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Transcript15 lines
- [00:01]
Perry Romanowski
Hi, I'm Perry, 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 cosmetic industry. This is episode 380. I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and with me today is Virtual Valerie. Hello, Virtual Valerie. Hi, Perry. The real Valerie couldn't be here today due to some lab issues and the holidays coming up, so I thought we'd have Virtual Valerie here, her AI Doppelganger, to help me out. With all due respect, Perry, I don't think that would be a good idea. You know how Valerie doesn't like any of this AI Stuff, and, well, I'm not sure most of the listeners do either. You should probably just do this one on your own. All right, I guess that's a good point, Virtual Valerie, but can I just keep you here to laugh at my non sequiturs and my dad jokes? I don't think that is going to work, but you have a good show. All right, well, thanks, Virtual Valerie. I guess this will just be a solo show unless I can get Sarah Bellum to poke her head in here. Anyway, since it's a solo show, let me get right to answering a bunch of your questions. And I'm going to answer questions about whether quats and hair conditioners are causing bacterial resistance. What I think of the wish skin health products, whether more expensive heat protectant products work better than less expensive ones. How to figure out whether hair is high or low porosity. Is it worth buying products online instead of in drugstores? And are patented ingredients really game changers, or are they just marketing gimmicks? But first, some of that chit chat. Well, you know, I'm just here alone since it's just me sitting in a closet here. It's my wife's closet. You know, I was setting up this chair and the whole podcast, the microphone, and my cat Teddy, who was just sleeping on the bed. He just gets into the closet, jumps on the chair, and then sits there, right where I was gonna sit. What is it about chairs that attracts cats? Well, anyway, you know, I see I'm coming to the end of the year, and I was looking at my Goodreads book tracking app. I'm on Goodreads, and I had a goal of 70 books, and I'm like, 15 books behind, so I got a lot of reading to do in the last month. We'll see. You know, what happens is, you know, I like reading books. I do the audiobooks mostly, but then it's like a competition between podcasts that I listen to. I listen to a fair amount of podcasts and audiobooks, and so, you know, I don't like to get behind on the podcast, but there's so many podcasts. People are putting out so many episodes of, you know, you know, good stuff, but it's really a lot of content, and it gets in the way of my book listening. Anyway, I'm going back to that, you know, you know, it's okay to delete an episode here and there, I guess. Anyway, all right, that's enough of my rambling. Why don't we get started with answering some questions? And our first question comes from Haley. And just so this isn't just, you know, listening to Perry drone out about stuff, I'm going to do some virtual voices for some of these questions. So our first question comes from Haley. Haley, what do you got for us?
- [03:35]
Virtual Valerie
Hello, beauty brains. I follow the general advice to avoid antibacterial soaps, as their overuse can cause bacterial resistance. I was surprised when I read the labels to find many of the same antibacterial quats are also used as hair conditioners. This is my real concern with quats, that I could be unknowingly affecting my microbiome or contributing to wider bacterial resistance every time I condition my hair. Are all quats the same and is my concern founded? Thanks.
- [04:04]
Perry Romanowski
Ah, quaternary ammonium compounds or otherwise known as quats. Now, there are a bunch of different quat ingredients that are used in cosmetics and personal care products, mainly the two things that you've suggested, including antibacterial agents and conditioning ingredients for personal care products. They are also actually used as emulsifiers in some systems. Now, their use in antibacterial soaps and disinfectants is pretty well known, and it's a valid question to ask whether the potential impact on the microbiome and bacterial resistance when used for other applications. Fortunately, not all quats are the same. Now, I won't get too much into the chemistry, but I think it is important to know that quats are positively charged molecules. And this is useful because, you know, it helps them stick to surfaces like your hair and to cell membranes which have proteins that have negatively charged sites. Now, let's talk about quats as used in antibacterial products first. Now, these are quats like benzalkonium chloride and benzathonium chloride. They are effective antibacterial agents because they disrupt the bacterial cell membranes. You know, like, you know, bacteria has Cell membranes, they're single cells. And these quats can go on and stick on those cell membranes and then that by that positive charge and it binds to the negative charges on the bacterial membranes and then the hydrophobic tails that are on these ingredients, they can kind of integrate into that cell membrane and that sort of breaks things up and this interaction messes up the membrane integrity and then that can cause leakage out of the cells and eventually the bacteria dies. Because of this, quats are particularly effective against gram positive bacteria, a little less so against gram negative bacteria due to the structure of those types of bacteria. They can also work a bit against some fungi and even some viruses. But the bottom line is these quats really do work, but they're not all equally effective as antibacterial agents. The quats that are used in hair formulas are things like Behem Trimonium chloride, sterileconium chloride or C. Tronium chloride. These have positive charges that bind to the