← The Beauty Brains
Loading summary
Transcript234 lines
- [00:00]
Perry Romanowski
Hi, I'm Perry and you're listening to the Beauty Brains. Hello and welcome to the Beauty Brains, a show where real cosmetic chemists answer your beauty product questions and give you an insider's look at the cosmetic industry. This is episode 382. I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and with me today is Valerie George. Hello, Valerie.
- [00:29]
Valerie George
Hi, Perry.
- [00:31]
Perry Romanowski
Hey, Valerie. This is our big near the year end show where we talk about trends, but we're also going to be answering some questions including what do we think of Oneskin products? Are there any good beauty finds in the EU that you can't find in the us Will hair water damage your hair over time? Do you have to wash the sweat out of your hair every time you exercise? And can a cream really firm or lift the neck? But first, some chit chat. Valerie, we're coming to the end of the year. How are you doing with all of your goals that you set out at the beginning of the year?
- [01:08]
Valerie George
I have to be brutally honest, I do not remember the goals that I set last year and I'm sure I wrote them down somewhere, but I got carried away with getting our lab set up with all the projects that I had with an incredible amount of travel for work, or not travel, as in the case when Frank ate my passport. But nonetheless, I've had a busy year and I assure you none of my goals got completed. However, I am getting caught up. I had some vacation time scheduled. I was supposed to be on a remote Pacific island and for reasons I cannot discuss, I'm not there. But I said, you know what, I was going to bring a big old stack of physical books with me to this island and read them. And so now I'm reading them at home.
- [01:54]
Perry Romanowski
Oh, well, that's nice. So it's a readcation, really.
- [01:58]
Valerie George
Exactly, yeah. And we're going through. We have some DVDs that we haven't watched or haven't seen in a long time and we're going to get rid of them. So we're watching them. So we're just kind of wrapping stuff up. But it's all. It's like when you're cleaning because someone's coming over and you only have 20 minutes to do it. Well, we only have 14 days left in the year to either read or get all these DVDs done. So you could say we're like rage cleaning or rage reading or rage watching. Yeah.
- [02:24]
Perry Romanowski
Yeah. Well, that sounds like fun. I too fell down on some of my goals.
- [02:30]
Valerie George
Well, you always have a lot of goals, so I think you need to give yourself a break. I mean, you have so many. I'm sure you got some of them done. What'd you do?
- [02:39]
Perry Romanowski
Oh, yeah, no, I got. I got most of that done. I mean, I kept my running streak alive despite having a significant hamstring injury for half the year. And while I didn't meet my reading goal of 70 books, I have read like 55 of them.
- [02:53]
Valerie George
Was one of them as long as Pride and Prejudice. Remember when you were reading that and it was like a million pages. You were reading that for months.
- [03:00]
Perry Romanowski
Pride and Prejudice was a long book, but not as long as War and Peace, which I also read.
- [03:06]
Valerie George
It's like four books in one.
- [03:07]
Perry Romanowski
Yeah. Which is a good book, actually. Although if you're gonna go with Tolstoy, though, I prefer Anna Karenina. Really?
- [03:15]
Valerie George
All right, so what else did you get done?
- [03:17]
Perry Romanowski
Well, you know, I. I wrote two albums of songs now that I discovered, like, AI generated music. So does it really count?
- [03:26]
Valerie George
No, it. It doesn't. And Mr. Cosmetic Chemist is in the music industry and could probably give you all the legal reasons why it does not count. Mostly for me, it's because it's with AI.
- [03:37]
Perry Romanowski
It's kind of like a helper, though, is. It's kind of like this. I look at it this way, right? If you were writing a book and you write it out, that's really how you should write it. But if you use a typewriter. Well, are you still writing your book? No, you're typing it. Or if you use a computer or word processor, that's not really writing a book.
- [03:58]
Valerie George
That is semantics.
- [04:01]
Perry Romanowski
No, that is just the range of use of technology.
- [04:06]
Valerie George
The best example would be if you were typing out something in Microsoft Word, and Clippy came along and said, hey, do you need help with your book? And you said, yeah, Clippy, actually, could you finish it for me? Then I could see the comparison.
- [04:20]
Perry Romanowski
Okay, well, like Now Clippy is ChatGPT, and ChatGPT write it for you. I should mention that I was in la. That was a good time there. We saw. I saw lots of cosmetic chemists, some interesting stuff there. But as far as how does this affect consumers and beauty products, I would say there's really nothing really terribly new.
- [04:44]
Valerie George
Yeah, you know, I was really sad to miss the show for social reasons, to be honest, because all my friends are there. I lived in LA for so long. It's my community. But as far as, like, the program went, eh, you know, I don't think there's anything groundbreaking that's going to hit shelves anytime soon or Anytime.
- [05:03]
Perry Romanowski
Yeah, well, it's always good to see all of my fellow cosmetic chemists and I look forward to the next one next year. But that's going to be in New York.
- [05:11]
Valerie George
I can't wait.
- [05:13]
Perry Romanowski
Speaking of next year, let's talk about last year and our predictions because we want to make predictions for next year. So let's go through our yearly predictions.
- [05:24]
Valerie George
Last year I predicted a few things and usually it's a trend, an ingredient and a celebrity launch. And I actually had two ish trends. One of them was the rise of allergy free products. And I predicted that there's going to be an increased availability of products catering to consumers with sensitivities to ingredients like coconut fragrance, essential oils, botanical extracts, etc. And I think there have been some.
- [05:52]
Perry Romanowski
Launches, I guess, I guess I would.
- [05:55]
Valerie George
Conversation around it, sure.
- [05:57]
Perry Romanowski
No, I think there's launches probably, although I can't think specifically of any.
- [06:03]
Valerie George
But it's the end of the year, we're tired.
- [06:05]
Perry Romanowski
But there's also so many products, so I mean, they probably are some specific brands.
- [06:12]
Valerie George
Now, are you gonna give me a win on this one?
- [06:16]
Perry Romanowski
I will give you partial credit.
- [06:19]
Valerie George
Okay. Okay.
