Things to Know About the Mites That Live On Your Face

Acne 

You almost certainly have animals living on your face.

You can't see them, but they're there. They are microscopic mites, eight-legged creatures rather like spiders. Almost every human being has them. They spend their entire lives on our faces, where they eat, mate and finally die.

Before you start buying extra-strong face wash, you should know that these microscopic lodgers probably aren't a serious problem. They may well be almost entirely harmless. What's more, because they are so common they could help reveal our history in unparalleled detail.

There are two species of mite that live on your face: Demodex folliculorum and D. brevis.

They are arthropods, the group that includes jointed-legged animals such as insects and crabs; their closest relatives are spiders and ticks.

The two species live in slightly different places. D. folliculorum resides in pores and hair follicles, while D. brevis prefers to settle deeper, in your oily sebaceous glands. Demodex mites have eight short and stubby legs near their heads. Their bodies are elongated, almost worm-like. Under a microscope, they look as though they're swimming through oil, neither very far, nor very fast.

Compared with other parts of your body, your face has larger pores and more numerous sebaceous glands, which may explain why the mites tend to live there. But they have also been found elsewhere, including the genital area and on breasts.

In 2014, it became clear just how ubiquitous they are. Megan Thoemmes of North Carolina State University in Raleigh and her colleagues found, as had previous studies, that about 14% of people had visible mites. But they also found Demodex DNA on every single face they tested. That suggests we all have them, and probably in quite large numbers. 

The mite populations may well vary from person to person, so you might have many more than your neighbor or far fewer. You may also have more mites on one side of your face than the other. Yet it's not clear what the mites are getting from us. For starters, we're not sure what they eat.

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