What Lives On Your Face While You Sleep?

Right now, Demodex mites are living in the pores of your face, and tonight they'll crawl out to mate. This science documentary puts your skin under the microscope: the parasites, bacteria, fungi and viruses that wake up while you sleep. Two species of mites live head-down in your hair follicles, and a DNA study found them on every adult it tested. Their genome shows why they only come out in the dark: they appear to borrow your melatonin. Under ultraviolet light, bacteria make your pores glow, and one skin bacterium may help guard against cancer. And in the Americas, kissing bugs bite sleeping faces. In this video, we trace the life on your face, from the first sighting of face mites in 1841 to their first full genome in 2022, through the skin microbiome in your pores, eyelash mites and rosacea, the fungi in your pillow, bed bugs, and what poor sleep does to skin health. Why do face mites only come out in the dark? Why can't washing reach most of what lives in your pores? And if someone sleeps beside you, what else are you sharing? Drop a comment: Did you know you've never slept alone? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SOURCES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ THE MITES ON YOUR FACE ▸ Smith, G., et al. (2022). "Human follicular mites: ectoparasites becoming symbionts." Molecular Biology and Evolution, 39(6): msac125. ▸ Thoemmes, M. S., et al. (2014). "Ubiquity and diversity of human-associated Demodex mites." PLoS ONE, 9(8): e106265. ▸ Sengbusch, H. G., & Hauswirth, J. W. (1986). "Prevalence of hair follicle mites, Demodex folliculorum and D. brevis (Acari: Demodicidae), in a selected human population in western New York, USA." Journal of Medical Entomology, 23(4): 384–388. ▸ Palopoli, M. F., et al. (2015). "Global divergence of the human follicle mite Demodex folliculorum: persistent associations between host ancestry and mite lineages." PNAS, 112(52): 15958–15963. ▸ Rufli, T., & Mumcuoglu, Y. (1981). "The hair follicle mites Demodex folliculorum and Demodex brevis: biology and medical importance. A review." Dermatologica, 162(1): 1–11. BACTERIA, FUNGI & VIRUSES ▸ McGinley, K. J., et al. (1980). "Facial follicular porphyrin fluorescence: correlation with age and density of Propionibacterium acnes." British Journal of Dermatology, 102(4): 437–441. ▸ Nakatsuji, T., et al. (2018). "A commensal strain of Staphylococcus epidermidis protects against skin neoplasia." Science Advances, 4(2): eaao4502. ▸ Findley, K., et al. (2013). "Topographic diversity of fungal and bacterial communities in human skin." Nature, 498(7454): 367–370. ▸ Schowalter, R. M., et al. (2010). "Merkel cell polyomavirus and two previously unknown polyomaviruses are chronically shed from human skin." Cell Host & Microbe, 7(6): 509–515. ▸ Acosta, E. M., et al. (2023). "Bacterial DNA on the skin surface overrepresents the viable skin microbiome." eLife, 12: RP87192. ▸ Gallo, R. L. (2017). "Human skin is the largest epithelial surface for interaction with microbes." Journal of Investigative Dermatology, 137(6): 1213–1214. WHEN THE BALANCE BREAKS ▸ Lacey, N., et al. (2007). "Mite-related bacterial antigens stimulate inflammatory cells in rosacea." British Journal of Dermatology, 157(3): 474–481. ▸ Jarmuda, S., et al. (2012). "Potential role of Demodex mites and bacteria in the induction of rosacea." Journal of Medical Microbiology, 61(11): 1504–1510. ▸ Post, C. F., & Juhlin, E. (1963). "Demodex folliculorum and blepharitis." Archives of Dermatology, 88: 298–302. ▸ Gaddie, I. B., et al. (2023). "Lotilaner ophthalmic solution 0.25% for Demodex blepharitis: randomized, vehicle-controlled, multicenter, phase 3 trial (Saturn-2)." Ophthalmology, 130(10): 1015–1023. THE PILLOW & THE NIGHT VISITORS ▸ Woodcock, A. A., et al. (2006). "Fungal contamination of bedding." Allergy, 61(1): 140–142. ▸ Virginia Department of Health. "Bed Bug Biology." Fact sheet. ▸ World Health Organization (2024). "Chagas disease." Facts in pictures. ▸ Beatty, N. L., et al. (2025). "Chagas disease, an endemic disease in the United States." Emerging Infectious Diseases, 31(9): 1691–1697. SLEEP, SKIN & MODERN LIFE ▸ Axelsson, J., et al. (2010). "Beauty sleep: experimental study on the perceived health and attractiveness of sleep deprived people." BMJ, 341: c6614. ▸ Sundelin, T., et al. (2013). "Cues of fatigue: effects of sleep deprivation on facial appearance." Sleep, 36(9): 1355–1360. ▸ Clemente, J. C., et al. (2015). "The microbiome of uncontacted Amerindians." Science Advances, 1(3): e1500183. ▸ Sneed, A. (2014). "Do people really swallow 8 spiders a year while they sleep?" Scientific American. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ For business inquiries: [email protected] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #FaceMites #Demodex #SkinMicrobiome #Parasites #SkinHealth #Microscope #Biology #ScienceDocumentary #Sleep #BedBugs