negative sites on hair strands and they can reduce static, they can smooth the hair, they can make it easier to detangle. Although some quats have mild antibacterial properties, they are really not too good at killing bacteria. Instead, their formulation is optimized for surface activity, improving the texture and manageability of hair. The really the overuse of antibacterial quats in household and personal care products, that does raise concerns because these bacteria can develop resistance to it. And what happens is, you know, stuff doesn't leak out of them because they mutated and then those mutations can no longer be affected by these quats. And so that is a real problem. However, you know, as far as hair conditioner quats go, the issue really is minimal. The rinse off formulations, they don't leave a lot of residue on the scalp or hair, and this significantly reduces the potential for them to disrupt this microbiome membranes and promote resistance. So as far as the scalp microbiome goes, any potential impact of quats and conditioners is really mitigated by the low concentrations that are used and, and by the fact that these things are rinsed off. While long term effects of quats on the microbiome are not really well studied, the use in rinse off products poses far less risk compared to say, leave on antibacterial products or disinfectants. So the bottom line really here is that while quats can kill bacteria, not all of them are effective the same. So their functionality depends on the specific chemical structure and the intended use. Now, while quats in antibacterial products can Pose a question, a concern about bacterial resistance. The quats that are used in hair conditioners are just really primarily conditioning agents and they really don't have antibacterial effects that we need to worry about. But if you are concerned about this, you can look for conditioners that use silicones and cationic polymers instead. You know, they're going to work pretty much just as well. These might be a little bit more microbiome friendly than the products that have quats, but again, we don't really know that much about the microbiome and you know how it should be made up in your hair. So it's probably not a thing you need to worry about. Next question comes to us from Taelin. Take it away, Taelin.
- [08:49]
Virtual Valerie
Hi beautybrains, what do you think about the ingredients and formulation of this Wish Skin Health Phytoactive Clearing Serum? I am interested in the entire line, but I just selected this product first. Looking forward to your answer. Thanks.
- [09:03]
Perry Romanowski
Ah, the Wish Skin Health Serum. Well, okay, let's take a look at the ingredients here. Now you can tell that, you know, some thought went into formulating this serum. They've got probiotics, plant extracts, humectants and you know, actives. You know, all the stuff that helps sell serums to consumers seeking solutions. So I'm just looking at the ingredient list now after the first ingredient of course is water. It has a lactobacillus probiotic that is supposed to help with the skin microbiome. Look this, like I said, the science isn't really settled on the skin microbiome and whether probiotics would even help. We don't really know what a good microbiome should look like versus a bad microbiome. There's just a lot we don't know. And actually I saw in a review article about topical probiotics published in the journal Pharmaceutics, it was titled Topical Probiotics More than a Skin Deep. The authors there highlighted all of the potential of these topical probiotics, but then they don't provide any good evidence of them doing much of anything. Right now many of the findings are derived from small studies or animals, animal studies, which don't necessarily translate well into humans. And claims of effectiveness for conditions like psoriasis or rosacea just lack sufficient backing from well conducted studies. So it's really speculative whether topical probiotics will do anything at all. And there's also no real mechanism figured out for how or even why they would work. Although maybe all this wishful thinking fits well with their brand. So it is anyway. Okay. On to some other ingredients they have in there is glycerin and witch hazel. These are fine enough standard ingredients. They have gluconolactone which is going to provide maybe some, you know, light exfoliation. Then there's a bunch of antioch which are included for reasons. I guess if you're doing anti aging, you put antiox antioxidants. Consumers kind of expect that a few plant extracts are in there for their supposed anti inflammatory or soothing or reducing redness. You know, I don't know. They have also a few essential oils in there which might cause some people problems. They can be irritating to some people's skin. Phenoxyethanol is also in there and that can cause some people's faces to flush red. So that that doesn't seem the best preservative to use. And then some people don't like alcohol on their skin, which this product also uses alcohol. I personally don't think alcohol in skin products is a problem. I mean it just evaporates off. It does not. There's no evidence that it dries out your skin, but that is what a lot of people believe. But if so seeing alcohol on the product ingredient list is a concern for you, then this might not be the product for you. But overall seems like a fine enough product. But I wouldn't expect too much noticeably difference from the performance of it. But you know, hey, it's only 40 bucks for like one ounce. Yikes. Which, you know, that's probably less expensive than a lot of serums. I really do wish I could be more positive, but I doubt that you're going to see any huge benefits from this serum. But again, it looks like a fine enough product. Our next question comes to us from Adrian. Hey, beauty brains, what is the ingredient in a hair heat protectant product that.