- [06:20]
Perry Romanowski
Yeah, okay, I'll give you a win overall.
- [06:23]
Valerie George
All right.
- [06:23]
Perry Romanowski
Now what was your other trend?
- [06:25]
Valerie George
One, using ingredients with implicit benefits. And so basically I said a lot of brands incorporate ingredients into products with measurable benefits without explicitly making claims. And if I could go back in time, I probably would reshape this prediction to have like a more tangible outcome because I think where my mind was at, well, I'm gonna save it for next year's predictions.
- [06:55]
Perry Romanowski
Okay. Okay. Yeah, because this one is a little bit vague. Were people putting, I mean people kind of do this anyway, where people putting ingredients in a formula but not talking about them to get the benefits? I think people still talk mostly about the ingredients that they're gonna put in and they just try to find some clever way to make it not be a drug claim.
- [07:18]
Valerie George
Brands do want to say as much as they can. Now, as far as ingredients go, I predicted it was my second year in a row. Glycolipids, we're going to see more, hear more, and I think we actually did. So a glycolipid is a fermented surfactant that can be used in cleansing formulations, but it also can be used in non cleansing formulations because it impacts the acne microbiome as well as the dandruff causing microbiome to rebalance them and help relieve some of the symptoms associated with it. And I think I've seen a lot of brands using them.
- [07:58]
Perry Romanowski
Yeah, I think there has been an uptick in that. There was an article in Vogue which specifically mentioned glycolipids. But so, you know, and Vogue is like consumer level magazine. So I think. Okay, I'll give you a. I'll give you a win. Ish on that one.
- [08:15]
Valerie George
All right. Now, I did have a couple celebrity beauty line launches, and I felt like one of them was like kind of half true. Basically I said Taylor Swift possibly co branded with Travis Kelce, her athlete boyfriend. I'm surprised they're still dating, but nonetheless they are. Or Joe Jonas.
- [08:39]
Perry Romanowski
I mean, they like each other.
- [08:41]
Valerie George
Or Joe Jonas would launch a beauty line and Taylor and Travis have not. But Joe Jonas is a Zeomin injectable partner.
- [08:56]
Perry Romanowski
Oh, so he's just like a spokesperson for that.
- [08:59]
Valerie George
Yeah, yeah. I totally thought he would have done this, but maybe next year.
- [09:05]
Perry Romanowski
Okay, well, yeah. Okay. It's hard to predict beauty launches. All right, how about my trends were. I thought there was going to be a proliferation of AI generated content and brands. And just based on the images that I see now and the copywriting that you look on brands, there's a lot of people using AI to generate this stuff.
- [09:25]
Valerie George
Yeah, unfortunately, you get a point for this one.
- [09:28]
Perry Romanowski
Yeah, well, that was kind of a slam dunk. Easy one. Another one that I suggested was polyphenols would gain prominence as a skincare ingredient. I don't know. I don't think they're talking more about polyphenols than they have in the past. I mean, still talked about a bit.
- [09:51]
Valerie George
But yeah, I don't think it's more important than it was before.
- [09:56]
Perry Romanowski
Yeah, yeah. So overall, and then my ingredient, I said there would be a discovery of a new peptide for skin care.
- [10:04]
Valerie George
Okay. Did it come out?
- [10:08]
Perry Romanowski
You know, the industry has seen the development of a lot of novel peptides, and they came out at like in cosmetics and those now. I don't know. Have these things really gotten to the level of consumer knowledge or acceptance? No, but certainly brands, lots of brands have come out with novel peptides that may or may not do anything, but they certainly help to sell products.
- [10:35]
Valerie George
Well, all right, that's a good prediction.
- [10:38]
Perry Romanowski
And then finally, I predicted Jenna Ortega was gonna launch a beauty line. She's the actress from Wednesday.
- [10:46]
Valerie George
Okay.
- [10:47]
Perry Romanowski
And I predicted Timothee Charlemagne and Kelsey Grammer might be doing beauty product lines.
- [10:52]
Valerie George
Yeah, Kelsey Grammer came out of nowhere and it went nowhere.
- [10:55]
Perry Romanowski
That was my stretch one. Yes. But it turns out neither stretch, none, none of these were suggested to launch lines. So.
- [11:06]
Valerie George
But you know what? I feel like there were a couple big celebrity launches last year, and I feel like maybe not as many as before. In fact, a lot of celebrity brands in the past aren't doing well and. Or have closed. But I know the Beyonce line launched Secrid, as Mr. Cosmetic Chemist calls it, Sacred, as we call it. And I thought the products could have been very different. I actually was really disappointed in the quality of the formulations. As a person who formulates hair care products every day, and Blake Lively's line, Blake Brown, I actually thought it was very well done for the price point. It's at Target. It comes in really weird packaging. I thought the fragrance was great. The fragrance retention on the hair is actually really remarkable. I haven't seen fragrance retention like that before. I would get compliments walking around, and maybe for some, that's a negative if you don't like fragrance or you don't like that fragrance. But I was impressed by the price point and the quality.
- [12:06]
Perry Romanowski
You know, there's another cosmetic podcast that I will occasionally listen to, and they talked about the launching of all of these celebrity brands and how they were dying. And they were saying, this is good for independent beauty makers because these. Because it's not easy to launch these lines and not easy to keep these things going. And you indies are, you know, you're the ones who can do it. And I'm like, that seems very naive. I mean, the reason that a brand succeeds or fails is hard to say.
- [12:39]
Valerie George
Well, a lot of it is people have to know about you. You could have the best formula or product in the world. And if people don't know you exist, it's really hard to get traction and get out there. Google algorithms are very expensive to beat with SEO. It's a pay to play game. And the market's already really saturated, whether you're in skin, hair, or body or wherever you're at. And the thing that a celebrity has going for them is people know about them. Now the rest of that has to come into play where all the pieces have to fit together with the branding and the performance. But. But I would think the opposite.
