← The Beauty Brains
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- [00:00]
A
Hi, I'm Perry, and you're listening to the Beauty Brains. Hello and welcome to the Beauty Brains, a show where real cosmetic chemists answer your beauty product questions and give you an insider's look at the cosmetic industry. This is episode 420. I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and with me today is Valerie George. Hello, Valerie.
- [00:29]
B
Hi, Perry.
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A
Valerie, it's been a little while. I'm glad to be back. And on today's show, we've got a ton of questions. So let's see what we're covering today on the show. Today we're going to cover what is nonanol odor and how do you minimize it? Does panthenol make a shampoo better? What's an alternative to matrix? Step one, bleach amplifier. How expensive is it to test a product? How do you become a cosmetic chemist? And, Valerie, we've been off a little while, and that's mainly because, I guess I was traveling. And you too, I suppose.
- [01:02]
B
Well, I would say the primary offender in this instance. And if you're a Beauty Brains listener and you're upset, please be upset with Perry, because, yes, I was traveling a tiny bit, but I'm talking a couple days here and there. But it turns out the one or two days I was traveling is the only time that Perry was not traveling.
- [01:21]
A
Yeah, well, you know, I was on Sublime. I was in India for. So that was. That made things a little challenging because I guess we were like 13 hours different.
- [01:31]
B
We were 14 and a half hours different.
- [01:35]
A
Right.
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B
Why the half hour?
- [01:37]
A
It's interesting. They do a half because they didn't want to do two time zones for the whole country. So they just. And it really should have two. So they split the difference in one and a half.
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B
Yeah. You know, that makes it hard for me.
- [01:50]
A
Yeah, for sure. But India was a fascinating place. It just. It's. It's almost. It's controlled chaos, really. Just especially driving. You know, in America, we. Everybody drives in the lanes and stuff, and there's lights and things, but I don't know what their rules were. But, you know, people just drive into each other, and somehow they never hit each other. They just all kind of know, wow.
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B
Yeah, that's pretty great.
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A
Lots of circles, and there's actually cows and dogs on the side on the street, so you had to watch out for them. And. But. But yeah, everybody seemed to make it work. So it's fascinating place.
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B
And what were you doing there?
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A
I was given a keynote speech at their annual SCC India SCC meeting, which. Which is Great, too. There was a lot of very interesting talks. You know, there's a lot going on there, and a lot of people are looking at developing new products, new ingredients, but overall, it was. It was a fabulous trip.
- [02:50]
B
Well, while you were in India, lots of stuff was going on here, so I went back to Kent State for a board meeting for their foundation board, which I really enjoy doing that. The president of the university, Todd Diacon, actually listens to the podcast, so that feels. Yeah, pretty good. And he always has really great books to recommend. So, of course, I loaded up the Amazon cart and upset Mr. Cosmetic Chemist when they started landing on our doorsteps. But, yeah, always good to go back home. I was.
- [03:23]
A
He can't be upset that you're improving your brain, right?
- [03:27]
B
Well, I mean, you know. Yeah, he just doesn't like stuff, I don't think. But I always give the books away on Instagram afterwards because I like to read a hard copy, and sometimes some of these books aren't available at the local library. So, anyway, so there was that, and I went to the college bookstore and. And the person checking me out was born after I graduated, so that felt pretty terrible.
- [03:50]
A
Well, you know that's gonna happen. Yep.
- [03:53]
B
Well, it is happening. Yeah, I know. But it was a really nice trip, and, you know, I'm looking forward to all those things that I. That I do there. And then I went back to LA for the show. Makeup in la. Have you ever been?
- [04:07]
A
I've not been to the show at all.
- [04:09]
B
Okay. It's all right. It's primarily a packaging show, but I hosted a panel of different hair care brands, and we talked about just challenges and ways that they approach innovation and that type of stuff. So that was really nice. And it's actually going to be turned into a society of cosmetic chemists webinar.
- [04:29]
A
Yeah, that'll be cool. Yeah.
- [04:31]
B
Yeah. And we can share that information with the audience. Well, in between all this, you went skiing. How was that?
- [04:37]
A
I did go skiing. And always good. Although as you get older, you're like, I don't know. I worry about going faster. Like, why crash and die? I don't know. But you know what? It's. I want to point out about skiing. I'm out there skiing. And now, you know what I have today? Like, because I'm. I'm a week back from. From skiing, I have a bunch of sun blisters and fever blisters on my lips because I forgot to put on sunscreen.
- [05:03]
B
Of course I was gonna ask about that. And I mean, not about your lips. But just about what sunscreen you wore.
- [05:09]
A
Yeah, no, I wore a lot of clothes, so it's not like a but on my face. You know, I did. I had the. The gator up over my bottom chin, but then my. The rest of my face was. Well, I had goggles on, so there's not much. There's really not that much skin exposing you when you're skiing.
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B
But you're regretting the skin that was exposed?
- [05:29]
A
Well, yeah. Yeah. My lips obviously hurt, so I. I should have used it. You know, I don't know why I forget. But honestly, sunscreen, while it is effective, it's kind of a pain to put on. Your hands get all greasy and it feels weird. Put your sunscreen on, people, Please do. Otherwise you're going to have sun blisters a week later.
