Loading summary
Transcript162 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hi, I'm Valerie and you're listening to the Beauty Brains. 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 cosmetics industry. This is episode 421. I'm your host, Valerie George, and with me today is Perry Romanowski. Hi, Perry.
- [00:28]
B
Hello, Valerie. Great to see you.
- [00:30]
A
Great to see you. We have a lot of stuff to cover on today's show, including. What's the scoop on rice protein for hair? Can one improve the texture of synthetic hair? Are azelaic acid and copper peptides compatible? Will Alpharet improves 60 year old hands? And what are alternatives to Crown Affairs? Air dry mousse? But first, that inane chit chat.
- [00:53]
B
Valerie, you know who's in my house right now?
- [00:56]
A
Who?
- [00:57]
B
The heat miser.
- [00:58]
A
Has he officially moved in all the way?
- [01:01]
B
No, no, because he doesn't like to stay in the house. Like he'll come in my house, get out of the weather, sleep a while, and then he'll go to the door and he wants out because he wants to hang out with his friends. I guess so. I don't know. He's in and out now.
- [01:13]
A
Well, he's got stuff going on, but that's really cute. Doug is in the lab today. He comes every day and then we bring him home at night, but he's just chilling out in a little sun puddle.
- [01:23]
B
You know, the cats do really love sun, don't they?
- [01:26]
A
I love sun. Have you ever taken a nap with half of your body laying in the sunshine? It's pretty incredible.
- [01:33]
B
It sounds like UV damage to me.
- [01:36]
A
Well, I'm talking, you know, through a window. So some of the UVA is filtered out, or uvb, I think is filtered out through a window. But you know, just to be in that little puddle of warmth is. It's really good. But I also like being in a hot car. It's one of the best feelings.
- [01:53]
B
Well, you know what I used to do? Me and my old partner Randy, we used to go to lunch together and we would get in the car and if I was driving, I wouldn't roll down any of the windows, like in the summer. And I'd just see how long we could go without rolling down a window or turning on the air conditioner.
- [02:10]
A
Did Randy know you did that eventually?
- [02:13]
B
And then he's like, are you gonna roll down the window?
- [02:18]
A
That's so funny. No, I love it. I just had a one day trip to LA for work. I used to do one day trips all the time, but yeah, Last night it took a toll on me.
- [02:30]
B
And what is it, a two hour flight or something for you?
- [02:33]
A
It's like two hours, 45 minutes. I took a 5:45am Flight, but I had to go extra early to the airport, which I don't usually do because I was returning to a different airport in the Dallas Fort Worth area. So I said, future Valerie would appreciate leaving the car at the arrival airport. And then I ubered to the departure airport. So I had to go extra early. I took a photo of a parking spot. Turns out it was totally blurry. So lesson learned. Always check the photo before you walk away from the car.
- [03:09]
B
Oh, no.
- [03:10]
A
Yeah. And you know, when I landed, it took me a little bit to find the car. My clicker doesn't make the car beep, it turns out. So there's also that lesson. And I was so tired I thought I could nap on the plane, which I can usually do, but the person in front of me had to have had severe and gastrointestinal distress the whole time we were flying. And so I was even like trying to cover my face. And it was just. It was a long three hours, I'll tell you that.
- [03:42]
B
Well, we're glad you made it back in time to record for today's show.
- [03:47]
A
Let's head over to Beauty News.
- [03:55]
B
Valerie. I saw this article in that science magazine, Cosmopolitan. Cosmo used to be a big print magazine, but I loved reading it in
- [04:08]
A
high school because I was like, I'm reading adult stuff. And now that I'm an adult, I was like, is this the type of content they published in the 90s? What was I doing?
- [04:19]
B
I would say it probably pretty much is. I remember when I was first in the beauty industry and my wife would love to read Cosmo. I think she might have had a subscription to it or something. That's when magazines were magazines. Are they even a print magazine anymore?
- [04:36]
A
I don't know who is print and who isn't, right?
- [04:39]
B
Yeah, it's a good question. Anyway, they do cover beauty products. And actually that's one of the things that these magazines used to do. We would go do desides in New York and interview with all the beauty editors. And that's how stories about products would get into magazines and such. And so that's interesting. I wonder where they're doing that now. I guess it's just online, right?
- [05:01]
A
Yeah, but you know, I used to love flipping through a magazine and smelling all the different perfumes blending together from like the sample sachets that were inside. I'll tell you A funny story. I worked at a place that did a bunch of shampoo sample packets for a magazine. But the sample sachet house didn't take into account the weight of the magazines when they were going to shipment in these huge boxes. And so the shampoo packets were exploding. And so basically they got returned. And we had on some downtime days, some people removing the sample sachets from the card so that they could be reused. And I think there were like a million sachets or something like that that had to be done.
- [05:47]
B
That's a lot, a lot of work.
- [05:49]
A
That's a mistake you make once.
- [05:52]
B
All right, well, this article is does rosemary oil help with hair growth? And I know I've seen this out other places. Like, I think the Reddit hair science had stuff about rosemary. And so it's one of those things that's out there. Right. And if you read through the article in there, they cite one study where this was rosemary oil versus minoxidil. This was published in 2015.