- [12:46]
Virtual Valerie
Actually does the work of protecting the.
- [12:48]
Perry Romanowski
Hair from the heat of styling products?
- [12:50]
Virtual Valerie
And will a more expensive product provide better protection? For example, see these two examples I've linked.
- [12:57]
Perry Romanowski
Thank you very much in advance.
- [12:59]
Virtual Valerie
I am a long time listener and.
- [13:01]
Perry Romanowski
Really enjoy your podcast. All right, the ingredients that are effective at protecting the hair from heat and whether it's more expensive ones. Well, thanks for these questions. And I went to the website and got the ingredient list of the Kruvat hair protector and the R and Co heat protector. So. So I know what those are. We're looking at those. But let's start with this. You know, heat can damage the hair and it does that by altering the molecular structure and the physical integrity of the fiber that leads to weakened keratin protein strands that could lead to lifted up cuticles and then moisture loss. High temperatures can also irreversibly change the hair's protein alpha helical keratin structure. It can break bonds between the proteins, and it can also, you know, lift the protected cuticle when the moisture escapes. So it makes your hair more prone to damage and tangling and such. This results in dryness, brittleness, split ends, they can have cumulative damage over time. So basically, heat can damage the hair, and its damage can range from mild dryness, it can get all the way to split ends, and then it could also, you know, start frizzing and that sort of thing. The best idea is for some prevention strategies. And using the heat protectants, as you suggested, is one way you can also try to minimize heat exposure, use low temperature products, and then avoid really hot tools on wet hair. You know, I'm sure Valerie was here. She would have some other things to add, but, you know, that's basically it. Now, it's still a little controversial, interestingly enough, about whether blow drying is better or worse for your hair in terms of damage. In one study published in the Annals of dermatology, I think this was back in 2011, researchers found that while blow dryers cause more surface damage, air drying can actually result in more damage in the cell membrane complex, which in hair is like the glue that holds together the cuticle and cortex sections of the hair shaft. Anyway, they concluded that below drying hair, but holding it sort of away from your head about 15 centimeters was less damaging actually than air drying. Now, I'm not completely convinced, but this is what they found. So any. But as far as heat protectant go. So the idea for a heat protectant is, well, if heat is damaging the hair fiber, we put this protective film on the hair, and then that way the heat can't get there to damage the fibers. And so as far as heat protectants goes, the main ones that have some good evidence behind them are silicones. They're all based on silicones because silicone is particularly good at trapping and spreading out the heat and protecting the hair. In fact, silicone is a skin protectant. And, you know, when there are actual skin protectants, you put on your hands and you can be protected from chemical exposure and stuff, because silicone is that good at, you know, keeping chemicals out and also protecting from heat. So silicones are really the. The main heat protectants. But as far as whether expensive ones or less expensive ones matter, not really. The more expensive products will not necessarily protect your hair better. I just one of the things you got to know about beauty products, price and effectiveness are not exactly related when it comes to beauty products. So plenty of low cost products perform as well or even better than higher priced products. It really comes down to the ingredients in the formula and well also the way it's put together and then some other things. But, but basically what's important is that it's the ingredients that are used now. Okay, so you sent us a couple of formula lists of one inexpensive product and one that was more expensive product. So let's take a look at the less expensive ingredient list. Well, the less expensive product contains a bunch of ingredients that can function as heat protectants for the hair. And they do this by forming that protective barrier that helps to reduce moisture loss. And it also just protects from the immediate damage to the hair from the heat. Now the main ones in the less expensive product as peg 12 dimethicone and then polyurethane 48, you might also get a little help from the peg 7 glycerol coco 8. So in theory, these three ingredients can combine to make this film on your hair fiber and that protects you from the heat damage. So that's good. And you know, those ingredients are proven to work, so you know it should be effective. Now the more expensive product contains hydroxypropyl gluconamide and hydroxypropyl ammonium gluconate, which are supposed to form a film, but also theoretically they could strengthen the hair internally. But these things are less effective at directly blocking the heat and protecting from the heat. And then of course, this more expensive product has a bunch of fruit extracts in it which aren't really doing anything, but you know, they look pretty on the ingredient label, I guess. Honestly, with, without silicone in there, I don't believe this is going to provide much heat protection at all. This product doesn't have a silicone. So you know, if your primary goal is protecting your hair during high heat styling, the less expensive product that has the Peg 12 dimethicone and the other heat protectants are superior. Silicones are just unbeaten for this purpose. Now if you want something that is silicone free and you know, you don't really use high heat styling devices, that more expensive product, the R co product, might, you know, be better for you, I don't know. But the bottom line is this, this is what you, I want you to take from all this. And you can take this not only just heat protectants, but beauty products in general. Just remember, in beauty Products, the price and the performance have very little to do with each other. You know, so