Ecobiology is an integrative approach to skin care that was created by Jean-Noël Thorel, president and founder of NAOS.
This vision of skincare was innovative and avant-garde when it was created in 1977, because at that time cosmetics were limited to basic hygiene and skincare offerings.
Today, both the company and the society in which it operates have changed and ecobiology is generally confused with ecology. As a result, the forward-thinking nature of the ecobiological approach to skincare is down-played. We sought to understand this singular vision of skincare from its emergence to its contemporary use, both by interviewing its inventor and by exploring its contemporary conflation with ecology.
Upon cross-reflection, we found that the systematic confusion between ecobiology and ecology does not lead to a significant misunderstanding of the term ecobiology. This is because they have a shared reference to the archetypal connection between humans and nature; an ideal that underpins ecobiological thinking.