The story behind the science

Greetings, skin microbiome enthusiasts,

Today I want to share something a little different with you.

We all have a story. A while ago, I started putting mine together in the form of a book. I called it Against the Current. Then I never published it. It has been sitting there for about a year now.

Recently, I finally found the courage to start sharing it on Substack, one short chapter at a time. Thanks to AI, it has been easy to take small parts from the book and publish them without rewriting the whole thing.

Why this story belongs here

You know me as the scientist behind Fafabiotic. What you may not know is how I got here.

I did not set out to challenge an industry. I set out to understand a problem I could no longer ignore. What I found was not just a gap in science, but a gap in language, in responsibility, and in honesty.

This is not really a story about skincare. It is a story about what happens when a scientist refuses to accept distortion and decides to build something real instead.

Where it starts

Part one begins in a Sephora aisle.

I was holding a bottle labeled “probiotic skincare.” I turned it over, expecting to see what I knew from years of working in microbial formulation: strain identification, viability counts, storage conditions. None of it was there. Just the word “probiotic.”

That moment, and the quiet anger that came with it, is where this whole journey really started.

Part two goes back much further, to Tehran. I was born there two months after the revolution, and my father named me Farzaneh, which means “wise scientist.” It is about growing up with that name, learning to make myself smaller, and still dreaming of something bigger.

Come read along

You can read part one and part two on my Substack now here

And I would love to hear from you too. What’s your story?

Until next blog, cheers