- [13:15]
Perry Romanowski
And it also helps that if the celebrity cares. I think a lot of times you'll have this celebrity line. Somebody will come to them say, oh, we're gonna launch a line with you, and all we need is you to say, you know, sign your name on here and we'll give you 50% or we'll give you some percentage. And then they don't have really anything to do with it, except maybe the initial launch, but it's actually launched by a contract manufacturer or something.
- [13:41]
Valerie George
Well, overall, Perry, how would you say we did in our predictions? I'm feeling, like, not very good.
- [13:47]
Perry Romanowski
No, I think we were 50. 50. I mean, you know, it's very difficult to predict the future. It's a lot easier to predict the past, you know?
- [13:57]
Valerie George
Exactly.
- [13:58]
Perry Romanowski
Well, let's go on to this year's prediction. So we do three predictions. We do one general trend, one hot new ingredient, and one celebrity who's gonna launch a line. So let's start with our guesses this year. Do you have a trend that you want to say?
- [14:16]
Valerie George
I think UV protection is gonna be one of the next biggest things. I've actually done two talks on the matter. Well, the same talk, but to two different audiences. And I give an overview about why the sun is incredibly damaging to hair. UV is a part of that, but it's actually not the full culprit. So the talk basically tells the audience, you know, here's what happens and here's what you can do about it. I think we're going to see a lot of products readdressing this issue. It was really big about 20 years ago, and I think it's going to make a comeback.
- [14:49]
Perry Romanowski
All right, well, we'll take a look for that.
- [14:52]
Valerie George
I think we're going to see a plethora of TikTok hacks. It's nothing new. It's like, for example, lemon juice to lighten your hair, et cetera. Except I think people are going to take and misuse products more than usual and show you a new way to use them, which is probably not safe to use. It's been happening. I think we're going to see more of it. My second prediction, if I may have a second general trend prediction, is going to be that it's based off last year. A lot of brands are going to make claims and they won't have the proof to support it. And consumers will demand the testing. And only when they see the test are they going to say, great. Or they're going to say, wow, this brand doesn't have claims testing posted. You know, I can't believe them. I think there's going to be a lot of. Let me see the proof from consumers now. That being said, I just want to. Spoiler alert, everyone. Claim studies are designed to pass because you don't want to pay all this money for a test and show the product doesn't work. Right. So they're very cleverly designed. Now, some of them are legitimate, like moisture content in skin, hair breakage.
- [16:08]
Perry Romanowski
Those are also easy things to achieve.
- [16:11]
Valerie George
Exactly. But I think some of the more complex things, I mean, they're just designed in a way where you can make something look really great. That doesn't mean it performs well in real life. And conversely, I've had products that, you know, when we've piloted them and put them out in the field and tested them, people say this transformation in my hair is incredible. But they fail in clinical testing. So proof isn't everything. That's all I want to say. But consumers are going to demand it. What about you?
- [16:38]
Perry Romanowski
Okay. My trend prediction, and I only have one. I'm not an overachiever that I use. My prediction is this. There's going to be a lot more lawsuits of people suing natural cosmetic and personal care companies. And I'm going to go out on a limb and specifically say I anticipate seeing a class action lawsuit against Aveeno who uses natural actives as, you know, one of their marketing things.
- [17:09]
Valerie George
But the Aveeno ingredient, the o avenanthramides really works and it is natural.
- [17:16]
Perry Romanowski
No, I understand, but they also have petrolatum in there and mineral oil in their products. Remember how that guy just was sued because Dr. Squatch. Right, because he was using glucoside Decyl Glucoside. Right.
- [17:31]
Valerie George
Yeah, yeah.
- [17:31]
Perry Romanowski
And just because it's just not really doesn't exist in nature. Well, Aveeno, if you look at them, their other ingredients, you can't say they're natural. So I know they use the word natural in their websites and stuff. Well, I'm not saying anyone should do this, but I'm just saying that's my prediction that it will happen in the next year.
- [17:49]
Valerie George
You're right. These aren't going to go away. I actually have friends at brands that have gotten letters as well. It hasn't evolved to lawsuits, but it's been, you know, demand letters saying, oh, I've been harmed because you use capryllo, capric triglyceride, and that's not found in nature or whatever. So yeah, it's really frivolous. And I would love to. To see judges just stand up and say, this is so garbage. Don't even waste our time in court because these people do this for a living. They're not truly harmed by these types of matters. They're looking to get paid 10, 20, 50, $100,000.
- [18:27]
Perry Romanowski
Right.
- [18:28]
Valerie George
And it's, it's really disgusting that that's what people put their time towards, but whatever.
- [18:33]
Perry Romanowski
And it just seems to Be like a big company like them seems like a pretty sizable target. Now. The hard part is for them, they're also a big company with big lawyers. So they're easily. More easily to defend themselves.
- [18:47]
Valerie George
But job security, I guess we'll see.
- [18:50]
Perry Romanowski
All right, what's your ingredient prediction?
- [18:53]
Valerie George
I would say for the first time, I don't really have a specific ingredient category in mind, like surfactants, peptides, etc. And I see a lot of ingredients. I think the hottest ingredient trend is going to be to know where your ingredient came from, the geographical origin. And I think consumers are going to really want to know the answers to this. I actually think it's a really important topic. I think brands maybe might communicate it a little bit more. Maybe they won't, especially if tariffs are enacted to China, where a lot of companies do get their ingredients from. Not me, Canada, Mexico, which not a lot of ingredients come from. But I think it's going to be geographical statements and kind of being back in tune with the origin story.
- [19:47]
Perry Romanowski
All right, we'll see how that goes. It's nice and easy to quantify.
- [19:51]
Valerie George
All right, we'll see. What about you?
- [19:53]
Perry Romanowski
You know, in biology, there's this concept of extremophiles. Yeah, I've been seeing some, you know, just some things where they're getting these ingredients from extremophile bacteria. And there's this one called ectoin.
- [20:08]
Valerie George
Yeah.
- [20:09]
Perry Romanowski
It's an amino acid found in these. I think this is gonna be a big ingredient.
- [20:15]
Valerie George
You think ectoin is gonna be big? I actually am using a moisturizer from a raw material supplier of ectoin, and it's based on 2% ectoin. I'm pretty happy with using it. It's a prototype I just got.