- [06:21]
A
Yeah, this is a commonly referenced study. Rosemary oil has been used for a very long time, actually in scalp health. And it's because rose rosemary is high in cardosic and rosmarinic acids, which are really potent antioxidants. And I feel like, although it's been used for a very long time by different groups around the world, I feel like very recently and also probably due to social media, there's been a big resurgence in interest in it for scalp health.
- [06:54]
B
Yeah. And also probably because there hasn't really been much development of anything new in hair loss products. And so you have to go back and look at stuff that's been around for a while and. Or it's just alternates to minoxidil, which is really topically the only thing thus far clinically proven as far as things go to have a big impact. So anyway, this article talks about that and the reference, this study from 2015. But, you know, I'm always wary of kind of miracle botanical claims, especially when they go toe to toe with pharmaceutical products. Right.
- [07:33]
A
Anytime you want to show that something improves hair growth health, you always compare it to minoxidil. It's like the gold standard for showing that something has efficacy that's not a drug active. So I can see why it's done. But I also am a little leery of some of the studies at times.
- [07:54]
B
Yeah, they. So in this one, they took
- [07:59]
A
people
- [07:59]
B
who had androgenic alopecia. I split them into two groups. One group had the rosemary oil lotion, and it's standardized for 1,8 cineole and the other one was a 2% minoxidil. They both applied the respective treatments twice daily for six months. And then by the six months, both groups showed statistically significant increase in hair counts compared to their starting point. So there is no real difference in efficacy between the oil and the drug. And you'd be like, oh, wow, this is better. And the rosemary group reported significantly less scalp itching than the minoxidil group. So there's that. But if you want to look at some of the gaps in the stiffers, they use 2% minoxidil, which is, that's the lower strength version, which is typically marketed to women. Most men use a 5% concentration. So, you know, they're not comparing it against like the best thing. And then also the dermatologists were blinded. The patients really weren't. And rosemary has this like, it's pretty smelly or a pungent odor. Right. So, I mean, you could tell. So it would be pretty hard to blind the fact that one is rosemary and the other one's not. Right.
- [09:15]
A
It's interesting that 1,8 cineole was the standardization for rosemary oil, because I would have thought they would have gone off after the antioxidant compounds which I mentioned are rosmarinic and cardosic acids, because rosemary is really high in all of those and they're oil soluble. I haven't seen it, but presumably they may be able to enter the hair follicles, which is where they would have value. But 1,8 cineole is a component in tea tree oil, which is actually very irritating. A strategy for tingling with tea tree oil could be to choose varietals that are high in 1,8 cineole concentration. But the SCCS, which is the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety in the eu, at the request of a country saying tea tree oil is a carcinogen, mutagenic and reproductive toxic material, the SCCS actually said, you know what, the 1, 8 Cinel content should actually be pretty controlled and low in tea tree oil. And I wonder why that's same thought process isn't being extrapolated to rosemary oil, if indeed it is high in one asinole.
- [10:34]
B
Tough to say. The other thing about this study is they don't really have a true negative control group.
- [10:40]
A
Are you sure about that?
- [10:42]
B
As far as I can tell. But you know, it's hard to read these scientific papers, but without having that true negative control, it's hard to say, was this just the rosemary itself, the twice daily scalp massage you know, or some other thing. So while it's an interesting study, I would say it's not like a slam dunk that says rosemary oil definitely works. And you know, the fact that it was done in 2015 and we haven't seen the market flooded with rosemary oil hair growth products sort of indicates that, yeah, this one might not have really panned out.
- [11:19]
A
Well, I think brands that have already had it saw growth. I think there's been a lot of growth on TikTok and Amazon type brands. But I think the fact that mainstream companies aren't deploying this technology in a real way, I'm sure a lot of them are using it in a way for marketing. Draw sure. Probably says either something about the viability, the legal risks, you know, maybe. Yeah, the safe use levels, something like that. I think, you know, just seeing one study, even though it has been used for thousands of years for, you know, scalp health, probably speaks a lot.
- [11:57]
B
Yeah, yeah, I think so. So I don't think this. Does rosemary oil help with hair growth? I'm on the I doubt it side, which should surprise nobody, I guess.
- [12:10]
A
Well, I believe in it for its antioxidant properties. There's a lot of data about it and there's a lot of really great compounds that take advantage of the carnosic and rosmarinic acid contents. So, you know, I don't know, I obviously, I think we need more information. I saw an interesting article in Allure, which is a magazine I never really got into. I mean, we've been quoted in Allure, but sure, you know, I, I was a Cosmopolitan reader mostly in high school because I couldn't believe they talked about all the sex stuff in there. And I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that's published. But anyway, Allure has an interesting article about what happened to vegan brands and there's no surprise we've talked about on the show. There's been a resurgence in an interest in collagen, which is typically animal derived chitosan, which Dyson sources from mushrooms, but it's typically coming from crab shells with collagen. My mentor always reminisced about the time in the 80s and 90s when he could use beef derived collagen. But now consumers, are they still interested in vegan skin care products?