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B
Oh, my gosh.
- [05:53]
A
Yeah, fortunately, I go away.
- [05:55]
B
Well, now we're entering the worst time of year, if I have to be honest. Daylight savings.
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A
Oh, yeah, that's right. I usually lose. Sometimes it'll happen on my birthday and then I lose an hour, but then I save that hour and I use like my birthday hour, like later in the year.
- [06:10]
B
But oh my gosh. Well, you know, I'm just a morning person. I'm not against light later in the day, but I just love waking up early, the sun being there, getting a fresh start. And I just feel like that gets taken away from me a little bit. Yeah, I know it'll even out later this year with the time zone, but I don't know, it just always hurts the first week.
- [06:37]
A
You know, it is interesting to me that the cats don't really know about daylight saving time. So this morning, the heat miser was in the house and he like, at 5:30 in the morning, he meows. So that woke me up. He was meowing at 5:30, which happened to actually be 6:30. So I was gonna get up then anyway. So there you go.
- [06:58]
B
Oh, my goodness.
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A
All right. Well, you know, Valerie, it's been a little time since we've done a show and, you know, we've gotten a bunch of new listeners. But it occurs to me, you know, in our intro, we say we're real cosmetic chemists, insiders look at the industry. But sometimes people wonder what really is our background in this industry. So I thought we could just do a short segment on ourselves and what our background is and why are we doing this? Anyway, so why don't you start, Valerie? How'd you get in this industry and what are some of your things that you specialize in?
- [07:32]
B
I actually think this is a great idea, Perry, because at the end of the day, like, yes, I am a cosmetic chemist. That's my field. But I actually did a lot of other work at a very large brand with a lot of resources. And so I'm not just someone who happens to know about products or has only worked on a bench. I started out in the industry working in skincare, and I didn't really like it. I actually accidentally got into the industry. I think I've talked about this before. I went to move to California to work in biotech. And when I was looking at job opportunities, I saw these cosmetic companies were hiring and I thought, wait a second, I could get paid to make lipstick for a living. I had no idea this was a career choice. So my background was in fundamental research. I went to graduate school. I ended up dropping out to move to California and take a different career path, opportunity. So science is in my bones, I guess. It's all I've ever done. And when I worked in the industry, one of the first things I was surprised, surprised about was, I don't want to say the lack of science, but when you are formulating on the bench, you know, you become an expert in the chemistry of how ingredients combine together. But I wouldn't say in that particular role there's a lot of science. So I was very fortunate to move into hair care.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And to learn hair color chemistry, you have to learn it from another person. So I apprenticed under a gentleman who was a organic synthesis chemistry chemist for dye. So he actually invented dye molecules and then was the CEO of a $4 billion hair brand in Germany for many, many years. So I trained under him. And during that time also I moved into technology development for the hair brand that I worked at. So a lot of it was ingredient evaluation. And we actually did a fundamental hair research. We partnered with third parties research institutes like tri, Princeton to be able to learn different things about ingredients and what they impart on hair. And that was primarily because we didn't have the instrumentation that we needed for everything in house. And so we designed the studies and farmed out that work. I also worked on various technology developments with hair and scalp imaging using different spectroscopy methodologies and how ingredients also impacted that.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And I also created an ingredient using DNA nucleotides to stick to hair. And then you could conjugate these other materials to the hair fiber. I know a lot about bonding just from all the work that we did over the few years to evaluate and assess different technologies. So I did a Lot of that. And then I moved into the upper echelons of Corporate America kind of against my will. I had been approached for the promotion and said, nah, I just want to stay in the lab. And then the CEO of the company said, nah, you know, you're going to do this. Fortunately, I got to stay in the lab and I got to still maintain control of the true research and development arm of our organization. And I had special pet projects that I oversaw along with other people on my team. So I would say in summation, just from that experience, I'm a hair care, hair color and scalp care expert and particularly am well versed in ingredient technology. Not just because I know what ingredients do, but I really know how they physiologically impart changes to the hair fiber itself. I left Corporate America and started my own RD facility where we, yes, we formulate products for brands. We also fix existing products on the market and we also provide a lot of consulting support to help them identify challenges within their organization. And then we also work with a lot of raw material companies to do applications development, particularly in reactive hair products.
- [11:35]
A
Yeah, and so when we say at the beginning, like the insiders, look, you actually are inside the industry, you worked in the industry and that's going to impact the perspective that we give now. Just my background is I got a degree in chemistry and I studied biochemistry on the master's level and I took that to the end where you are supposed to submit a thesis or something like that. Yeah, yeah. And you know what, it just, it just wasn't worth it to me to do that because it's very difficult to go to school and have a job, a full time job, you know, something had to break and it was that. So I finished all the classes. I just never finished the final thesis or whatever. And I'm sure if I went back to DePaul or whatever, that's where I got my degree, they would say, I mean, they'd probably make me go through it all over again.
- [12:31]
B
They probably would.