that is, that is the. A bad way to say the price of something. The more expensive it is, does not mean the better it gets. And the less expensive something gets, that does not mean it gets less. Better price has nothing to do. The price of your product is mostly about branding and brand image and packaging. Now, smaller companies, yes, it can cost them more money to make a product. Like, if I made my own shampoo, I could make about an eight ounce bottle of shampoo for about, you know, five or six dollars. And so, you know, you gotta sell it at a profit or whatever. So, you know, you would have to sell it for like 15 bucks or something. Now, Proctor and Gamble, they can make shampoo, you know, for less than a dollar, maybe 50 cents, they can make a shampoo bottle. So then they can sell that for, you know, however much they want. So price, all that is to say is price and performance are not the same thing in beauty products. And so don't let the price of something just because it's less expensive does not mean it doesn't work as well. All right, we have a question from Samantha. Samantha, take it away. Hi, beauty brains. I've seen a lot online about how you need to care for your hair based on your porosity. And if you have low porosity, you shouldn't use protein products. I can't for the life of me figure out if I have high or low porosity hair. And it stresses me out that I don't know what kind of products I should use for my hair help. You know, as a cosmetic chemist, I understand how confusing and overwhelming all of that talk about hair porosity can be. But let me make this simple Porosity, as it's often discussed online, is really just a way to describe hair damage rather than it being some distinct inherent characteristic of your hair. The idea that you must choose products based on low or high porosity is largely oversimplified and often overhyped. In fact, I looked through some of the standard industry books on hair. Like there's a book we call Robbins, which is the chemistry and structure of hair and such. The word porosity isn't even mentioned. Like, the industry doesn't talk about porosity. The porosity is something that I think came from the salon world, and they just made up this term that relates. Really, it's just related to damage. So here's the deal. All hair is porous to some degree, meaning that it has, you know, so these tiny gaps between the cuticles and such, and that can let in water and other substances. Now, these gaps become more prominent when the hair is damaged or whether it's from heat or chemical treatments or environmental factors. And if you have curled hair, naturally curled hair at those, at the bends you can have, the cuticle might flare out there. But what's being called high porosity is typically just hair that's been compromised or damaged with a raised or broken cuticles, and that allows for faster absorption and faster loss of moisture. Now, conversely, low porosity hair, quote, unquote, is often just means that the cuticle is healthy, it's more tightly aligned, which will slow the absorption of water and products. And you know, that's not. Low porosity is not a problem that you need to fix. Now the good news is that you don't have to stress over categorizing your hair into one of these groups. Instead you can just focus on the current conditions and how it behaves. Is your hair dry or brittle or breaking? Well, you know, then you just need some more conditioning. Now some people would recommend using an ingredient like, you know, proteins. I know Valerie's a fan of proteins. I don't personally think that proteins do much of anything, and I've never seen any good evidence that it does, especially from rinse off products. And I specifically ran studies on hairdressers to look for the effect of hydrolyzed proteins on hair. And honestly, since proteins are hydrolyzed and water soluble, they just get rinsed off down the drain. And in the studies that I did, I saw no impact of protein from rinse off products on hair at all. So very little of the protein is going to remain on your hair after rinsing. Now people, many people mistakenly think proteins are bad for low porosity hair, but that's not universally true. I mean, these proteins, if you have low porosity hair and the protein can't get in or something, it just rinses down the drain that like the protein does not stick to the hair anyway. But if your hair feels greasy or it's coated or feels coated after you apply certain products, you know, you might just need a lighter formulation or just condition your hair less or this isn't because of porosity, but this is because the product's formulation and how your hair responds to it and how you feel about it. So the simple hair care routine that you could start with would be start with a moisturizing shampoo and a rinse off conditioner. And if your hair feels soft and manageable and hydrated, that's all you need. Now, if it feels dry or brittle, maybe you need to use also a leave in conditioner or have a mousse or something like that that could be in addition to the rinse off stuff. And then you just got to keep experimenting until you find that combination of products that really work for you. And instead of focusing on porosity, just pay attention to how your hair feels and looks after you using whatever set of products you did. And if you're not getting the results that you want, you, you know, try a new product, try some pomade or something like that. Ultimately you're going to need to use, of course, a shampoo and conditioner. But whether you need anything more, that's really just up to you and your taste and your conditioner here. Ultimately, your hair is unique in, you know, trying to pigeonhole you into some sort of porosity type, it's just not necessary. Hair care is all about addressing the current condition of your hair. It's, it's not really about these specific categories that you must use. Focus really just on how does your hair feel and, you know, how does, how manageable is it after you've used certain products and don't stress over the labels, your hair and your psyche will appreciate it. All right, thank you so much. We've got a question from someone who was on Patreon from Rachel.