- [13:20]
B
Well, according to this, the vegan beauty used to be cool, but now it's struggling. And I would say online I see less talk of veganism. And there have been some, they point out there are some famous celebrities who have gone off of being vegan and gone back to meat. Miley Cyrus, Anne Hathaway, Lizzo, they've all given up their veganism. Which I have to say, being vegan, while I think it's ethically the high road, I think it's hard to live that way.
- [13:53]
A
Well, it can be difficult, especially if you're used to having dairy and milk and other animal derived products. But it's interesting, all the different vegan factions there are, because some vegans are okay with beeswax, for example, which is a very common structuring wax. It's used to make products harder, it's used to raise the melting point so that lip balm doesn't quite melt in your pocket the same way. And for example, Glossier in 2023 reformulated their products not to contain beeswax lanolin. And consumers got really upset because they were like, the product performs differently, it's terrible. And so they actually reinstated their old formula. And sometimes, you know, beeswax lanolin, they're really hard to replicate. There's so many, I'll put this in air quotes, synthetic beeswaxes, they don't really gel or structure oils in the same way that a beeswax would. And same with lanolin, there's not really anything that is quite like lanolin in products. And so as a formulator, when people want animal based products, but they don't want it to be animal based, that's always been a tough formulation challenge.
- [15:06]
B
Right. In fact, I was doing an interview with a reporter about some recent animal ingredients, like tallow is making a comeback and then that salmon sperm active ingredients to drn. Yep, right. Exactly. And you know, back in the late 90s, we pretty much got away from the industry, pretty much got away from animal derived products, mostly because of mad cow disease and the scare about that, but then also because people were sort of going more towards using animal stuff as cruel. So animal cruelty was big then too. But then vegan came along. You know, I have to be honest with you, I didn't really understand the big push for vegan products because most beauty products, if you, unless you're using lanolin or collagen or something like that, most beauty products are already vegan. It wasn't that hard to be vegan. VO5 shampoo was vegan.
- [16:03]
A
Yeah. Well, it's interesting that that was a big consumer request. And at the end of the day, the same amount of demand for vegan beauty products didn't align with the percentage of vegan dietary consumers in the United States. And so It I always kind of said this is an unpopular thought. If you're willing to eat meat, you should be willing to like use the byproducts from animals in your products.
- [16:30]
B
I mean, otherwise those ingredients are just going to waste.
- [16:34]
A
Right, exactly. What's interesting is I, you know, have a lab I formulate for all types of brands on the market, new emerging ones as well as established ones that are at all the retailers that, you know, Sephora, Target, multinationals, salon, professional brands. And they are more and more being vegan is not a product formulation requirement for them. So I'm also seeing this in what Allure is seeing.
- [17:02]
B
It's going away from a trend. We'll see if it comes back. I mean these things are kind of cyclical, but definitely the products are different. When you go completely vegan and you get rid of stuff like lanolin and collagen and that sort of stuff, they're just not the same. Valerie, I did see one more and these. I just wanted to rant a little bit. It's an ingredient safety checker called the Safe Choice cosmetic app. Now I was gonna download it and try it out, but then it's like $40 a month subscription.
- [17:36]
A
Like how much?
- [17:39]
B
Well, $39 per month. Maybe it was, maybe it was annual. I, I don't, I don't know. I saw 39, I'm like, no, I don't.
- [17:48]
A
Well, even 39 annually I get, they have basic fees to cover, but products are already safe. I don't know why you would pay $39 for an app to figure that out.
- [18:00]
B
Right, that's what their idea. I mean they said Safe Choice aims to create an accessible, convenient entry point to ingredient literacy for consumers. And they also say that it is science backed in app distinction stamp. So that's a science backed app that tells you whether the products are safe or not. And it's like, yeah, they're already safe. So I don't know what this one is doing. Like there's the Yuka app which is kind of does the same thing. I'm sure the environmental Working group has an app like this. Like what new are they bringing to the table? I just don't see it.
- [18:41]
A
Well, I haven't looked into it, so I can't provide commentary on that. But just in general, products are safe. They're supposed to be safe. I don't think this app is going to catch anything in a product that a toxicologist wouldn't test. Now that's assuming brands are doing toxicology studies for their products. If you have A brand and you're listening and you haven't done one. I just recommend you do it because ultimately that's going to be the safest bet for determining whether your product is safe because that is the market requirement no matter where in the world you are. And so as long as brands are doing that, no need for apps. Although I think the app makers would still tell you differently because yuka, they hate phenoxyethanol for example and phenoxy ethanol is perfectly fine.
- [19:26]
B
Right. And well even this app was. I looked at their scores for like methylparaben are like oh, dangerous and methylparaben is not dangerous. So they're just using all of the, you know, fear mongering stuff about chemicals and you know, these things have been shown safe. The levels that are used in cosmetics are safe. Cosmetic Ingredient Review is a good source for safety information. The SCCS out in the EU is a good source and both of them say parabens are perfectly fine or methylparaben anyway. So yeah, I don't get it. This is, I don't know why they have to keep making these apps that are just trying to scare consumers. It kind of is annoying.
- [20:08]
A
Well, maybe they feel there's a need. Maybe they like people paying $39 annually to support their app. I don't know. I mean it's kind of hard to say.
- [20:19]
B
Well, you know, if people do pay it, I guess they're not wrong.