- [12:32]
A
Or give me an honorary degree or something. Anyway, the degrees doesn't matter that much for my part in the cosmetic industry, because my first job coming out was as a formulator and I worked primarily on hair care brands, Tresemme V, Nexus, St. Ives, but also on the skin care side too. Formulating skin care products, body washes and the like. For, you know, on the skincare side, it was primarily St. Ives, although the VO5 also dabbled in skincare too. So the thing about the company I was at, the formulators were really responsible for everything about the formula, from the QA of the ingredients, to putting the ingredients together, to pilot plant making the formulas to scale up, and then ultimately to monitoring the first batch made by the compounders that gets sold out to stores. We were also involved with supporting the claims that were made about the products and working with our marketing people on what the formulas were going to have in them and all that sort of stuff. So I developed the experience of launching products, actually testing products, actually making products. And that was really my focus. Additionally, I took that knowledge and such, I sort of packaged it up and I started writing. And so I wrote about cosmetic chemistry and that got turned into one of the industry standard books, beginning Cosmetic Chemistry, which then turned. I turned that into a course for the Society of Cosmetic Chemists. And, you know, that was sort of my teaching end of that. And I've taught, you know, thousands of students formulating and cosmetic science. So that's really my background. One of the things that I learned about this industry is that you don't really learn much about it when you go to college.
- [14:31]
B
No, not at all.
- [14:32]
A
Get a degree in chemistry. You learn about molecules and bonds and stuff and theoretical stuff, but you don't learn about the practical stuff of mixing together a conditioner or shampoo or lotion and how people are going to react to it. That's all stuff. You have to actually make products and launch products and go through consumer research to understand and learn about how people interact with products and what they think of products. And quite frankly, as a pure scientist, I find the industry a little bit disappointing because what we're doing isn't really. It's. It's science. Ish. But it's not really science because nobody's trying to discover what's true. Most of the research that you're going to read or see about cosmetic science was done for somebody to try to make their products more appealing, to get people to buy. So while it's, you know, has the veneer of science, often, oftentimes it's really just. It's more like the way lawyers try to prove something is true. They don't really try to prove what is true. They just try to prove what they want to say is true. And a lot of the science that you find coming out in our industry is motivated science, because what's true doesn't matter, but what. What people can sell is what ultimately matters.
- [15:56]
B
And at the end of the day, when research is being done by a brand, I can't tell you how many times I've been asked hey, we have this really cool research initiative we want to kick off in evaluating this technology, maybe enhancing the technology. I will get asked, what's the sellable product out of it?
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A
Right.
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B
How are we going to generate income from what you're doing? And a little bit of research is okay, but at the end of the day, the company was measured on its profit, profitability and sales success. And research doesn't always translate into that. So I can see how you. You feel that way. I mean, I think there are some people doing really great fundamental research. A lot of it we will never see because it's conducted in private scenarios.
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A
Sure.
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B
And I know the frustration of a lot of people wanting to learn about the industry or if there's a belief system that education should be free at the end of the day, like, these companies are the ones doing the research, and they're not going to publish things that they're doing in their private facilities that would give other competitors an advantage. So that's the unfortunate piece.
- [17:04]
A
I have to say, the industry has changed a lot since I even got into it. When I first got into the industry, even the people in my lab didn't want to share information with me because the industry was very secretive, because you're not supposed to share information between companies because you don't want to give another company the knowledge to develop the same product that you have Now. I think enough knowledge is out there that it's pretty easy for a good cosmetic chemist to come up with formulas that are very similar to what everyone else is doing. But, you know, big companies who spend big money on basic scientific research, they don't want to share that information just freely with everyone else for no money. So that's why I say it's not science, because you only get a trickle of the knowledge that comes out of the industry. And the stuff that is getting published is being published for a specific goal of getting. Giving people some reason to buy a product based on some technology or something. So you have to look at it skeptically.
- [18:09]
B
I agree with that.
- [18:11]
A
All right, well, that's our background, if you enjoy listening to us, you know, and also, I don't use a lot of products. So when people say, hey, what do you think of this product? I can only speak to a product from the point of view of what the ingredients are. Maybe if. Maybe if I have the product, I'll try it, and I have my own preferences. But you know what? As far as most. Most of cosmetics is about the aesthetics and how you like it and how it feels and you know, I'm very basic, so if you're very basic, you might like the things that I like, but probably not.
- [18:48]
B
And I'm the product trier, which is why I think we make a good pair.