- [26:13]
Virtual Valerie
Hi Beauty Brains. I am a new patron and love your unbiased beauty info. I am wondering if you have heard of Beauty Pie. It is a subscription service that claims to, quote, strip out the middlemen and the ridiculous retailer and it supposedly offers products for less if you pay a monthly or yearly fee. Here are two products that I am using to hopefully help with wrinkles. Do you see any ingredients here that really work or should I just buy drugstore brands? Thank you for your help.
- [26:41]
Perry Romanowski
Thanks Rachel for that question and thanks so much for being a supporter. Hey, if you appreciate the fact that we don't have advertisers and are able to give honest, non financially influenced opinions, you can help support the show by going to patreon.com thebeautybrains and subscribe at any level. If you're a patron, you get your questions higher priority to answer. There's a transcript there. Occasionally we have events for patrons only and you know, it helps keep us from having to use advertisers because I think once you use an advertiser, you're kind of inclined to, you know, not necessarily. You don't have to say nice things about them, but you're climbing to say nice things about them and encouraging. And I just don't think you could take advertising and still maintain a, you know, an uninfluenced opinion. All right, anyway, back to your question. Now, I'm going to say off the bat that I am not a big fan of subscription services. Mostly I think they're a way to get people to just overspend on products that they don't really need. You know, when you run out of something, you go get a new one. You don't have to have something come in the mail, like all the time on a specific schedule. That often leads to products that you stop using and you forget to use them and then you're overspending. You know, these services kind of rely on you to forget that you have them or, you know, then they make it hard to also cancel. So really, it's unlikely that you're gonna save any money and you'll more likely spend more money than you normally would have because, you know, the subscription just keeps on coming. And the idea that they are cutting out the middleman and the retailer, that is so 2000s. I mean, these days, everyone cuts out that middleman and, you know, you know, they can sell you directly from their website. Any company that is producing things can easily set up a website and you can easily fulfill things through the mail. And consumers are used to doing that now. So this, this service is not really cutting out anything that anyone else isn't cutting out. But I digress. Okay, let's take a look at the products that you listed. The first One is a YouthBomb Radiance Concentrate Screen Serum. And they say it's traditionally $185 retail. What? But on their site you can get for $93. I mean, yikes, it's like 50 milliliters for $185. That's. Wow, that's a lot. That's not even two ounces. That's like one ounce. Yeah, well, one and a half ounce or whatever anyway. That seems like a lot. But okay, so you save half on it on something that was already really expensive. Although 93 is expensive. But okay, let's, let's take a look at that. I mean, I'm looking at it. It's a nice enough product. It's got water and then lots of humectants, glycerine, butylene glycol, 12 hexanediol, you know, the same kind of ingredients everyone else uses. And then there is witch hazel and a bunch of extracts that aren't really doing Anything in there, honestly. And it's got acetyl hexapeptide 1, but it's near the bottom, so certainly not in there at 1%. And you know, look, I gotta be honest with you. I don't see anything in this formula that would make it worth spending $185 for or even really $93 for an ounce and a half. You know, but I mean even the claims of what it does are not anything special. Visibly firm and tighten fine lines and wrinkles. It's just saying visibly does it. It doesn't say. It actually does that. And so then you have some consumer studies or surveys that said 98% of people said that they thought it did. And that's kind of easy data to generate. I mean, there's nothing going on here. I mean everyone pretty much can say stuff like this. I don't know. I'm sure it's a fine enough product and there are probably a lot of people who like it. I just don't see much there myself. Alright, let's take a look at the other product you asked about. You linked to a super retinol vitamin C night renewal moisturizer, 1% retinol complex. Now this one's only $49 for the same amount. So you know, you're already saving money, so that's nice. But so what does this do? It seems to do all the same stuff that the other one claimed to do and this is half the price. And the packaging doesn't look as nice as the other one. But they claim to visibly improve firmness and clarity and also help to reduce the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles and pigmentation. Again, these are not special claims and they're things that any product