- [20:24]
A
We do have some listener feedback from our last episode where we talked about counterfeit products. Misty, thank you so much for the feedback. With regard to the segment on potentially counterfeit products purchased online, I couldn't tell if you guys were aware that Walmart.com also has third party sellers just like Amazon. I've seen some of the exact same sketchy sellers on there that I've seen on Amazon. I think the article was referencing products on Walmart.com from third party sellers not purchased directly from Walmart.
- [20:53]
B
Yeah, you know, I did not realize that Walmart sort of did an Amazon thing where they let just anybody sell products on there. So that is an excellent point. So that would reduce the faith I would have in the quality of those products.
- [21:08]
A
I realized that they allowed that. But what I was referencing is I have many customers who do sell to Walmart and you have to provide still a lot of documentation on the products that sure. I don't know how they would allow these other people to be on there if they couldn't provide it. So that's where my confusion came from. Amazon, yes, they do allow anyone But Walmart Target, I mean you have to provide a lot, a lot of stuff to be able to retail on there.
- [21:36]
B
Yeah, but I think on Walmart.com they probably just have different standards than, you know, selling it in the Walmart stores or even directly through Walmart themselves. I don't know.
- [21:47]
A
Yeah, maybe that could be true. I mean, I guess I would just assume that they would, they would do that. But at any rate, I still, I'll
- [21:55]
B
probably go for the money.
- [21:56]
A
Yeah, but my stance doesn't change from last time that sure. You know, 100% or 95% of the products bought were counterfeit because even products that we were shown that appeared. Oh, could this be counterfeit product? It smelled weird or you know, the packaging was yellowing sometimes through our testing we did find that it was our product, it was just very old and it wasn't actually counterfeit at all. And you know, you can do that through other, other mechanisms with batch tracing and diversion trackers and all that kind of stuff. So. Thank you for the clarity, Misty. I did realize that I didn't I guess connect all the dots as Perry just said. But my stance doesn't change.
- [22:45]
B
Yeah, and mine doesn't either. Like the counterfeit product problem in that article I think was exaggerated.
- [22:53]
A
I do have one other comment, if you're still worried, just buy it from the place where you know it's real. Buy it directly from the brand. Yes, Amazon's convenient. I, you know, I think that's low risk but if you're getting a great deal on the product or the product is insanely marked up, which actually I have a customer that has an issue, their product appears on Amazon and it's not them selling it, but that they figured out who's selling the Amazon product because there's traceability there and that person is buying their product and just reselling it on Amazon. So you know, it's not that you're gonna get counterfeit product but just if you are concerned if it's a better price, probably too good to be true, just go get it from the brand.
- [23:38]
B
We did get another email about this. You know it was this another, another app here. So it said, hi beauty Beaver teams, we've been following your work for years. Science based approach to cosmetic ingredients. Exactly what the skincare community needs more of. There you go. We're science based. We're launching my Glow app, which is an AI skincare app that takes a photo of any product label, you don't even need a barcode and then it gives you a Personalized compatibility score based on the specific skin type and concerns. We also do a weekly AI facial scanning to track your skin progress objectively. And then they wanted to say if we wanted to try it out or something. And why I bring this up is just this whole notion, could this even work? Can an AI take a picture of a product and tell you whether it'll be good for your skin or not?
- [24:37]
A
I actually have experience in this area. I actually did do a substantial amount of research in artificial intelligence with using imaging of hair and scalp skin. And the company I partnered with who created the device had a ton of experience in scanning skin. And I believe that you can detect anomalies in hair and skin to better make product recommendations for you. There are certain things that I think you can see improvement on. Now, I will say, particularly for hair, the requirement was you have to have this particular device because I had it retrofitted with different imaging tools to standardize different photographical things within the hair so that it can use AI to scan that particular image in that standardized setting. And skin is actually the same way. You need standardized settings. I think it would be pretty hard based on different phones and the ability of the camera, different light settings, not creating that, that standardized photography opportunity. I think it would be difficult for AI facial scanning to provide any meaningful skin progress in, in my opinion. And by the way, I've analyzed literally thousands of images for this project. And so I can say this with, I know this for a fact and
- [26:09]
B
I just look at the idea here and I know, you know, you throw the word AI in something and, you know, it impresses some people or something, but I'm just skeptical that you can take a photo of just a product and the AI is going to know this is good for you or not. Because everybody's skin is so different. And really the only way you can get this information is if you try the products yourself. Because some, you know, a lot of it is, how do you like how it feels? Because, you know, there isn't a lot of new technology really in our industry. There's occlusive agents, there's emollients, there's humectants, you know, and then of course, active ingredients that may or may not even work. So I don't know what an AI is going to do special that's going to tell you that you're going to like a product or not. I don't think it, I don't think it can do that. You have to just try the product yourself. I just don't See what extra benefit this gives you.
- [27:06]
A
I also don't like that you take a picture of your face because of just privacy concerns. I know that through the work that we did, we had to ensure that the images were not personally identifiable in any way, shape, or form. And if you're uploading an entire image of your face, I would want to know that the images are being not stored or used in any kind of way that could violate, you know, those. Those privacy laws. So not. I don't know what my Glow app is doing. It's just something I think about. But I do like that they're looking for feedback. I just. I wouldn't want to upload my face in an app.