- [18:52]
A
Right? It's good. I have a wife, too. She tries a lot of products, too, so there is that. All right, shall we move over to beauty news? Valerie? I stumbled on this article from the Wire Cutter, which I thought was interesting. Wirecutter is a segment in the New York Times, so it gets a lot of press. And they have a person who does beauty products. Sometimes they'll ask me questions, but they didn't ask me for this one. But I saw this article. Essentially, Wirecutter hired a cosmetic chemist to tell if the products that she bought online were real or they were dupes. And it was called counterfeit beauty products. So essentially what happened is she ordered 12 different products and then she got 12 controls from, like, verified sources and then she sent them. She tried them herself. She sent them to a cosmetic chemist and asked the cosmetic chemist to run tests on this to see if they could determine whether it was a fake or a dupe or counterfeit or not. And the chemist concluded that all 12 of these samples that she bought online were counterfeits. Which the article is suggesting that if you buy stuff online from Walmart or Amazon or ebay, it's probably fake. And I think. I think that is a stretch myself. But, you know, the broader question comes down to it. Can a consumer really tell if they buy a product online, is it fake? And should you not buy stuff online because it's fake? I think the conclusion from this article was, yeah, this is all fake and you should only go to reputable sources. I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. What do you think?
- [20:47]
B
I think it is as well. So I worked at a salon brand that only sold at the time in salon professional channels. They did not sell on their e commerce website until several years into my career working there. They finally kicked everyone else on Amazon who was selling their product and started selling Amazon products themselves. And we had a very large counterfeit and diversion department where we often got questions on the authenticity of our products. And so I am very well versed in how to analyze products for counter fitness. And I will have to say, if you are not working at the brand, it's very difficult to make this summation that these products would be fake. And I let me go into it a little bit. Why? The tests that primarily were used here were IR spectroscopy and 14 point sensory analysis. I actually wrote about IR spectroscopy in my April Dear Valerie article. So that's very interesting.
- [21:56]
A
This came up in Happy magazine.
- [21:58]
B
Yep, yep. So IR spectroscopy essentially is you take a sample of something and you put it on this machine and it puts out all sorts of infrared wavelengths.
- [22:10]
A
Essentially it runs a spectrum of infrared.
- [22:12]
B
Infrared, correct. And so it basically allows the person doing the test, it puts out an output to say, hey, these are the chemical functional groups that are present. It doesn't tell you their spatiality to each other necessary. So how are they connected to each other? It doesn't tell you how much there is per se, but it's a helpful way essentially to get like the fingerprint of a chemical.
- [22:37]
A
We always used it in quality control. So we had an ir. So what happens if say you buy cocamidopropyl betaine and all you get is this yellow looking straw colored liquid? Now that could just be, you know, honey or it could be something. So how are you going to chemically know what it is? Well, you take this thing to an iron and you put a little sample in the IR and then you shoot some infrared beams through it. And the infrared beams will be scattered based on the chemical composition of that. So just based on the different bonds, you're going to get these little wavy peaks and such. And if it matches the wavy peaks of a known sample of cocamidopropyl betaine, then you can say, hey, this is clearly cocamidylpropyl betaine. Now if they don't match, if they're way off, then you say, oh, this is probably not that, although that's not definitive because then that you have to do other steps like take the ph or the viscosity or some other thing that you've done. But that's essentially where IR fits in the cosmetic chemistry formulation realm.
- [23:41]
B
Right? It's to check two fingerprints against each other, one known and one potential. Now it's not the only test that should be done and it actually is a very poor instrument choice for mixtures. So finished cosmetic products. We never ran finished product on IR because we almost always got a really huge variance because of what was on the crystal at the time you made the measurement. Or sometimes raw materials have lot to lot variation or sometimes you would have to make a substitution. Fragrances have a lot of variation in them. And so we just never found IR as a reliable indicator cater for determining whether two products were the same. Even products we knew that we made putting them on there, it's a very poor choice. And so mixtures should actually never be done. We would always elect to run hplc, GC other different analytical tests to look for known compounds in the product. And you can actually quantify the amount of these known compounds. So that was a better indicator versus looking at similarity of chemical groups on a wavelength. And so for that reason I don't think the IR is a reliable test for counterfeiting in this situation. Also you would want to look at other chemical parameters. So ph, viscosity, you perhaps could run water content tests on the product to see how much water was present. But point being, you would want to do lots of other tests to determine if something was a dupe or a fake because there is lot to lot variation. You could make the same product twice in production and it might have a ph of 4.01 that one time you make it and then the second time you make it with different lot numbers of ingredients, you could have a ph of 4.98 and both could be acceptable. So you can't really use use just one test metric.
- [25:42]
A
I will mention that in the article they do the example of a l' Oreal vitamin C product, which one was a lot more yellow than the other. And they do ask l'. Oreal. I said, hey, what's the deal? And l' Oreal said, yeah, they're still the same in Europe. There's a different spec for the color than in the us. I guess that was their explanation. And in the article they kind of scoffed at that. But.
- [26:09]
B
But I mean it's true, right? Yeah. Or like you could have, you know, depending on what lot numbers were purchased, there could be some made at one manufacturer, some made at another. But the point being a consumer might not notice a difference between the two products, but it doesn't mean one of them is fake.
- [26:26]
A
Exactly. And that's not to say that there aren't fake stuff on the Internet. I'm guarantee there probably are, you know, but I don't think it's as widespread as it was indicated in this article.
