse is best known for live probiotic skincare: in 2015 it released what it calls the world's first live probiotic serum. Steyn died on 1 November 2025 [9]. The company has continued to operate since then, announcing an ingredient partnership in December 2025 and releasing a podcast of his final recorded conversations in May 2026.

Trevor Steyn trained as a chemist. A 2026 company release gives his qualification as an MSc in Chemistry [10], while press profiles have described him variously as an "organic chemist" (Wanted, 2019) and a "biochemist" (Glamour South Africa, 2022) [12]. According to a piece he wrote for Scandinavian MIND, he began his career in research, looking for new pharmaceuticals [13].

He has said he did not plan to enter the beauty business. In that same piece he described skincare as an industry that "had given up trying to deliver results" and focused instead on "empty promises and high-profit margins". In the podcast released after his death, he recalls reading a mainstream skincare ingredient list as a young chemist and concluding that skincare was "probably one of the most crooked industries I've ever seen" [10]. The company presents that moment as the reason he founded Esse.

The name comes from Latin, where esse means "to be". The first products, launched in 2002, were three moisturisers made without preservatives that had to be kept refrigerated. In 2005 the line grew to include a cleanser, a toner and moisturisers that no longer needed a fridge, giving customers a more complete routine.

The professional side of the business began in 2008, when Esse added a range for skin therapists after testing it at a local beauty school owned by Lynelle Harrison. A year later the company started its move into probiotic skincare.

The turning point came around 2010, when the first findings of the Human Microbiome Project, a large research effort to map the microbes living in and on the human body, were published. Steyn reformulated the whole range in response, adding prebiotics (food for beneficial microbes) and postbiotics (substances those microbes produce). The professional line was rebranded the same year, and the products began selling in Europe.

In 2015 Esse launched its first live probiotic product, a serum. Keeping living bacteria alive in a cosmetic was the main technical problem. Probiotics dislike both preservatives and oxygen, so, according to a 2019 profile in Wanted, Steyn's solution was to enclose the bacteria in an airless pack that keeps them alive for 18 months. The same article describes a regulatory hurdle: European rules allowed no more than 100 live microbes per millilitre in an imported cosmetic, and Steyn said it took six months to convince regulators, after which the company moved all its testing to Germany [8]. A Sensitive Range followed in the same year.

The company's own figures for the serum's microbe count differ from what Steyn told Wanted. Esse's history and science pages say the serum contains 1 billion, or "more than 1 billion", living probiotic cells per millilitre [3]. In the 2019 interview, Steyn was quoted as saying that "when we launched, we had 1-million live microbes per millilitre" [8]. The sources do not explain the difference; it may reflect a change between the launch formula and later versions.

Later milestones broadened both the product range and the brand's reach. A foundation in ten shades, made with prebiotic and probiotic ingredients, arrived in 2019, by which point the company says Esse was sold in 27 countries. The Esse Academy, its training arm for professionals, opened in 2020. In 2021 the Clarifying Range for acne was introduced, available only through professionals. In 2023 the company launched live probiotics designed to be used alongside aesthetic treatments, which it describes as a world first. In 2025 it introduced live probiotics in a water-based format with a two-part activation system, and stated that Esse was available in 42 countries.

In December 2025 Esse announced a partnership with the French biotechnology company Afyren to source bio-based propionic acid, a short-chain fatty acid that occurs naturally on the skin. Premium Beauty News reported that the ingredient had until then been available at industrial scale only from petrochemical sources, and that Esse would use a COSMOS-certified version made by fermentation at Afyren's biorefinery [9].

In its 2019 profile, Wanted described Trevor Steyn as the company's sole shareholder and CEO [8]. No information about ownership or leadership succession after his death in November 2025 has been made public. In May 2026 Amy Chu was named as the company's Chief Marketing Officer [10].

Esse treats the skin as an ecosystem rather than a surface to be cleaned and stripped. The company's argument is that modern living and what it calls "industrial skincare products" upset the balance of microbes on the skin, and it links this to the share of women who report having sensitive skin. Its products are designed, in the company's words, to "shift and rebalance" the microbiome. The tagline is "Skin as it should be", and the stated mission is "to make sustainably healthy skin and effective skincare commonplace".

Steyn often framed the approach in evolutionary terms. In the Wanted interview he argued that humans have "co-evolved with our microbes" and that conditions such as eczema and acne have become common as people have killed off the bacteria that protect the skin.

The brand positions itself firmly in the professional market. Its products are sold through a network of skincare spas and trained practitioners, and the company offers its own treatments and courses. Wanted's 2019 profile noted that Esse sold only through professional spas, and described an Esse concept store and spa in Ballito, on South Africa's Dolphin Coast.

The range covers cleansers, mists, moisturisers, treatments, exfoliators, masks, body care, foundations and sunscreens, grouped into lines such as Sensitive, Core, Plus, Clarifying and Aesthetics. The Live Probiotic Serum remains the product most closely tied to the brand's identity. The company says it has "an impact on skin firmness and elasticity" and that its products have proven their effectiveness in independent German trials.

Newer launches extend the live-probiotic idea. The Live Probiotic Mist is a water-based spray containing live Bacillus coagulans; Esse claims it gives "66% more hydration with just one application" when used as part of a routine. The brand has also moved into colour cosmetics with its foundation and a concealer made with wax-coated minerals, which the company says stop pigments from disturbing the skin's microbes. The Sensitive Cleanser was described in 2019 as one of the brand's top-selling products.

Alongside probiotics, Esse's formulas draw on bakuchiol, a plant-based ingredient often used as an alternative to retinol, as well as provitamin D, niacinamide and propionic acid. Wanted reported that the company works with community-based farmers who supply ingredients such as Cape chamomile, ximenia berry and neroli.

Ethics are central to how Esse presents itself, and the company lists "ethics before profit" among its core values. It says its products are certified organic, and that it has followed EcoCert's organic standards since its founding. Wanted described Esse as the first certified organic brand in South Africa. The company also states that it is accredited by The Vegan Society, is a member of PETA's cruelty-free programme and Beauty Without Cruelty, and does not buy ingredients from suppliers that test on animals.

On climate and waste, Esse describes itself as carbon-neutral, saying it runs annual energy audits and buys carbon credits to offset its emissions, and as plastic-neutral through a collection partner. It also states that it is fair-trade certified and that its packaging is regulated by EcoCert to ensure it is safe and recyclable.

Esse has appeared in international and South African beauty press. In a 2019 interview with the British magazine Stylist, the singer Dua Lipa said her night-time routine included "a probiotic serum and face cream by Esse" [14]. Glamour South Africa featured the Probiotic Serum in a 2022 round-up of local beauty brands, describing Esse as using "organic biotechnology" to rewild the skin's microbiome [12].

After Steyn's death, the South African trade title Aesthetic Medicine published a tribute calling him "a gifted chemist" and "a global pioneer in probiotic and microbiome science" [11]. He had spoken at the publication's Aesthetic Medicine Convention shortly before.

Esse is active. Following Steyn's death on 1 November 2025, the company announced the Afyren partnership in December 2025. On 8 May 2026, his birthday, it released Skin as it should be, a six-part podcast of his final recorded conversations with host Geoff Paton, covering topics from petrochemical ingredients to vitamin D and the future of probiotic skincare. A company statement issued with the podcast described Esse as distributed in more than 40 countries.