- [27:46]
B
There you go. All right, well, we'll see where that one develops over time.
- [27:51]
A
All right, let's head to our questions. Our first question comes to us from superfan Pia in New York City.
- [28:02]
B
First of all, congratulations to you, Valerie, on your baby boy.
- [28:05]
A
Oh, thank you.
- [28:05]
B
From one mom to another, the 0 to 3 stage is a lot of work, but it does get easier, and they grow up so fast.
- [28:12]
A
Oh, thank you.
- [28:13]
B
And, Perry, I'm curious how many books you've read this year so far. So far I'm nine books, I think. Right now I'm reading Lord of the Rings.
- [28:23]
A
That's a big one. So it's going to slow you down on your count.
- [28:25]
B
Yeah, but I'm going to take credit for three books, because it's kind of three, right? No, no, I'm just taking one.
- [28:31]
A
You can't do that. That's not allowed.
- [28:34]
B
All right, now onto my beauty question. There is a brand called Kitsch, from which I bought some products, and they have lots of fun hair styling products. And one of their viral products is the rice protein shampoo and conditioner bars. I've been undecided about buying them. Whenever I read reviews, everyone raves about how great the shampoo is at promoting hair growth. I'm not a fan of soap and shampoo bars, so that's one reason why I'm undecided. Does rice protein actually promote hair growth, and is it worth giving it a try? Thanks in advance for the helpful information, Pia. Rice protein.
- [29:14]
A
Yeah, I love rice protein. Not because it grows hair back.
- [29:19]
B
I think when for making pudding.
- [29:23]
A
Oh, actually, I do love rice pudding. There's a really great rice pudding shop in New York City that I like to go to. Anyway, that's not what we're talking about. So I like rice protein for a few reasons. It's a really lightweight protein. We always Used it in volumizing collections at the salon brand that I work for because it was so lightweight and it's not super stiff. It has really a great adhesion to the hair fiber. We used it for those attributes. Ideal for fine hair. When a brand attributes an ingredient to hair growth, I think the consumer automatically thinks, oh, I'm growing to going to grow more hair. Or if I have thinning hair, it's going to help that. And that's not really what proteins do do. There are some peptides associated with rice for scalp and they don't necessarily do that either. But a typical rice protein is going to prevent hair from breaking. That's kind of what all proteins essentially do. And so when your hair's not breaking, it can help it actually grow longer only because it's. The hair's not breaking off, but it's not actually promoting growth at a flower follicular level.
- [30:38]
B
Right.
- [30:38]
A
And so I just. Yeah, I think it would be better for the brand to offer some clarity in that sense. Now, they actually can't say rice protein helps grow hair at all because that would be a drug claim. But they could say it helps condition, it helps prevent breakage. And so if you have fine hair, Pia, you might enjoy the kitsch products from that perspective. That's all I can recommend.
- [31:00]
B
Probably not gonna grow hair. Well, I was curious about this and one of the things, there is some confusion here because there has been some work with rice bran extracts. In fact, there was a small study in 2015 that looked at a very specific rice bran extract, so not just plain old rice protein. And it did show some improvement in hair density and hair thickness, mostly in men with male pattern hair loss. But, you know, this was a short single center study. They had about 50 subjects and they didn't all complete it. Some women did it also, and there weren't any statistically significant evidence for it working with women. You know, on top of that, the placebo group. So they did like a serum with and without this rice bran. And the placebo group showed an improvement and the rice brand showed more of an improvement. And so they're like, oh, maybe it does something. But whenever you see that, you have to be skeptical because you're like, well, why did the placebo group show an improvement? They shouldn't have shown an improvement, but they did anyway. So that is probably where this is coming from, because I didn't know of rice protein having hair growth effects, but maybe that's where this was from.
- [32:26]
A
Well, I've heard it. And you're Right. Consumers probably are conflating an extract and a protein. The rice bran proteins are typically water soluble. Well, they're mostly water soluble, whereas rice bran extract, the particular one in this study, was extracted using supercritical CO2, which means it's an oil soluble type extract and they're not the same thing. But I could see how that's very confusing to the consumer.
- [32:52]
B
Right. The beauty product marketers kind of take advantage of that. Like rice protein, rice protein, rice brand protein. Who's going to notice? Right?
- [33:01]
A
I'm going to guess this probably came from TikTok. Not necessarily. I mean maybe a brand marketer, but I'm sure a consumer got that confused and started a TikTok craze. Our next question is an audio question from Marissa. Hi Valerie and Perry. My question is so I have recently purchased a pack of Canikolon braiding hair which I will be using to make a braid hair extension similar to the one in the Etsy link I've attached to this email. But it is rough in texture and dull and not at all similar in curl pattern to my hair as you can see in the photo I've attached. So my question for you is what can I do to improve the texture of this synthetic hair and make it more similar in curl pattern to my own hair? To what extent can I expect the effects of human hair products to carry over to the aesthetic? Hair that cannot be chemically treated or heat styled? Are there any ingredients that are that you would guess are more likely to have a similar effect on both kinds, both the human and synthetic hair? And are there any besides the obvious of bleach or perm chemicals that should definitely be avoided. Thank you. Love the show.