- [26:39]
B
Now and just some general tips like if you are concerned about getting counterfeit product, basically buy from a reputable source as the article indicates. So you know, buy direct from their e commerce platform. If you're buying from Amazon, you can look at who the actual person is that's shipping it to you from, from the Amazon website. So maybe it's an Amazon fulfillment center, but it could be another person and I wouldn't do that. Make sure that you're working with an authorized distributor or retailer. So for example, if you're buying a salon professional product or an esthetician based product, get it from one of their spas or salons that they sell to that type of stuff. So you can do a little bit of verification. But for the most part I think that this is a smaller problem than 100% of products being purchased that are counterfeit.
- [27:38]
A
Well, one of the sources was walmart.com and I gotta figure Walmart is maybe I could be wrong, but I figure something a company as big as Walmart is not looking for counterfeit products.
- [27:51]
B
Well, I was surprised to see that because I'm sure there's a lot of crazy stuff on there. But if you, you are selling let's say a Rhode lip balm to Walmart, you have to supply a lot of information about the product.
- [28:05]
A
Right.
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B
And that would have to match with, presumably you would be Rhode or you, you know, you have to have a lot of information to be able to supply them. So I was surprised to hear that. Surely it does happen. But also, you know, don't buy beauty products from a place where you can't verify where they're getting it from. I guess.
- [28:22]
A
Yeah, yeah. Well, buyer beware. All right, are we ready to answer some questions?
- [28:28]
B
Let's head over there. Hi beauty brains. I'm horrified learning about the existence of known and all odor beginning around age 40. I learned of this by an ad for a remedy, Mirai clinical soap with perspin. So I'm skeptical, skeptical of the necessity of washing and the soap to counteract this old people smell. Please advise that the occurrence of nonenol odor in middle aged and later people is a real thing. And what can be done to minimize it? Thanks Martha.
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A
Well, nonenonal, that is classically called the old person's smell.
- [29:07]
B
I'm familiar with that.
- [29:09]
A
It's a compound called 2 nonenol which is an organic compound. It's an unsaturated aldehyde that forms. Forms when certain skin lipids will oxidize. Now people have suggested that old person smell. You know it's due to the fact that, that there is like a change in the monounsaturated fatty acid composition of skin just as you age. And the microbiome they eat it differently. And so that kind of makes old people smell I guess. So there. This is related to body odor and such. Some people describe it as kind of cucumber like or stale or musty. I'm getting old. I don't smell any non.
- [29:57]
B
I don't think you would smell it on yourself because you're Used to yourself.
- [30:01]
A
Yeah, that's probably true. They say the precursor to it is palmy oleic acid, which is a unsaturated. What is it? Oleic is C18. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When like food goes rancid, that gives a weird kind of smell. And that's because the unsaturated molecules, unsaturated fatty acid molecules, they get broken down and that kind of smells kind of funny. So that's what that's all about. So her question about the soap, persimmon soap. We looked at this. What's this? Mariah Clinical. Is that how you the soap? Yep.
- [30:36]
B
Marai clinical soap with persimin.
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A
So I'm looking at it and it essentially is soap. Right. So the first ingredient is soap material. What's this?
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B
So I think it's like some kind of soap nut, some natural plant extract.
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A
Oh, okay. So that's got, you know, water, sugar, glycerin, and then it has this persimmons tannin and then a bunch of other, you know, natural ingredients which I don't think are having much impact on there beyond odor. I don't think there's anything special about this formula or this product that would remove this odor better than say any
- [31:15]
B
other body wash. You know, if you had to ask the brand, which the only way we can do that is by perusing their website, is that they would say it's the table tannins in the pmen that are complexing with stinky, you know, body odor materials that you're producing and it's capturing that known it all. So it's really helping remove that old person smell from the body. Now, of course I'm a little bit, you know, skeptical of that as pain Terry would say, but essentially there is some research online about different materials that will help scavenge that compound. And I guess persimmon, you know, can have some deodorizing properties. And I'm wondering if they just took this from research on the Internet. But I would be interested to see any clinical data the brand has of its own to actually see sequester this odor compound over a control that doesn't have these tannins, which would essentially indicate that soap is good enough to wash it away.
- [32:33]
A
I gotta figure soap is just as good as anything that this thing could do. Like when, when they do a study like that. I haven't read this study, but when they do a study like that, they're just trying to isolate does this persimmons do this or not? And that might be interesting or something. But when you put it in a soap, the soap is already going to be removing. Nonenol to nonenol. Get removed by soap. It's an oily material. It'll get emulsified and rinsed away. There's no indication that this persimmon is going to have more of an effect than soap. The soap's already doing it. So I. Unless you're just spraying the persimmons on your skin, then maybe that'll. That'll help remove it some. But the soap is already removing it, so I don't see how extra that's doing.
- [33:25]
B
Well, There is a 1995 study from Japan, so that being said, Perry, you're not a believer, even though there's a couple studies from Japan showing that tannins, specifically green tea and persimmon and can remove body odor, particularly old people body odor. You're not.
