Microbiota-world: How to swim in a sea of definitions

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WEATHER FORECASTS FOR TODAY: CLOUDY
We have been living on our beloved Earth ecosystem since several hundred thousands of years, populating it and modifying it following our taste.
Have you ever imagined yourself not only as a small point in a huge planet, but also as a whole world for someone else? Well, what has become the main hot topic in the past years is that… we have billions of inhabitants not only inside but also outside our body! To them, we are the perfect ecosystem in which they can reach their harmony.
This population of microorganisms is our Microbiota and is only in the last few years that the one on our skin started to play a key role in the Personal care market, where there has been an exponential growth of cosmetic products claiming to balance or restore our microbial community.
The micro-world focus is related not only to new product launches: it has carried as well with itself a cloudy situation regarding definitions. The most common uncertainty is about the meaning of Microbiota and Microbiome. Could they be easily interchanged? Do they relate to the same concept?
Moreover, the cosmetic field showed a real interest requesting more innovative raw materials claiming “good for microbio-ta / -me”. In order to satisfy this need, raw materials manufacturer started to include in the market a whole new category of ingredients. We often find these substances on the packaging of the finished product claiming an added value to the formula, such as “prebiotics inside”, “with probiotics” or “postbiotic complex” and so on. The tricky question here is: is the end user aware of the differences among those? most importantly: are all the stakeholders and the companies involved in production aware? Is there a unique common definition? Just like we described in the Microbiota-Microbiome couple, there is some thin and not clear line here as well.
So… how can we learn to swim in this sea of definitions?