- [34:14]
B
Well, thanks for the question and the recording question. We always like to get other people's voices on the show. Valerie, have you worked much with synthetic hair?
- [34:23]
A
Well, I haven't worked with synthetic hair per se, but we did a lot of work on synthetic hair in my prior life through the form of mannequins and also working at a salon brand. A lot of the questions that we would get are products safe or suitable for extensions which often are made of real hair of course, but some extensions are made from what are called monofiber and those are typically acrylic based type fibers. So basically they're plasticky fibers and sometimes hair that are wigs, mannequins, extensions can be mixed and sometimes the hair is real hair, but it might not be real human hair. So I've done a lot of work to show oh, can this Product be used on that hair. On those types of. On those types of hairs. You can call them hairs.
- [35:23]
B
Right. The synthetic hair is. What sort of a. Is it acrylic polymer based?
- [35:29]
A
Usually?
- [35:30]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, she sent a picture of the, the hair and her own hair, and she wants to get that curl pattern. You get to, I mean, the, the synthetic hair looked a little frizzed out. So you're going to have to really treat that with like a leave in conditioner, something like that first. And then I think you can sort of clump it together if you're using styling polymers, you know, but you have to. There'd have to be like a technique for you to do it to, to clump them together, spray it, you know, let it sit. But I, you could probably do it. It's sort of like a art project, though. There's no easy way.
- [36:07]
A
Yeah, no easy way. And I would say, yeah, I definitely recommend a leave in conditioner. Something that's going to coat the synthetic hair. And then you can use heat, but it has to be really low heat because we don't know the melting point of these plastics. And sometimes a blow dryer can be very hot if the synthetic hair is held too close to the heat side source for too long of a time. And you definitely don't want to heat up a curling iron or flat iron to 400 degrees Fahrenheit or 200 Celsius and apply it. You would need to use very low heat and repetitive motions over the hair to try to get some of the frizziness out of the fiber and to get it to be smooth like the target hair that you're looking for. Otherwise, the fibers aren't really going to behave in the same way as real human hair. They're just not. So you have to use physics to kind of overcome reshaping and applying a product that's going to help absorb some of that heat and diffuse it across the hair fiber, which would be a really lightweight leave in conditioner. And before you apply it to the whole hair, I would just test a little piece to make sure that you're happy with the process that you're deploying on it. That way you don't wreck the whole thing. Right.
- [37:22]
B
And that it's compatible with it.
- [37:23]
A
Yeah, exactly. And then, of course, as you mentioned, I would not color, bleach, perm, anything like that unless it's a colorant specifically designed for wig hair.
- [37:37]
B
Valerie, we got one from Sammy from Patreon. Sammy says, hi, beauty brains. I was wondering what your Thoughts on layering azelaic acid and copper peptides are. I have heard that azelaic acid is too low of a ph and will cancel out the effects of the copper peptides, but I'm not sure how accurate this is. For reference, I use the ANUO 10% azelaic acid serum, wait for it to dry, and then I apply Ordinary's 1% copper peptide serum. Thanks you for all your help. Sami.
- [38:10]
A
This is actually a little bit of a legitimate question because peptides are, you know, naturally occurring in the body. There's also synthetic peptides like the copper peptide, which has three little amino acids associated with it. And these can be PH sensitive. So I think it's very legitimate to say, hey, should I be applying a product that's an acid based serum with a peptide? Because I heard the peptide is going to deactivate. And for copper peptide, the dissociation ph, meaning where the copper and the peptide kind of form fall apart from each other and inactivate, are below a Ph of 4 for an extended period of time. That's what the literature shows. And so I could see this as a legitimate concern. Now the question is, what's the PH of the azelaic acid serum being applied and is it going to interact? The azelaic acid that's used in this serum has very specific PH requirements. Azelaic acid is actually very difficult to formulate with. It tends to precipitate. It has an extremely, extremely low water solubility. And for this reason, azelaic acid serums with any high quantity typically don't have a lot of stuff in them because there's a lot of rules formulating with azelaic acid. And so you gotta follow those rules for the product to work. And so presumably ANUA is doing that. Now, I checked out the product and they advertise their ph to be around 4.5 to 5.5 so that it's gentle, no sting. And this is actually what most azelaic acid serums are around. They're around anywhere from 4 to 5. So this is at or above the ph in which you shouldn't have copper peptides. Now if this were a glycolic acid serum or some kind of chemical peel, definitely I wouldn't apply it. But in this case I think they should be okay to mix.
- [40:15]
B
Yeah, it's also, when you put it on there, what's the, what's the ending PH too?
- [40:20]
A
Like your skin does buffer and adjust. It might take some time, but it sounds like you're letting it dry and so, yeah, for this reason, I think you're all in a safe range. Now, if you were applying a peel of a Ph 1.9, I would say, you know, you might want to wait a few hours for your skin to come back to that equilibrium. But I think in this case it's fine. Yeah.
- [40:42]
B
And whether the copper peptides doing anything or not is debatable too, at least for me.
- [40:48]
A
Well, now, copper peptides come from pharma. They have a lot of data. You're still doubtful,
- [40:56]
B
but I mean, it's got to get all the way through your dermis and down, you know, all the way through to the epidermis and the layers and. And I don't know how much gets through.