- [20:26]
Perry Romanowski
There you go.
- [20:27]
Valerie George
Did you get this prototype, too?
- [20:29]
Perry Romanowski
I did not get this prototype.
- [20:30]
Valerie George
I figured you did. Yeah. No, but that's actually a really great. A great, very specific, measurable.
- [20:37]
Perry Romanowski
We'll see. We'll see. Because I think they're always looking for stories, and I don't think the extremophile story has been played out yet the way a lot of other things have been played out. So.
- [20:47]
Valerie George
Well, there's one raw material company, Lipowid, every ingredient is an extremophile. And they have these, like, really bizarro names, and maybe they're going to get some traction this year.
- [20:57]
Perry Romanowski
We'll see. If I'm right. They will. All right, finally, our celebrity prediction. Who do we got? Well, I've got two, by the way.
- [21:06]
Valerie George
Okay. Is it a Male and a female. Why don't you go first?
- [21:09]
Perry Romanowski
A male and a female. Okay. All right, I'll go first. All right. I think he's been around. I'm going to go with the male first. He's been around. I think he was in Game of Thrones. He was in the Last of Us. He was in the Mandalorian. He's going to be in the Fantastic Four.
- [21:26]
Valerie George
I do not know who this is.
- [21:27]
Perry Romanowski
The Gladiator. It's Pedro Pascal. I think he's going to launch a line or be the face of a line in the coming year.
- [21:36]
Valerie George
Oh, wow. Okay. My male pick. If I. If I would pick a male and a female, I'm actually gonna say Will Smith. Let me give you a couple reasons. He has not really been around since the slap.
- [21:49]
Perry Romanowski
Right.
- [21:49]
Valerie George
The incident I'm referring to is where he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars.
- [21:53]
Perry Romanowski
Exactly.
- [21:55]
Valerie George
And I feel like, you know, he can't really participate in any Academy events. You know, who's going to hire someone that could never win an Oscar, etc. Or vote or whatever. I don't know how the situation is.
- [22:07]
Perry Romanowski
Being handled, but Netflix would.
- [22:09]
Valerie George
But I think he's got a lot of time on his hands and he looks really great for his age. What if he had a little self care line?
- [22:19]
Perry Romanowski
Not bad. And actually he could go. It could be, you know, it could be a sunscreen because don't they have that slip slap slop in Australia?
- [22:28]
Valerie George
So that's bad. All right, what's your female prediction?
- [22:33]
Perry Romanowski
My female prediction? We loved her in Barbie. Margot Robbie.
- [22:38]
Valerie George
Oh, that is such a good one.
- [22:41]
Perry Romanowski
Oh, thanks.
- [22:42]
Valerie George
I was gonna say Jennifer Lawrence.
- [22:45]
Perry Romanowski
Okay, that's not bad. She's right in there. She's right in there.
- [22:48]
Valerie George
She's another person who's kind of disappeared for a couple years and I think she's gonna come back. She'll either have like a partnership or some kind of collaboration. Maybe not her own brand per se, but I'm digging it.
- [23:02]
Perry Romanowski
All right, Valerie. And you know how you hate AI as do some of our listeners, which I appreciate.
- [23:10]
Valerie George
Any listener who writes in and says the AI is terrible, especially the AI.
- [23:13]
Perry Romanowski
V. Well, I thought we would say. Okay, okay, ChatGPT, what is your predictions for a trend? An ingredient and a celebrity who's gonna launch a line.
- [23:26]
Valerie George
What did it say first?
- [23:28]
Perry Romanowski
It says for the trend, it's hyper personalization in beauty. Brands are gonna.
- [23:34]
Valerie George
So 10 years. Oh, my God. So 10 years old.
- [23:36]
Perry Romanowski
It's already done. Yeah. Okay. Okay, we'll see. Hot new ingredients, postbiotics so they think microbiome focused products have been trending. So postbiotics will be the next big ingredient. And ChatGPT, interestingly enough, I did this with both ChatGPT and the the Google one called Gemini.
- [24:00]
Valerie George
Okay.
- [24:00]
Perry Romanowski
And I said, what celebrity is going to launch their line? They both agreed on the same celebrity who's going to launch a line. They said, zendaya.
- [24:10]
Valerie George
Interesting.
- [24:12]
Perry Romanowski
So we'll see.
- [24:14]
Valerie George
I'm gonna change my female celebrity to Jenny McCarthy.
- [24:17]
Perry Romanowski
Jenny McCarthy?
- [24:18]
Valerie George
Yeah. Does she already have a line?
- [24:21]
Perry Romanowski
I don't know. I just remember her billing herself. She's the anti vaxxer who at one time was like the most downloaded image on the Internet.
- [24:29]
Valerie George
You know what, she already has a beauty line and I saw her at a trade show two years ago, so this makes sense. All right, so Zendaya, let's see what happens.
- [24:39]
Perry Romanowski
I will also say chatgpt said the Charlemagne guy who I predicted last year he was gonna launch a line.
- [24:46]
Valerie George
Do you know what? I bet you it combed all of the Internet and saw our podcast on your prediction.
- [24:54]
Perry Romanowski
It's like, oh yeah, Timothy, that is probably what happened. So we'll see next year we'll see if that happened. All right, are we ready to answer some questions?
- [25:04]
Valerie George
Let's go to beauty science questions.
- [25:11]
Perry Romanowski
First one comes to us from Mendoza, who is one of our patrons. Thank you so much for supporting us on Patreon. If you appreciate that we don't have commercials and we can talk about any brands we want, that's only because we're supported by you. If you want to support the show, go to patreon.com thebeautybrains and subscribe at any level. Alright? It says here you know how you guys are advert free and how wonderful that is. Hint, hint to anyone who hasn't joined their Patreon. Most of the other podcasts I listen to do and I'm kind of a sucker for the products that they shill because I guess they feel like friends vis a vis the parasocial relationship. So this oneskin brand is the latest thing to be pod promoted. And I just want to know, is there any point in trying this stuff besides lightly supporting the show? This special peptide, is that a thing?