- [33:46]
A
Yeah, look, if that is, if, if you find that convincing, it's. There's no harm in trying this product. I don't. I would go. I'm going to go out on a limb and say you're not going to get better results using something with persimmons in it than if you would just use a standard body wash. It's going to work the same. I think a surfactant removal of an ingredient will be just as good, especially in. Especially the persimmon is in a surfactant like a soap. So it's already, it's already doing that. So I don't think that adds anything. But it's not unheard of that maybe it does something extra. I'm just skeptical. It does. Our next question comes to us from a Patreon. It's Erica says, hi, Beauty Brains. I giggled a little bit in the last podcast when Perry was admitting that Pantene is a good shampoo. I think I've always said Pantene is a good shampoo, but he seemed like he wouldn't credit the Panthenol as what makes it a good shampoo. Is that why it's a good shampoo or not? All right, Valerie, I think while you and I don't agree on the effects of Panthenol, which is a new revelation
- [34:55]
B
in our relationship, and I'm very. Just still upset by it.
- [35:00]
A
All right. But I think you and I might still agree that Panthenol is not really what makes Pantene a good shampoo. Would we agree there?
- [35:13]
B
No. You don't think it plays a single role?
- [35:17]
A
No. Not when you're in the context of cationic polymers. And dimethicone smoothing out like anything that Panthenol would have done by itself. Maybe it does a little thing when it's tested by itself, but it's going to be overwhelmed by the surfactants in there, the silicones in there, the cationic polymers. Panthenol gets like, washed away.
- [35:38]
B
Well, you know, there is a little study that shows some penetration on hair, but I will agree with you there that it's probably the quats and the dimethicone that a consumer is more feeling, which is where their judgment evaluation is coming from. But I still think the Panthenols doing something.
- [35:58]
A
Well, I guess what I was saying we agree with is she's saying, is Panthenol why Pantene is a good shampoo or not?
- [36:07]
B
I think it's part of why.
- [36:09]
A
You see, I think if you remove the Panthenol from Pantene, you wouldn't notice a difference. I think the main reason people like Pantene is because of how it smells. That fragrance just scores through the roof with consumers and.
- [36:23]
B
Yeah, it does. I was even thinking fragrance, you know, earlier, I was like, it's pretty good, but I didn't want to tell you that. So anyway.
- [36:30]
A
Well, no, I've done consumer studies where we were trying to make up shampoo better than Pantene. And of course, we included Panthenol in there, by the way. But Pantene would always outscore us in consumer testing, and it was because people love the fragrance anyway. All right, let's get to her other question. My question for you is about Olaplex and their lawsuit against Matrix back in 2018 due to the new Matrix ultimate bonding products that I'm guessing was copyright infringement. You think that. Was that a patent infringement one?
- [37:03]
B
Well, not patent infringement, but basically Olaplex said l' Oreal basically stole information from them as a result of potential sale conversations and launched the these products.
- [37:17]
A
Gotcha. Okay, man. Matrix is made by l'.
- [37:19]
B
Oreal.
- [37:20]
A
Okay, back to the question. I used the Matrix step one bleach amplifier for many years, and it was great. When I heard about the lawsuit, I made sure to buy up as much as I could. I finally ran out about a year ago, and. And I've been using Olaplex step one bleach additive. It doesn't seem to work nearly as well as the Matrix product did. I have a lot of breakage. I understand that it's the bleaching that is causing the breakage. Like, I get that. But the Matrix product really seemed to work a lot better to prevent breakage and damage. Do you think the Matrix will ever try again when the Olaplex patent expires? Is there another product that is similar to Matrix Original Step one Bleach amplifier. I don't know enough about the active ingredients. Seems like it was the Malic acid. I'm not ready to stop bleaching my hair. I really like the way it looks. You can even Google the product and still find old blogs on the Matrix sites. Sometimes I feel like Olaplex or whatever company owns that brand sued Matrix because their product was too good and would have taken over the market, which was really not. Which was really hot for them at the time. But Matrix messed up with their marketing, calling it Bond protectors. And that's where Olaplex got them. Thanks for your amazing podcasts and knowledge. All right, Valerie, that was a lot to unpack here. But so l' Oreal Olaplex and this Matrix Step one bleach amplifier.
- [38:46]
B
Yeah, so as I mentioned, l' Oreal and Olaplex got into a really huge legal battle and the courts ended up siding with Olaplex, not because the technologies were the same, which, you know, I have some other commentary about, but because it was purported that l' Oreal took some insider information as a result of sales conversations, and then they decided not to proceed with any acquisition.
- [39:14]
A
Just to clarify on that. So l' Oreal was looking to buy Olaplex and during that process, Olaplex gave them some information. And then Olaplex said l' Oreal took that information and they made a product on it. So that's. It's just corporate legal stuff, super high level stuff.