that's a moisturizer can make all these same claims. So what makes this thing special? So if we look at the base ingredients, they, you know, they use good ingredients and pretty much industry standard stuff like glycerin, butylene glycol and common emollients like dicapryl ether, capryl, capric triglycerides, dimethicone. I've heard all of these before. I mean, while these are all beneficial, they are present in almost every skincare product. And I really don't see what is setting this product apart. All right, then they have their star ingredients, they have retinol, which, it's one of the most studied and effective anti aging ingredients there. Actually I was listening to a podcast. This podcast will kill you, which is pretty good. They did a two parter on retinol the first part was about Dr. Kligman who did some sketchy stuff and research on prisoners and things. And you know, he's kind of a sketchy researcher dude. That's kind of how doctors were back then before, I guess we got more civilized like in the 1970s. Anyway. Now the first part was on him. The second part was about how effective retinol and all of these things are. So it's a pretty interesting look at it. But, you know, basically as if you're looking at studies and research and stuff, retinol is probably one of the most studied and concluded as the most effective anti aging ingredients. But so they put it in this product. You know, that seems like a good thing. And it's kind of complicated and such because is it retinoic acid, is it retin alcohol, you know, retinol palmitate? Anyway, there's all of these different issues there. But let's look right here at the placement of their retinol product is pretty much near the end of the list. But then it also says, so you know, it's not in at 1%, but you know, if you look at the front of the bottle, it says, oh, a 1% retinol complex. And now if you think about that, you know, you might think they're saying, oh, this is 1% retinol. They're not saying it's 1% retinol. They'Re saying it's the 1% of the retinol complex. Now, how much retinol is in the retinol complex? I don't know, but they're using 1%. It could be 1% of 1%. You could be getting 0.001% retinol in there. So I don't know, it's just part of the complex. It's a bit of tricky wording there to confuse consumers, I guess. And then there are the. Also included in there, the multiple forms of vitamin C derivatives. There's ascorbyl tetraisopalmitate, there's ascorbyl palmitate, there's ascorbic acid. I just wonder why do you need all of these different vitamin Cs, you know, why do you need more than just one? But maybe, you know, to get the immediate effect and then over time effect. I don't. I guess there's some sort of rationale there, but you know, I suppose it also just kind of looks more impressive. I know that Valerie loves vitamin C as an ingredient and, you know, I'm just not nearly as thrilled. And you know, it's just because it's really hard to stabilize and really deliver noticeable results from a topical product. But they do at least have ferulic acid in there, which has been demonstrated to stabilize vitamin C. So maybe that's something. Then they have a bunch of extracts that and other standard ingredients. You know what the question is like, what sets this product apart from all of the other products that you can get there? And in truth, not much that I can see. I mean, the inclusion of retinol and vitamin C derivatives and ferulic acid, you know, makes this maybe a potent anti aging product, or it could anyway. But these ingredients are found in so many other serums. Everybody's using these, you know, often these other ones will tell you you get something from the ordinary and it's telling you the concentration, not the percent of a complex, but actually the percent of the ingredients. So I think it is a little dicey to say it's 1% retinol complex, not 1% retinol. So anyway, what sets this apart? I'm looking at the rest of the formula in this mix. Standard humectants, emollients, botanical extracts that are frequently seen in mid to high care skin products. So anyway, are these products from Beauty Pie worth buying over drugstore brands? There's nothing in here that convinces me, but some people like the experience of unboxing and the anticipation of a product with great promise. If that's you, maybe this is worth it to you. But I'd recommend just sticking with the tried and true drugstore brands from the big companies. You know, they do spend the most money on R and D and on testing, so they likely have the best performing products at the least expensive prices. All right, it looks like I've got time for one more before I gotta get out of this closet here. And this comes to us from Daniel. Hello, Beauty Brains. I've noticed that many companies like L'Oreal have patented ingredients that they use across.
- [36:36]
Virtual Valerie
Their brands, like Pro Xylene in general. Are patented ingredients really game changers or are they all just marketing tricks? Thanks.