- [26:04]
Valerie George
Well, we've had some questions on One skin before, primarily about their technology, that they have their OSO1 technology. They have a little video on the website, you can see how it works. They have this, you know, clinical studies on their products. They have, you know, allegedly, you know, which by the way, if you could guess my prediction A couple minutes ago. A lot of companies have clinical studies and they're designed to do really well and if the data were terrible, they wouldn't show it to you. They also have a couple scientific publications with their peptide in it. But then you also have to remember if someone is sponsoring a study where they have a product to sell, you know, how, how credible is the study that you're seeing? So we've had a lot of questions on that in the past. But as far as like the overall products, how they go, I actually think they look nice. I mean, you know, would I try face and body? No, but I actually would be interested in trying their face SPF just because it looks like a really nice texture. They also have a body version which is the same price as the face version but at a different size. So I probably, I would try it.
- [27:21]
Perry Romanowski
Yeah, I mean it, it reminds me of the ordinary, the black and white packaging. Pretty simple.
- [27:26]
Valerie George
Now the reason I say I, I would probably start with the SPF is it's, it's really affordable. There are other products. I mean it's like 120 bucks for a one time purchase, which to me for like the face serum for example, that's a really big buy in for a product that you're probably not going to see that much of a difference in if you already have a really good routine. So I like the SPF is a little bit lower priced because the, the market is tapped out on that. Like an SPF can only do what it can do. Right. And they, you know, there's a mid range price point for all that. So I would start there. The other products, I don't know if it's worth the money.
- [28:03]
Perry Romanowski
I mean, is it cheap? $56 for 40 mils.
- [28:07]
Valerie George
Well, as far as high end SPF goes, I think so, right?
- [28:10]
Perry Romanowski
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're right, you're right. So I mean a company like this, it's probably got decent products. I would not expect them to have any groundbreaking technology that you couldn't have gotten from Procter and Gamble or Unilever or L'Oreal or one of the big guys who actually have PhD researchers doing this stuff. Right?
- [28:32]
Valerie George
Yeah. Cleanser is a cleanser. Yeah. So I prob would pick one product from them where you're like, you know what? I'm not, I haven't really found something that I love. You know, whether it's SPF or an eye cream and then kind of splurge on it and then from there you'll know if the other stuff is worth it.
- [28:50]
Perry Romanowski
Yeah, yeah, I'm. Yeah. If you want to support the show, you know, not our show, but the show you're listening to, who's got a deal with them. You know, they're. I'm sure they're decent formulas, but to me, there's nothing particularly special about them. Okay, our next question is an audio question coming to us from Louisa.
- [29:10]
Valerie George
Hi, Beauty Brains, this is Louisa. I'm wondering if there are any beauty finds still left in Europe of things that you would recommend that you can't find in the US in the uk, France and Switzerland. Enjoy the show. Thanks so much for answering all my questions.
- [29:25]
Perry Romanowski
Well, thanks for that, Louisa. You know, when was the last time you were in the eu, Valerie?
- [29:30]
Valerie George
I was there. I couldn't go to in cosmetics this past year, which is where I usually go to the, you know, wherever the show is in the eu. It was in Paris last year, which, you know, I'm not sad to miss Paris, but, you know, I pop over to Germany and I would have to say, like, if I go to. If you go to, like, a Sephora or a really big department store, they kind of have all the brands already that are here in the US they pretty much have a global presence. I used to, in Germany, pick up this lip balm. Now you can get it in the U.S. thank God. But it's the La Roche Posay Kika plast B5 lip balm for dry lips. It is literally the best lip balm on the planet. I still have the German versions. I actually don't buy them in the US Because I. I stock up when I'm in Germany just in case the formulas are different, but it leaves your lips so soft, and anyone who has ever used it is in love with it. And I actually got the recommendation from another friend who had been to Germany in the past. So I love that. But as far as everything else goes, like, yeah, they're really cool indie brands that you can try if you go to, like, little boutiques and stuff like that. Yes. But none jump out at me. I. I did go to this store a couple years ago in cosmetics, and it was in Paris, actually. So it was two years ago, and I stocked up on a bunch of local stuff. And, you know, it kind of either smelled fatty or, like, the texture wasn't great. There was nothing that I was really blown over by. I would say that, you know, the sunscreens are interesting to try because there are some filters that they use that you can't get in the US but again, is it Mind blowing. Am I like, wow, my skin's so much more protected? No.
- [31:13]
Perry Romanowski
At most it leads to like an aesthetic difference because people say that the sunscreens in the United States are terrible compared to the rest of the world. I mean, as far as them working, they, they work. If it says SPF 50, it's going to be SPF 50. The biggest differences to me is just the aesthetic feel or the whitening or something like that. Those are the main differences, not whether it works or not. The US ones work.
- [31:38]
Valerie George
And in hair, you know, I granted my experiences primarily going to Germany and picking up stuff, but you know, when I walk into a store and I'm looking at what they have to offer on the shelves, it. It honestly really isn't much different from what you get in the us. Like, marketing departments are the same all over the world. And I would say the biggest difference is fragrances. Every geography, whether you're in Asia, the eu, the Middle east, they all have different olfactory preferences. So that's kind of neat to see what, you know, they're liking overseas. The shampoos are, to me are a little bit different because they don't foam as much. I think the foaming is a North American thing, whereas in Europe they like lower foam, but nothing mind blowing where it's like, wow, I have to pick this up. I mean, most of the things I get are for nostalgia, not because I'm like, wow, this is. I can't wait until I go to get this. Except for that lip balm.
- [32:33]
Perry Romanowski
And really there isn't just that much different as far as technology goes. It was interesting. I was involved in the rollout of Tresemme to the rest of the world. So we launched Tresemme in Europe and then we launched Tresemme in South America. And the only thing that we really changed in the formula was the fragrance. Because that, you know, you had to adapt the fragrance to the, to the populations that were there. But as far as the technology and things go, we pretty much had the same formula because people like the shampoo, you know, how it performs. So, yeah, it's hard to find anything really special. I could see a unique indie brand or something like that.
