AO Biome Mother Dirt Review

Mother Dirt is a new lineup of biome-friendly body care products that promise to restore your skin’s natural balance of good bacteria. Here’s our review of AO Biome Mother Dirt products.

What is Mother Dirt?

Mother Dirt is a lineup of body care products that promise to reduce your dependence on conventional products like soaps, deodorants, and moisturizers.

The product lineup uses biome-friendly ingredients that “rebalance the skin” and reduce your use of toxic chemicals and harsh ingredients.

There are currently three products in the Mother Dirt lineup, including:

— Mother Dirt AO+ Mist
— Mother Dirt Cleanser
— Mother Dirt Shampoo

The company’s slogan across all its products is “Rethink Clean”.

What is AO Biome?

AO Biome is an American cosmetic manufacturer that “is dedicated to advancing the science of AOB on human health”, according to the company’s homepage: AOBiome.com

What is AOB, you might ask? AOB stands for Ammonia Oxidizing Bacteria. When you use modern cleaning and body care products, it throws your human microbiome out of whack. Every time you clean your body with chemical-based soaps and deodorants, you’re reducing levels of potentially important AOBs.

To combat this trend, AO Biome has created a lineup of body care products that aim to restore your skin’s microbiome “and potentially impact a wide variety of human health conditions”. AO Biome claims their products could potentially reduce inflammation and reduce your risk of infection, for example.

The company is actively developing a number of therapeutic products that it is bringing to market, including topical creams for acne, rosacea, and eczema. AO Biome’s homepage features a therapeutic pipeline detailing the progress of all of these treatments.

The official name of the company is AOBiome, LLC. That company is based at the following address in Boston:

You can reach the company by phone at 1-617-401-3191 or by email at [email protected]. There’s also an online contact form at the company’s official website: AOBiome.com

AO Biome Mother Dirt Products

The company’s three products include a body care mist, a facial cleanser, and a shampoo. Only one of the products, AO+ Mist, contains AO Biome’s patented formula that contains live Ammonia Oxidizing Bacteria (AOB).

The remaining products don’t contain that formula. Instead, they’re designed to be replacement cleansers and shampoos (because using normal cleansers and shampoos would kill the AOB and destroy the progress you made by using AO+ Mist).

Ammonia Oxidizing Bacteria work by consuming irritants in our sweat and then converting those irritants into beneficial ingredients for the skin.

Here’s what you need to know about each product:

AO+ Mist

— $49 for a 3.4 fluid ounce bottle containing 550 sprays, or about 20 sprays per day (one month supply)

AO+ Mist is the cornerstone of the Mother Dirt line. The company claims you can spray the mist all across your body to reduce your overall dependence on traditional soaps, moisturizers, shampoos, and deodorants. Basically, it can be used all across your body to reduce the number of irritants on and around your skin.

Ingredients in AO+ Mist include: Water, live cultured ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB), disodium phosphate, and magnesium chloride.

Cleanser

— $15 for a 3.4 fluid ounce bottle

This face and body cleanser claims to be “the first and only cleanser formulated and tested to maintain the good bacteria of the skin”. The cleanser uses a formula derived from plants.

Unlike the other two products listed here, the cleanser does not contain live AOB. Instead, it supports the existing good bacteria on your skin, which thereby helps the AOB in AO+ Mist become more effective.

Ingredients include all of the following: Water, Cocamidopropyl Betaine (mild surfactant), Rosa Damascena Flower Water, Decyl Glucoside (mild surfactant), Plyrus Malus (Apple) Fruit Extract, Glycerin (moisture-binding), Hydrolyzed Quinoa (moisture-binding), Hydroxypropylcellulose (thickener), and Citric Acid (pH stabilizer)

Shampoo

— $15 for a 3.4 fluid ounce bottle

This shampoo, like the cleanser, does not contain AOB but works to complement the AOB in the AO+ Mist.

The shampoo is safe to use on color treated hair. When applied to your hair after applying AO+ Mist, it won’t harm the live bacteria.

It’s also a plant-based shampoo that uses ingredients like rose flower water and apple fruit extract.

Ingredients include: Water, Cocamidopropyl Betaine (mild surfactant), Rosa Damascena Flower Water, Decyl Glucoside (mild surfactant), Plyrus Malus (Apple) Fruit Extract, Glycerin (moisture-binding), Hydrolyzed Adansonia Digitata (Baobab) Seed Protein (softener), and Hydroxypropylcellulose (thickener)

How Do Ammonia Oxidizing Bacteria Work?

AOB, or Ammonia Oxidizing Bacteria, are the cornerstone of Mother Dirt’s product lineup.

AO Biome has an extensive science section on the Mother Dirt website where they explain how this AOB works.

Basically, the problem with our current skin’s health is that our modern cleaning products kill 99.9% of bacteria. In reality, there’s a difference between being hygienic and being sterile:

“Now, this is not a reason to stop washing your hands! But instead, this is about thinking about “clean”. What if restoring and maintaining beneficial bacteria is key to healthy skin? What if we change the way we treat our skin, and in doing so embrace it as the living ecosystem it is? This is what our research and mission are dedicated to.”

AOB work by targeting the irritant components in our sweat: the ammonia and urea. Then, the AOB convert those irritating components into byproducts that bring benefits to our skin: Nitrite and Nitric Oxide.

Nitrite benefits your skin by reducing levels of bad bacteria while Nitric Oxide works as an antioxidant to “calm and soothe the skin”.

Together, these two chemicals restore your skin’s natural balance and reduce your dependence on soaps, moisturizers, and deodorants.

Even if you feel like you don’t sweat a lot, AO Biome claims that you sweat all the time. By taking advantage of this sweat, you can enjoy powerful benefits across your skin and body.

The problem with AOB is that they’re very sensitive to modern cleaning products:

“AOB have elaborate membranes that make them very sensitive to chemicals found in modern soaps, detergents, and preservatives. A single use of a conventional soap will very likely wipe them right out.”

That’s why AO Biome recommends applying these chemicals after showing, after using conventional products, and after swimming in pools.

You can read more about the science behind AOM by visiting Mother Dirt’s official science section here: MotherDirt.com/aob

How to Buy Mother Dirt Products

Mother Dirt products are currently only available from the AOBiome.com online store, where you’ll find the three products available at the prices listed below:

— AO+ Mist: $49
— Cleanser: $15
— Shampoo: $15
— Mother Dirt Bundle (includes all three products): $69

All three products are designed to be one month supplies. In fact, the cleanser and shampoo will actually expire after a month. Fortunately, they’re small enough to take on an airplane – so you shouldn’t have trouble using up all of the product within a month.

Other products available for sale on the Mother Dirt online store include a Mother Dirt t-shirt for $15.

You can also order a Mother Dirt subscription for all of the above products, where you pay the same amount per month and receive an automatic delivery of each Mother Dirt product in your mailbox every month. It’s an autoship program, although it doesn’t appear to reward you with any type of discount.

Free shipping is available on orders over $75. Anything below that and you’ll need to pay an $8.99 flat rate for shipping anywhere in America.