- [41:06]
A
I don't know. I like it. Now, the only thing is, I will say a lot of brands claim to use copper peptide, but copper peptide is blue. So if your product is not even tinted blue and there's no other colorants in there making it blue, I would say you probably don't have enough copper peptide to be effective. I mean, 1%, I mean, would be very dark.
- [41:31]
B
Yeah, pretty blue.
- [41:34]
A
Very blue.
- [41:35]
B
All right, well, I hope that helps.
- [41:37]
A
There we have another audio question.
- [41:41]
B
Perry, another audio question. Let me call that one up now from Katherine.
- [41:46]
A
Hi, Beauty Brains. I want to thank you for one of the best hair weeks of my life. Since you mentioned light serums, it's made a big difference. I have very fine hair and I know serums are a miracle cure, but they just weighed my hair down. So thank you. My question now is I have 60 year old hands that have a lot of sun damage. And as the skin is sort of thinning and bruises more easily, my dermatologist suggested using Skin Better Science Alpharet overnight cream. She said to build up collagen. My question is, will it really build up collagen? And more immediately, the packaging says this is going to make my skin more sensitive to sun if I use it in the evenings and then in the morning, during the daytime I try to apply the sunscreen. But if I kind of miss it, is that just making things worse? Thanks very much. Do you know what's funny? I was just talking to someone about this cream today earlier.
- [42:47]
B
Oh, were you?
- [42:48]
A
Yeah. I think skin better science has been beautiful branding. But it's kind of funny, we were exactly talking about this product.
- [42:57]
B
Well, I will say first she said she credits us with her having one of her best hair weeks of her life. So that was nice.
- [43:05]
A
Oh, right.
- [43:08]
B
Well, of course it wasn't my advice probably, but.
- [43:11]
A
Oh, no, that's so great. That's really good to hear. That feels good.
- [43:15]
B
Yeah. You, you had mentioned, we had mentioned serums and she said it made a big difference. Okay. 60 year old hands and some sun damaged. So she wants to know what do you do? So you were looking at this Alpharet overnight cream.
- [43:34]
A
Well, someone was talking about it and you know, I just thought it was, it's really interesting because typically you don't combine retinoids with acids. And you know, the whole schtick behind this product is, oh, it's, it's daytime retinoid combined with an aha. So you know, we were talking about that, but it had nothing to do with, I mean it was just conversation. So it's kind of funny.
- [43:59]
B
Well, it says it's the number one dermatologist recommended non prescription retinoid brand and it's only $145 for one ounce. What? Wow. Wow.
- [44:10]
A
Yeah.
- [44:13]
B
I. No wonder the dermatologists are recommending it. You know, they never seem to recommend like the cheap stuff, do they?
- [44:20]
A
Well, I mean, skin care can be expensive to formulate. I'm always shocked at some of the raw material prices for skin care that I see. And people don't even blink an eye like the formulators. And I'm like, in hair care you just can't have expensive materials because the packaging is so big. So I used to like lower cost per pound. Ingredient processing. Yeah.
- [44:43]
B
I mean, if you get someone to pay 140 bucks for one ounce of product, I mean, how much could this formula actually cost to make like 15 bucks or less, Right?
- [44:56]
A
Well, yeah, I would say, I'm saying for one ounce. Oh, for one ounce. Yeah, for sure. Because that would make it $240 a pound.
- [45:04]
B
Right?
- [45:06]
A
Yeah. If we were just talking about the juice. So definitely I think it costs even less than that.
- [45:13]
B
Right? Yes. No, I'm way exaggerated. I'm saying I could probably, you know,
- [45:17]
A
make a similar one for all in labor packaging.
- [45:21]
B
Sure.
- [45:21]
A
You know, unit carton, all of the, you know, direct costs and all of the contributing costs. I would say. Yeah, maybe it's 15 bucks all in for its contribution margin.
- [45:34]
B
Right, right. So anyway, so the key ingredients are this alpha ret, which is the combination of retinoid and alpha hydroxy acid or lactic acid. Okay. Glycolic acid. Sure. I mean those ahas and substance, I'm not seeing anything terribly new here. Right.
- [45:54]
A
Well, I think the fact that they've combined the retinoid with the aha is, is interesting because usually you don't use them at the same time. Time because of the propensity for irritation.
- [46:05]
B
Yeah, yeah. So, well, if you can handle the irritation, I don't know if this is irritating. Maybe they formulated so it's not irritating, but then it's probably less effective.
- [46:16]
A
Right? Exactly. Well, the reason the product has a sun sensitivity warning is actually because of the glycolic acid and lactic acid. That's a legal requirement in the United States. States and maybe Canada, where you. If you're using an AHA of any kind, you have to disclose that your skin will be more sensitive to the sun and therefore you need to use it. And it actually doesn't matter day or night, because the fact that the product is exfoliating is what gives you that sun sensitivity as an aha. So, you know, obviously you, you know, maybe you want to avoid it in the morning or if you do put sunscreen over it, but even if you use it in the evening, you have that same issue.