- [33:20]
Valerie George
Yeah.
- [33:21]
Perry Romanowski
But it's hard to give any specifics, but thanks for that question. Look at that, Valerie. We have another question from a patron.
- [33:30]
Valerie George
Our third question is from Lorena. Hi, Valerie and Perry. I need help with a product from a brand owned by Shiseido that is now viral on TikTok. I live next to a well known Japanese market and I've been using this brand for their shampoo. I like the product and it used to be $12 for a big bottle. Apparently now that it's Viral thanks to TikTok, I went to get my refill and the shelf is empty. In any case, I saw a leave in conditioner which is a spray. I prefer those since it leaves my hair lighter than creams. I loved it when I tried it and I went online to look for the ingredients in English since on the bottle it was only in Japanese. It's interesting that the second ingredient is ethanol. My questions are, would ethanol or this product damage my hair in the long run? Are there enough ingredients there to use it as a heat protectant? I don't use super high heat. Have either of you heard of this brand? What's the big deal about it? I'm so annoyed that I can't find it now. There's a link to the ingredients below and thank you so much.
- [34:26]
Perry Romanowski
Yeah, you know, I looked at this. It's Kyoko. I've not heard of the brand before. Of course I've heard of Shiseido before. So it's one of their brands. But I call up the website, I'm looking at it and I look at the pump that they're using, and I have a flashback to a project that I worked on 15 years ago that used that exact same pump, but in black.
- [34:49]
Valerie George
The trigger sprayer is so great because it's just like. It's like spraying a cleaning product onto your hair, right?
- [34:56]
Perry Romanowski
That's exactly the one. And just an interesting story about that we received. We were rolling out some Tresemme. It was some Tresemme spray or something like that. We're rolling it out. We got the packaging in from. I think. I think it was China supplied. We get it in from China and they had disinfected everything, but they used water, so.
- [35:20]
Valerie George
Oh, no.
- [35:22]
Perry Romanowski
Half of the pump sprayers were contaminated.
- [35:25]
Valerie George
With bacteria and now they're permanently entombed in a landfill somewhere, right?
- [35:30]
Perry Romanowski
They are, yeah. We just had to dump the whole. I mean, we were doing a big launch and we had to get rid of half of the sprayers.
- [35:37]
Valerie George
Oh, goodness, what a flop.
- [35:39]
Perry Romanowski
But that has nothing to do with this one except for the sprayer. But let's look at this.
- [35:43]
Valerie George
Well, in looking at the full list of ingredients, it is primarily water. The product's name is hair water. It also has ethanol as the second ingredient. So we would call this a hydroalcoholic spray. It also has glycerin, sodium lactate, Stear trimonium chloride, hydroxyethylurea lactic acid, camellia seed oil, lysine, sodium diloroyl glutamate, royal jelly extract, soybean seed extract, a couple solubilizers, isopropanol, which is another alcohol, disodium edta, ammonium lactate, butylene glycol, amodimethicone tocopherol, and some preservatives. Now, what's interesting about the ingredient list is that it looks like a chemist wrote down some shorthand and gave it to them.
- [36:31]
Perry Romanowski
Yeah.
- [36:32]
Valerie George
BG instead of butylene glycol, EDTA, 2NA instead of disodium EDTA. So I had to do a little interpreting here.
- [36:40]
Perry Romanowski
Sure, sure. And that's probably because it was interpreted from a Japanese or something.
- [36:46]
Valerie George
Maybe that's also true.
- [36:47]
Perry Romanowski
Yeah.
- [36:48]
Valerie George
Although bg.
- [36:50]
Perry Romanowski
Yeah. I mean, they have lysine NA and they're like. You mean sodium.
- [36:56]
Valerie George
Exactly.
- [36:57]
Perry Romanowski
All right. But as far as the ingredients go.
- [36:59]
Valerie George
Yeah. I can assure you this product is probably fine to use. Most of the ingredients in there are either to get another ingredient in or to stabilize the PH of the product or to preserve the product. And the true thing that's doing the work on the hair is probably the stear trimonium chloride. It is a conditioning agent. And so when this product says it's a hair conditioning water, I probably really believe that's probably very super lightweight. Probably some good wet comb and good dry feel capabilities on it. I don't think the ethanol is going to do any harm in the long term because it's not like you're soaking the hair in ethanol and keeping it in a closed container. If that were the case. Yeah. The ethanol would pull out lipids and proteins and other stuff in the hair, almost like an extraction. But if you're out in the open atmosphere, the ethanol is evaporating pretty quickly and it's not taking anything with it.
- [37:55]
Perry Romanowski
Right. Evaporates right off. There's one other ingredient here that might have some effect and that's the amodimethicone. Now, I know it's low in the list, but it could have an impact.
- [38:06]
Valerie George
Yeah. And you only need a very tiny bit in a leave on product.
- [38:09]
Perry Romanowski
Right.
- [38:09]
Valerie George
Now. Can this act as a heat protectant? I would say absolutely not. I definitely recommend. Would. I would recommend to couple this with a heat protectant if you're gonna style your hair that way.
- [38:19]
Perry Romanowski
I have to say I've never seen royal jelly extract.
- [38:23]
Valerie George
I think that's a Asian beauty thing.
- [38:25]
Perry Romanowski
Oh, is it?
- [38:26]
Valerie George
Yeah. I've seen it before, but I've never been called to use it, so it's.
- [38:30]
Perry Romanowski
Not gonna damage your hair. But you know, it's a pretty lightweight formula. Looks very popular though. Sold out and only 10 bucks. So it's probably.
- [38:39]
Valerie George
Yeah, great price. I actually can't wait to try the shampoo. I actually think I'm gonna pick some up since. And Celerena likes it.
- [38:46]
Perry Romanowski
Alrighty, our next question comes from Leona. Hi, beauty brains. I love your content and so grateful you're willing to share your insight. I have learned a lot. My question is I have recently gotten into long distance triathlon, which means I'm exercising daily and during heavy blocks two times a day. I always shower and wash my hair after sweating. I know from your show that water is very damaging to hair. Do you have any thoughts about if you need to wash your hair after every sweaty session? And do you have any recommendations for ingredients to look for in hair products that are UV protectants? I find there are a lot more leave in conditioners and heat protectant products advertised and not as many UV are they the same. Thanks so much, Leona. Well, isn't this interesting? This is like right in line with what's your prediction? What? What's going on here?
