Wellness
Your Skin’s Favorite Wellness Tip? Get Dirty.
The Microbial Magic of the Outdoors
Your body isn’t just human—it’s home to trillions of microbes that work around the clock to protect, regulate, and restore your health. And those microbes? They need exposure to the natural world to stay diverse and resilient.
Studies show that people who spend time in nature—gardening, hiking, or even just lying in the grass—have more diverse and robust microbiomes. Kids who grow up with access to green space have lower rates of autoimmune disease and allergies. And exposure to soil-based microbes has been linked to better immune function, reduced inflammation, improved mood, and even increased serotonin production.
That’s right: dirt can literally make you happier.
This isn’t just a feel-good idea. Researchers have found that soil contains a microbe called Mycobacterium vaccae that interacts with our brains in ways similar to antidepressants—without the side effects. It stimulates the release of serotonin and helps regulate the immune system. No wonder gardening feels so grounding.
Gardening: The Ultimate Microbiome Therapy
When you garden, you’re not just growing food or flowers—you’re growing microbial resilience.
Digging in the dirt exposes your skin, lungs, and gut to beneficial microbes that urban and indoor environments often lack. Touching plants, breathing in the air around them, even just sitting among trees—these activities expose you to an invisible but vital world of biodiversity that your body knows how to use.
Some scientists call it “rewilding” the microbiome. We call it a damn good excuse to plant something.
But Don’t Wash It All Away…
Here’s the catch: after all that microbial exposure, most people go inside and scrub it all off with harsh soaps and synthetic cleansers. The kind that don’t just remove visible dirt, but strip your skin’s lipid barrier and decimate its microbial ecosystems in the process.
This is where most modern body washes undo all the good work nature just did.
At CRUDE, we do things differently. Our microbiome-friendly body wash—Wash—cleanses without disrupting. It’s oil-based, plant-powered, and designed to leave those beneficial skin microbes intact. Because when you’ve just come in from a garden full of life, the last thing your skin needs is something that sterilizes it.
TL;DR: Get Outside, Get Dirty, Then Be Gentle
The path to balanced skin and whole-body health doesn’t start at the sink—it starts in the soil. So go outside. Dig, plant, wander, breathe. Reconnect. And when you come back in, cleanse in a way that honors all that good microbial magic.
Your microbiome will thank you.
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