- [39:33]
B
And what's interesting is that ingredient was maleic acid, which is a derivative of Olaplex's bismalamido compound, which I have a lot of other opinions about, but that's not the point of this question. And by the way, I did a lot of analytical work in my old life on this, so I'm not just speaking hypothetically here, but nonetheless, other companies do use maleic acid. For example, Wella is one salon professional company that also uses maleic acid as a bond building and strengthening type agent. And this is a really great acid for hair because it changes the way hair feels, the way it behaves in a situation where you're doing something like bleaching your hair. And so I can see why you miss it now that Matrix had to take that technology out and they're no longer allowed to use it in their products. It's a basically a completely different ingredient list right now. So what can you do? I know you're not liking the Olaplex product as much. I recommend trying other companies that use malaic acid as a technology. So Wella is one of them. They do have a bond building collection. I don't know if you'll be able to get a professional additive. It sounds like you're already getting the Olaplex professional additive. I don't know if you're a salon professional, but you can check out other companies that are using this technology. There's many more that are, but that's where I would start looking. It's really just maleic acid that's doing the legwork.
- [41:11]
A
Yeah. Although her experience of how it feels and such, how it's different that a lot of the ways that that feels is really dependent on the rest of the formula and the way the thing was put together.
- [41:23]
B
And they probably had to change some other stuff as well as. As part of this. And I know that they launched some other technologies in response to that discontinuation. So that's probably also part of it. So I wish you luck there.
- [41:36]
A
Yeah. As far as whether Matrix will do it when the Olaplex patent expires, I doubt it.
- [41:44]
B
No. People have moved on from that technology and a lot of people do use bond builders. But I think that initial technology interest probably is. Yeah. It's just different now. Right. You know, I don't think that they would go backwards.
- [42:02]
A
Right. Look at this. Valerie, we have an audio question. This comes to us from Zone. I want to know why Good Housekeeping would not have the equipment to measure the percentage of retinoids in over the counter products. And why do you unlike each other. End of question. Okay. I guess Zed is using AI voice there. Actually Zed did add some additional information to the question. So here's that. But I did appreciate the AI attempt. Sent Good Housekeeping a suggestion for an article on body retinoid lotions. Based on a hunch that the OTC retinoid products don't have enough retinoids to be clinically relevant. They then publish the listicle of OTC retinoid products. I find it odd that these chemists wouldn't flag the percentages as problematic or at least include some products that do make a percentage claim. How expensive is it to test a product for the amount of a given retinoid? Like Retinil microencapsulation? Couldn't you look at it through a microscope to figure out how much survived the packaging process. And do you really need a panel study to figure out how much would be delivered to the skin? Cerave makes products with micro encapsulated retinoids, but I guess all science branding is bs. Why do humans lie? Hope I made you giggle. All right. Why do humans lie?
- [43:33]
B
Yes.
- [43:33]
A
Well, mostly because it's effective for them. I don't, I don't know. But anyway, let's look at this question here. So Good housekeeping reviewed retinoid OTCs and I guess the question is why didn't their chemists flag percentages as problematic? I didn't see the listicle, so it's hard to comment there. But how expensive is it to test whether there's retinoids or retinals or how much is it a product?
- [44:06]
B
Well, the testing when you look at it at a one time piece, so analytical testing for different retinoid detection, usually through HPLC or maybe you would have a combination of methodologies is probably, you know, if you're outsourcing it, maybe 750 bucks to 1500 bucks, depending on the product and how good the method is that's set up at a facility. The challenge is it's really hard to test mixtures again and use them as a single point of reference. So you generally have to test, do a method validation. So you would create a product without the retinoid and then the product with the retinoid and you would create your method on the control and then test the sample against that control to be able to ascertain with a really great strong yes. This is really the level of retinoid. It's hard to just send a product out that doesn't have that method validation done and get something that is realistic. The other piece is, you know, with that percentage argument aside, there are lots of other ways that retinoids can get into skin through penetration enhancers, different formulating techniques, as well as encapsulation, specifically micro or nano encapsulation. There's a lot of great work out there to show that there is better skin penetration with those types of methodologies. And so you can't say, oh well, that only has 0.01% retinol in a product, but it's encapsulated and then also has penetration enhancers. You would really have to do some tissue studies to look at how much theoretically could get into skin, which would be very expensive.
- [46:02]
A
Yeah, just because a product says, oh, we have, let's just say 1% retinol it's in there, right? That doesn't mean that's what's going to get delivered. If it's encapsulated into really hard spheres, it just kind of never leaves a sphere and it never has the impact. So just because just knowing the percentage does not necessarily say how effective the product will be. I will also say that as far as Good Housekeeping doing their testing, they're usually not given the formulas. Like, if they contact companies that they're reviewing the. Maybe some companies would give them the formulas, but mostly nobody's gonna. Mostly people are gonna keep that secret. So they don't necessarily know the. And there isn't some magic probe that you can just stick in a lotion and say, oh, this is the percentage of retinol in there. That's just analytical chemistry is not that advanced.
- [47:00]
B
Now, it would be different if it was an over the counter type of retinoic acid, where that would be a drug product. And that has to be tested for a standardized amount of, you know, whatever the retinoid derivative is. But these cosmetic products, yeah, it's really hard to tell. And then it's all about the testing technique and setting that method up. Now, maybe this is something we could ask about Perry, when we go to Good Housekeeping in May.
- [47:31]
A
That's right.
- [47:31]
B
We're trying to set something up with them.
- [47:33]
A
That's right. We're gonna visit them then. But yeah, you know, you make a good point there. If it's an over the counter, it's gonna have the active. The drug actives on there and it'll have the exact percentages.