- [39:38]
Valerie George
I know, I know. Okay, well, let's tackle the first issue. Does the hair need to be washed every day after you go on a run or work out or do triathlon type activities?
- [39:51]
Perry Romanowski
Well, I can report on myself. No, I don't wash my hair after every run. But just because I do it doesn't mean that that's what people should do.
- [40:00]
Valerie George
Well, I used to work out all the time at these gyms in la. They were, you know, really high intensity fitness type stuff. And in fact, one of the gyms used to be Jason Walsh's gym. He just trained Jake Gyllenhaal for the upcoming movie Roadhouse, the remake and Jake Gyllenhaal. Okay, so the workouts I used to do weren't like Jake Gyllenhaal get ripped types, but they were like the real deal because it was like the same guy. It was his studio. Okay. I would be very sweaty and my hair would be, I would say soaked, but it wasn't greasy. And I actually would not wash my hair. I actually would distribute the sebum, the sweat throughout my hair to get it off of my scalp so I looked less greasy and it was more distributed. And when my hair dried, it was actually very soft from all the things that came out in my sebum. And I would Say it looked pretty good. Now, if your sweat is less water and is more like, wow, I'm a grease ball, then I would say you need to wash your hair. But sweat really is just water, minerals, couple little things from your sebum, it evaporates and goes away. So as long as your hair isn't too gunky afterwards, if you don't think you need to wash it, there's technically nothing physically wrong that could go. Now, if you did that for a week or two weeks, one, I would wonder if you were okay. But two, then you would have some kind of build up. But if you're talking about, you know, every other day washing your hair, if you work out every day, I'm sure it's fine.
- [41:38]
Perry Romanowski
And even if you did wash your hair every time, I'm not sure how much more damaging that's gonna be.
- [41:45]
Valerie George
So unless you have lightened or processed or permed or color treated hair, if your hair were already damaged, then it would be a problem. But if you have relatively healthy hair, I think that's a good point.
- [41:58]
Perry Romanowski
Yeah, yeah. And I was just thinking of it in terms of your hair getting wet. Like when you sweat, it's gonna be wet. And then when you wash it, the addition of the extra surfactant is not gonna add much more damage. Although you're probably adding more water too, so. But you don't have to do it every day, but it's not terribly damaging either.
- [42:23]
Valerie George
Now, as far as UV protection goes, this is a topic I've been very passionate about for years.
- [42:28]
Perry Romanowski
You are.
- [42:29]
Valerie George
And in my previous life, I tried to tell that marketing team, every hair type needs UV protection. It's not for just people who color their hair. If you have naturally colored hair, you need UV protection. If you have artificially colored hair, you need to protect it from ultraviolet. If you have gray.
- [42:49]
Perry Romanowski
If you're bald, you need protection.
- [42:51]
Valerie George
Well, yes, if you have gray hair, you also need UV protection. This is something everyone needs. It's so incredibly terrible for your hair. And the problem is, you may say, well, I don't live in a super sunny community, or I'm not a beach volleyball player, or I'm not training for triathlons like, like Leona. But you have so much intermittent sun exposure every day. You put sunscreen on your skin. Why aren't you putting it on your hair?
- [43:18]
Perry Romanowski
All good questions. I would maybe push back. One of the reasons is when it you, if you don't put sunscreen on your skin, you get burned or you get tanned. So there's some Obvious change that happens.
- [43:31]
Valerie George
Well, people who are concerned about getting old and wrinkly put on sunscreen every day.
- [43:36]
Perry Romanowski
Absolutely. But what I was getting to, though, is that you don't put sunscreen in your hair. It's hard to notice what the negatives are immediately.
- [43:48]
Valerie George
That's true. It does. Yeah. It does take some time to manifest itself. But it is important to have a UV protectant.
- [43:57]
Perry Romanowski
But that does raise a good question. What are the. The signs that your hair has been UV damaged?
- [44:05]
Valerie George
It can be stiff, rough to the feel, lack, shine. When you comb it, you can have lots of breakage, mechanical damage. You know, I know a lot of it. When you, when you photograph hair up close using different lights, you can visualize structural differences within the hair fiber. But basically, UV light destroys the structure and health of your hair. It doesn't actually impact color directly. That comes from something else. So if you care about having healthy hair, especially if you chemically treat your hair with color lightener, perms, whatever, thermo, and even straighten your hair with a heat, you definitely need a UV protectant because you've already compromised the structure and strength of your hair with those treatments. UV light is just going to be like a double whammy on it.
- [44:59]
Perry Romanowski
So are we saying that we should just have. We should just recommend that people take spray sunscreens and just spray their hair, or is there.
- [45:06]
Valerie George
Well, the reason sunscreens aren't really great for hair is one. I mean, they do work. There have been sunscreens have been used in hair products for, I don't know, 50, 60 years. Like the benzophenones have been used in hairsprays since the 70s at least. And those are sunscreen actives. And they actually do show protection for the hair when used in a sunscreen. But people don't like to use those anymore. Traditional sunscreens like ethylhexyl methoxycinamate or maybe even avobenzone, those also would work if they could stick to the hair. But the problem is they're kind of greasy feeling. And the last thing someone wants to put on their hair is anything that's greasy or weighing it down. So you have to look to other materials. There are some extracts that you could look for. Some polyquaterniums have been shown to provide some protection.
- [45:58]
Perry Romanowski
Well, there is one other issue that I see when you're using this sunscreen for your skin, for your hair. You know, when you put it on your skin, you rely on creating a film to get the protection. But if you put it on your Hair. Once the fibers start moving, that's gonna break any kind of film that you have. So it's not gonna be continuous anyway. And so that's going to be damaging.