- [36:47]
Perry Romanowski
Well, Daniel, thanks for that question. You know, in general, I'd say yes, they are just marketing tricks to get you to think that the product is special and convince you to buy one brand, their brand, over somebody else's. Now, you can hear from the previous question that it's pretty hard to get your product to stand out because everyone uses the same ingredients, everyone has access to the same ingredients. And really the only exceptions there are fragrances. Often a fragrance company will just make a specific fragrance blend for one company and not sell it to other companies. But honestly, you can copy other fragrances how they smell. So, you know. But fragrances, I will say, are exclusive to brands. And of course, patented ingredients are exclusive to brands. So you can't use an ingredient if it's patented. But otherwise everyone has access to the same chemicals as everyone else. There is no, like, special cut of ingredient that somebody can get that someone else can't get. Now, everybody can get the same ingredients. And also everyone has access to, you know, reasonably trained cosmetic chemists who know how to put formulas together. Now, some cosmetic chemists are better than others, but, you know, formulating just takes a little practice. But, you know, everyone can pretty much learn how to do formulating. It's, you know, just measuring out the correct amount of ingredients and putting the blends together anyway. Any, any big company could get access to that. So as far as technology goes, it's really hard to just make a product that is noticeably different than any, any competitors, literally for anyone. The big guys can't make products that are better than just a contract manufacturer. Everyone can make pretty much products that work the same. Now they don't. All the products don't work the same or feel the same because, you know, there are. Consumers have different aesthetic feels. They, you know, there's pricing differences and stuff. But as far as technically and in principle, anyone can copy any product that's on the market right now. So how do you stand apart from your competitors? You rely on packaging, of course, branding and fragrance, as I said. And, you know, you rely on those things much more than how the products actually work. Consumers are also not very good at noticing the differences in there. But I digress here. Now, as far as patenting ingredients go, patenting is just really another way to make your product stand out because although I just said everyone has access to all the same ingredients, if you have a patent on an ingredient, then in principle other people can't use it, at least for the levels that are dictated in the patent. And that's at least for a while. Patents expire in something like, you know, 15 to 20 years, so eventually everyone will be able to use them. So a big company like L'Oreal now, they seem to lead the industry in getting patents are just Arab patent. L'Oreal gets a ton of patents. And, you know, patents are, you know, can be gotten on pretty obscure things that, you know, common consumers don't really even notice. Now, I worked on a few patents in my career over the years, and mainly the ones I spent the most time on, well, I spent a lot of time on. Were just trying to find ingredient combinations that could be. You could find something interesting about them. And that way you could have patent pending or patented to put on our products. And that makes consumers, because consumers find the word patent on a product, they find that compelling. Now, you know, when one of the first patents I worked on was, it was ridiculous. We had this serum that had coenzyme Q10 in it, and also we had cellulose in it. And so that combination, my boss said, hey, can you find something about the combination of these ingredients in this certain proportions that we could patent? And I just did everything in the combination of this. And I stumbled on this thing where you could use, where you make a ball, a cellulose ball. And if you blended Coenzyme Q10 with the cellulose ball, you could get to bounce higher than one that wasn't blended with coenzyme Q10. And so it was this bounciness thing. So we translated that bounciness effect into making the skin more elastic or more subtle or, you know, anyway, something about the skin. And we were able to get a patent pending on that down the patent. Eventually. We had patent pending for a couple of years, and then eventually we didn't pursue it because they wanted some more data about something. And, well, frankly, I think the product probably stopped selling anymore, so we never pursued it any further. But that was how we got patented. It was totally just a gimmicky thing. Now, one patent that I got actually was a technological improvement product. I stumbled on this technology that made hair color stay in the hair better. It. It actually really worked. It's amazing. You. You can dye a hairdress and then you could wash it like 30 times or something, and you could actually see the color come out. But if you sprayed on this Tresemme colorlocks technology, sprayed on the hair, and then you did that same thing, the color did not wash out at all. And it was great. The technology was just amazing. And when consumers saw it, they were like, wow, this is great. And, you know, it actually worked. And so I thought that was great. It was great. But of course, eventually we did get a patent on it. And so I actually have my name on that patent, and I'm all happy about it. But, you know, it was a great technology, but not great enough for consumers to notice because the product was only lasted on the market for maybe three years, Took like eight years to develop, and then only last for three. But, you know, that's how things go. The technology still works is great. You know, it's patented, but, you know, people aren't really interested in buying a spray product to spray on their hair to keep their hair color looking better, longer. I mean, you probably still have to recolor your hair after six weeks because you'll see the roots growing out. And so probably there just wasn't enough benefit, but it actually really worked. But anyway, like I was saying, L'Oreal loves to get patents. Mostly they are the kinds