- [47:44]
B
So in terms of what a consumer can do, it's. It's really hard to say. The most important thing is that you use a product and you evaluate the impact on your skin and see if you like the end result. And I guess focus on that, Right?
- [47:58]
A
Exactly.
- [47:58]
B
Hi, my name is Varshi. I'm majoring in chemistry at a university. I worked as a medical lab tech in the hospital. It made me realize that I just don't see myself in the future there. But I know I still want to work in a lab and I want to be part of something that makes people happy. I then remembered a friend from my childhood who said they wanted to be a cosmetic chemist. Looking back, wearing makeup always made my friends happy. But not everyone was comfortable wearing it. I would love to research more to find ways for comfortable uses in makeup applications or create a foundation that stops acne as well. But that got me thinking. That is what I want to Do I want to be a cosmetic chemist? But I have no idea what the job market is like or what employees, employers are looking for. I was wondering if you have any advice for me on what should be my next step or if I need a master's degree, or should I just jump in and see where I can find a job? I'd like to hear your input. Thank you kindly, Varshi.
- [48:47]
A
Well, thanks for that question. And first, I will direct you to the Society of cosmetic chemists. SCConline.org there's actually a whole career tab, so there's some great information there. But to answer your question about a master's, you don't really need a master's degree to get a job in the cosmetic industry. It's not terribly helpful, although it's good on your cv, so you'll get probably more interviews. But as far as the job goes, you don't really need to do that. So if money is an issue or interest is an issue, hop right in and get a job as soon as you can once you get your undergrad degree.
- [49:28]
B
That's like we said earlier, you have to learn formulating, in my opinion, from another person. At the previous job where I was an executive at the company and I oversaw R and D and a handful of other departments, we had a director of R and D who actually worked in a home lab off site for many years. And three years before she retired, I said, you have to start coming in and transferring over your institutional knowledge, knowledge to other people on staff so that when you retire, you know, we're just not left in the dust with our own portfolio. Right. Because she had been formulating our portfolio for 30 years. And so she said she learned more about formulating in the three years up to her retirement than she did working by herself in her home lab for all those decades. Because you get something from being with other people who have different experiences at different facilities, with different raw materials, who just know different things. And, you know, I have a biochemistry degree. Like Perry, I went to graduate school and I knew a lot of stuff. I didn't know anything about formulating showing up.
- [50:37]
A
Right.
- [50:37]
B
I had to learn it on day, day one. And that was by doing grunt work. So I just think if you really want to do it, you just have to jump in because you could spend spend all this time in school for formulating and at the end of the day still not know how to formulate when you start work. Now, it would be different if you wanted to work at a big company like a l' Oreal like an Estee Lauder, where having an advanced degree for fundamental research is a requirement. But if you just want to be a bench chemist and formulate and make products, I would say jump in and head to scconline.org Like Perry said, to find a local chapter in your area, start networking or even head to Chemist Corner, which is Perry's website, to look at at least some beginner resources on just fundamental baseline knowledge. That would be really great to have for day one of work.
- [51:28]
A
Yeah, having that knowledge will be certainly helpful when you're going through interviews and trying to get jobs because you can speak knowledgeably about the industry. Because once you for people just coming right out of college, they really can't speak. Even if you have a chemistry degree, even a PhD in chemistry, you can't really speak knowledgeably about the cosmetic industry unless you focused on stuff like surfactants and emulsions and colloidal solutions and that sort of thing. And you, you aren't going to get that stuff in college except a very high level and it's hard to relate. So that would be my tip. Join up with the Society of Cosmetic Chemists. If you, if they have a meeting or something, go meet up with them. Because the number one thing about getting a job in any industry is knowing somebody already in that industry. So start developing your network now, because almost everybody I know got a job in our industry through somebody else, you know.
- [52:25]
B
Exactly. Well, I think Mr. Cosmetic Chemist is giving me dirty looks to hop off.
- [52:31]
A
Oh yeah. Well, we packed a lot in this one. Thanks everyone for listening.
- [52:36]
B
If you get a chance, head over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leave us a review that will help other people find the show and ensure we have a full docket of beauty questions to answer.
- [52:44]
A
And if you have a question, just record it on your smartphone and email it to thebeautybrainsmail.com or you can use the form in the show notes or call our number, 872-216-1856 and leave a voicemail. Hey, the Beauty Brains are also on Patreon. You might notice that we don't have any commercials in our show and that's because we are supported by our listeners. So if you want to support the show, head on over to patreon.com thebeautybrains and subscribe at any level.
- [53:14]
B
Don't forget to follow us on our various social media accounts. On Instagram, we're @BeautyBrains 2018 on XY at the Beauty Brains on Blue Sky Worth the Beauty Brains we have a Facebook page, a Tik Tok, and a YouTube.
- [53:26]
A
Yeah, we're. We are really out there.
- [53:28]
B
Well, thanks again for listening, everyone. And remember, be brainy about your beauty.
- [53:34]
A
Thanks, everyone. Kittens.