- [46:20]
Valerie George
Exactly. One of the challenges is that film formation, it's very hard to get in here. It works in hair sprays because you have styling polymers in there, so they lock everything onto the hair fiber. But in other products, you have to use the same strategy that you use for conditioning hair, which is using a positively charged material. And this positively charged ingredient will stick to your negatively charged hair and help the sunscreen active attach. And so some of the positively charged ingredients that you can for are polyquaternium 59, quaternium 95, polyquaternium 68, polysilicone 19 centimeterpropyl, trimonium chloride. And there's even one company that actually encapsulates sunscreen actives. And those will stick to the hair because the encapsulation is positively charged. So it's really cool. Now, some other extracts will work, but they can't be any old extract. It has to be an extract that's been studied and standardized and comes from a very specific supplier. So, for example, Rooibos tea is really high in polyphenols, like Perry's prediction last year. And that actually is really great for UV protection on hair. But it's not any old Rooibos extract. It has to come from a very specific manufacturer that guarantees the amount of this polyphenol in the product, guarantees it sticks to hair, tannins stick to hair. So it's very specific.
- [47:49]
Perry Romanowski
And sadly, consumers would not be able to know that.
- [47:53]
Valerie George
Consumers wouldn't be able to. And that's where you have to rely on the brand to show you or tell you that they did clinical studies for UV protection. It's not enough to say color safe because you don't know how they did that testing.
- [48:05]
Perry Romanowski
Right. All right, looks like you have time for just one more question from Jolene. She says, can a cream really firm or lift the neck?
- [48:15]
Valerie George
I think it can temporarily. So there are film forming ingredients that you can use. A handful of suppliers have them, and basically they form a film on the skin, and the film kind of contracts a little bit.
- [48:30]
Perry Romanowski
Like Shrinky Dinks.
- [48:32]
Valerie George
Like Shrinky Dinks to tighten the skin or kind of pull it up a little bit. And so it offers this, like, temporary firming and lifting mechanism that goes away once you wash it. Now, other creams may claim to firm skin over, but it would be over time. Right. So for Example, retinol can stimulate collagen production, which can firm skin over time. But one, it can only do so much. It's not an immediate effect. And it takes, if at all, months and months and months and months.
- [49:02]
Perry Romanowski
That's right. I mean, you're fighting gravity here, so that's very difficult. Actually, there, the two spots that when you look at people, the two spots where you age the most are on the back of your hands and your neck.
- [49:17]
Valerie George
Do you think I have crepey skin right here?
- [49:20]
Perry Romanowski
No, you don't have crepey skin.
- [49:22]
Valerie George
Are you sure? I don't need a firming neck cream?
- [49:25]
Perry Romanowski
I don't. I mean, I don't think you need one.
- [49:27]
Valerie George
I'm gonna ask Sara Bellum, get her.
- [49:30]
Perry Romanowski
Over here for the next show. You can, Sarah Bellum, but I hear the music.
- [49:36]
Valerie George
Well, 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. And speaking of, wherever you find your podcast, we're going to go over over some of our stats next year to tell you how Beauty Brains trended.
- [49:54]
Perry Romanowski
That's right. And if you have a question, just record it on your smartphone and email it to the beautybrainsmail.com or you can also use the form that's in the show notes. A lot of people might not notice that, but in the show notes, you just click on the form, it comes up a Google form and you can put your question right in there.
- [50:12]
Valerie George
The Beauty Brains are also on Patreon. If you would like to support, support the show and keep it ad free. Even though some of our listeners apparently like ads, we need at we. We need sponsorship money to do that because there are some basic costs with running the podcast. Head over to patreon.com forward/the beautybrains. To subscribe in any level.
- [50:33]
Perry Romanowski
And you know, as a patron, we prioritize your questions and we also give you a transcript of the show. You can also follow us on our various social media accounts. We're very active. How active are we?
- [50:49]
Valerie George
I would say inactive.
- [50:52]
Perry Romanowski
We have them, but next year, our new goal next year is that's a resolution.
- [50:57]
Valerie George
We're gonna save it for the next show.
- [50:58]
Perry Romanowski
There we go. All right. Well, on Instagram, we're hebeautybrains2018. On x, we're hebeautybrainS. We were also on Blue sky and we are the Beauty Brains on Blue sky and we have a Facebook page, and we also have Tick Tock. Although I saw, you know, Tick Tock didn't win their thing in the Supreme Court, so they might be banned. Tic Tac might be gone next year.
- [51:20]
Valerie George
You know what? There? I just lost one of my trends. Dang it. I should be paying more attention to the news. Hey, Perry, speaking of music, did you get the request from one of our listeners that they want to know about the music at the end of the show because they can't get it out of their head and they love it.
- [51:38]
Perry Romanowski
Yeah, that's. You can find that on the on the Porch Kitty album, because I think a lot of times I will put a Porch Kitty song at the very, very end of the show.
- [51:49]
Valerie George
You're gonna have to publish that so they can find it.
- [51:52]
Perry Romanowski
I will do that.
- [51:53]
Valerie George
All right. Well, thanks again for listening, everyone. And remember, be brainy about your beauty.
- [51:59]
Perry Romanowski
Thanks, everyone. Kittens.
- [52:31]
C
On the picnic tabletop he waits the needle with a soft slide 8. Curiosity draws him near yet light fear keeps him aware he watches from afar while he contemplates the stars among the tomcats he holds his ground getting their challenges his heart's not bound but the girl cats his gentleness is found in the company's peace is profound Pause and reflect in the twilight's glow now it's in the line where the wild winds blow Cautious yet curious he treads so slow Seeking the secrets that the night will show Times he ventures old and new at times he treats to the new he knew in his world the shadows trust is few but every step he takes he grows and accrues Pause and reflect in the twilight's glow Balancing the line where the wild winds blow Cautious yet curious he treads so slow Seeking the secrets that the night will show so watch Finney too as he moves with grace in every step A story traced through caution and curiosity he finds his place in the twilight Dance his quiet embrace Pause and reflect in the twilight's glow Balancing the line where the wild winds blow Cautious yet curious he treads so slow Seeking the secrets that the night will show.