where, you know, no one would really notice a difference. They would fall under the marketing gimmicks label, I would say. But they also have some serious scientists and they also come up with some real patents like Mexerol and like the patent, the Pro Xylene that you talked about here. So, you know, when they spend all of that time and money developing some real patent, they want to use that on as many brands as they can to try to recoup some of that, you know, R D costs. Now, the Pro Xylene technology is, it's claimed to promote hydration and elasticity, but it's not really fundamentally different in its outcome than, you know, humectants or collagen boosting peptides. So, yeah, I don't. This isn't something consumers are going to really notice, but they're able to put the brand name on that. And so maybe they're helping try to build that ingredient brand name. You know, that's. They try to do that Matrixyl, which is a sunscreen thing that they also have. So they're trying to create a new brand about something even if consumers can't really notice it. I think Matrixyl, you can notice because it's a sunscreen. You know, you're not getting burned. This one is a, you know, how is this gonna be different than a moisturizer? I don't think consumers can tell anyway. You know, consumers can't really tell. The skin is getting better over the course of six weeks or longer. So, you know, if you've spent money on a product and you like using the product, you inclined to see positive results or report positive results. But in reality, if you got this product and they forgot to put in the active ingredient but it was a good moisturizer, you'd still think you're getting good effect. The truth is there isn't much innovation going on in our industry. It's. It's kind of sad to be. But, you know, the products that you used in the 1990s, if you were even born then, are Pretty much the same products that we're using now, they have different stories, but the chemicals, there haven't been really any extraordinarily new chemicals. I look at shampoos, shampoos from the 1950s are the same stuff we're using right now. So things do not. In our industry, the innovation doesn't happen very much. And there's a bunch of reasons for that. I mean, it's expensive to do innovative research and development. So that's costs a lot of money up front. And it's not guaranteed that you put in all this money that you're going to have a successful product because, you know, the technology I worked on, the color lock, it worked great. It really does work great. But it was a, you know, market flop. No, nobody wanted to buy it. And also it's really hard to discover something new. There's just. We've looked at all these chemicals and also when you discover a new chemical, then you got to do safety testing. You can't do animal testing anymore. So it's really hard to get any kind of really new ingredient. And then if you do get an ingredient, there's no guarantee that the consumers will, you know, even care. Thus the life of a cosmetic chemist. And then the other thing is consumers are just, they're much more motivated by things like fragrances and brand images and advertising and TikTok influencers and stuff. As far as if the product works or not, that's really secondary to, you know, whether certainly whether they're going to try it. That's. That's doesn't even come to play. But after you use it for a bunch of times, you know, if you get into a routine and you like using something, you probably go back and buy it again. And you don't really think about how it's working. But it's really hard to make new technologies here like cell phones. They obviously new technology, you see new things, but a new shampoo or new skin lotion, you don't really notice. Consumers just don't. Consumers, Chemists? No, people. People don't notice really any differences in these products. Just really difficult to do. And mostly consumers, they don't care about how it works. They care more about how they perceive it to work. And thus is the life of a cosmetic chemist. And speaking of life, I think, I think I hear that music. So I guess I gotta get back to mine. I get out of this closet talking to myself. Thanks so much for listening. Valerie is going to be back next time and we can share stories of the great Thanksgiving holiday there. I'm heading up to Wisconsin with my in laws and it's always a fun time. You know, eating a good meal, playing cards and having some lively discussions. There should probably be some of those this year, especially in Wisconsin. Hey, if you get a chance, can you go over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review that's going to help other people find the show and ensure that we have a full docket of beauty questions. And speaking of questions, if you have a question you want answered, you can just record your voice on your smartphone and then email that to thebeautybrainsmail.com and if you don't want to use your voice, you could just send us an email@thebeautybrains gmail.com and we answer those too. Also, as I said, the Beauty Brains are on Patreon if you like the fact that we don't have advertisers here and we are able to give our nice, unbiased and financially unmotivated opinions. It's not free to run the show here. You know, we have hosting costs and time to edit and any various AI tools that we use. So anyway, if you appreciate the show and want to help support us, go to patreon.com the Beautybrain and subscribe at any level. You also can get a transcript of the show and we get special events and your questions are given a higher priority. And also you can follow us on our various social media accounts. On Instagram, we're hebeautybrains 2018 on X, we're still kind of there. We're at the Beauty Brains, although does anybody on X anymore? But we have moved over to Blue Sky. We are at Blue Sky. We're the Beauty Brains at Blue sky and we have a Facebook page and a TikTok page. Sometime maybe Valerie and I will start producing some of this social media stuff. It's just, you know, it's a lot. Anyway, thanks again for listening. And remember, as Valerie always says, hey, you want to take this one? Virtual Valerie, thanks again for listening. And remember, be brainy about your beauty. Thanks everyone. Kittens.