- [47:07]
B
All right, So, I mean, I think the reality though is that 60 year old hands, sun damage, you know, use a moisturizer and wear gloves is probably going to be. It's hard to come back from that. I mean, I might look at my 57 year old hands and I'm like, yeah, this is pretty much what I'm gonna have. Right?
- [47:29]
A
Well, my body's basically one freckle, so I totally get it. But yeah, the thing that I. I'm actually glad you brought gloves up because even if the serum worked, Catherine, you have to really avoid sun period on your hands to prevent those spots from coming back. And so whether you're using this cream or not, you do need to use gloves that have some kind of UV resistance. There are some really great ones now that you can get online thanks to the craze of using it. I remember when they were really hard to find and I had to search high and low. I've been wearing driving gloves for years, but there's so much intermittent exposure on your hands from ultraviolet light that it's very easy. And if you have brown spots that you don't like at the price of one ounce for this serum, you might be better saving up and having a laser treatment on your hands to get a majority of that pigment out. And then you can kind of start with a clean slate by wearing gloves anytime you're outside. That's what I would recommend.
- [48:34]
B
All right, I would recommend we go to our last question.
- [48:38]
A
Katie from Patreon says, hi, beauty brains. I'm lazy and always air dry. My hair. I recently tried Crown Affairs Air Dry Mousse and really liked the results but wasn't crazy about the scent. As I'm widening my search, do I need to limit my moisture to mousses that are specified for air drying or will any product work? Thanks for your great content, Katie.
- [48:58]
B
Well, in looking at this texturizing mousse and the ingredients, I mean this is pretty much a mousse formula, right?
- [49:09]
A
Yeah, this is a very standard formula, formula type. So how it works is it's a water thin liquid, it's non aerosol and you put it through a special foamer, kind of like a foaming hand soap foamer. And it has a little bit of surfactant in it to help create these bubbles.
- [49:25]
B
Bubbles.
- [49:26]
A
You put it on your hair and over time your hair dries, whether that's by air or by diffuser or by a blow dryer. But in my experience, most of these mousses people use in a way that they're air drying their hair because they want to retain some of the natural texture of their hair fiber or enhance curls. And so what I would look for is the type of polymer that's present in them. So the Crown Affair product doesn't have a styling polymer per se, just utilizes salt to kind of keep hair a little bit textured. But sometimes you might find PvP or VPVA copolymer if it's like a curl holding type mousse. So any product will have the air dry capability. It's just a advertising point for Crown affair. But you just want to make sure you're okay with the polymer that's used for it. So I like Sienna Naturals is actually pretty nice pattern, has a lot of crunchy texture to it. So you just kind of have to find what's right for the look that you're looking for.
- [50:29]
B
For our Tresemme mousse was always a big seller. So that one might work for you too.
- [50:36]
A
Yeah. Tea tree. If you like Tea Tree and Lavender Tea Tree Lavender Mint by Paul Mitchell, they have a really nice mousse, you know, positioned as a curl line, but it doesn't leave a crunchy residue at all. You might even like that one.
- [50:50]
B
You know what it was interesting that we had discovered is just in testing is if you shampoo your hair and you air dry it, it dries more slowly than if you shampoo and condition. So just putting a leave in conditioner is in your hair is actually going to speed up that drying time.
- [51:09]
A
Interesting that you did an experiment.
- [51:13]
B
Well, you know, we were we were always looking for ways to make claims about our products, like special claims and stuff. And so we would just try stuff like that. I was kind of surprised, right? Because I'm like, well wait, you're treating the hair twice. But I think what happens is the conditioner helps to the water to come out of your like the, the standing water to come out of your hair more quickly.
- [51:37]
A
Very interesting. I totally believe that it almost like probably because some of the oils or silicones are displacing some of the water content from the hair fiber as well as the quats. That's typically how products that speed up air drying work. Excuse me, speed up blow drying as well work.
- [51:54]
B
You know, I hear something that's displacing our own voices and that's the music.
- [51:59]
A
Thanks for listening everyone. If you get a chance, head over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leave us a review that's going to help other people find the show and ensure we have a full docket of beauty questions to answer.
- [52:09]
B
And you might have heard a couple of those questions here by people recording it. And if you want to have your voice on the show, just record your question on a smart smartphone and email it to thebeautybrainsmail.com or you can use the form in the show notes or you can also call our our number 1-872-216-1856 and leave a voicemail. The Beauty Brains are also on Patreon. If you like what we do and appreciate that we don't take sponsored content, you can help support the show. Because it's not free to produce, you can go to patreon.com subscribe beauty brains and subscribe at any level. You also get your questions answered in a higher priority and a transcript of the show and any special events that we do.
- [52:52]
A
Also don't forget to follow us on our various social media accounts. On Instagram 2018, on X worth of beauty brains. On Blue sky worth the beauty brains. We have a Facebook page, a tick tock and a YouTube.
- [53:03]
B
Oh yeah, we are out there and sometimes I even look at the social media stuff but not usually.
- [53:09]
A
I don't have time to be on social media. I don't have time to be on social media.
- [53:13]
B
Yeah, too busy doing the job.
- [53:16]
A
Thanks again for listening everyone. And remember, be brainy about your beauty.
- [53:22]
B
Thanks everyone. Kittens.