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- [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 394. I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and due to our travel schedules, this is going to be a solo episode today. Valerie will certainly be back with me next show. Well, all right. Right now I'm on the road, coming to you from Sofia, Bulgaria. It's a lovely place here in Bulgaria. They've got mountains with even some snow still on it, and they've got lots of snails. They just come walking around and during the day it's very strange. And a lot of good food. And, you know, apparently they say they were the ones who invented Greek yogurt. Go figure. All right, well, I'm here for a conference that's put on by the Bulgarian Society of Cosmetic Chemists. You know, people all over the world really want to look and smell good, so I shouldn't be surprised that they're having a meeting here. Who knew that being a cosmetic chemist would involve so much world travel? I really like it. It's a lot of fun. I've gotten to see a lot of different places and more importantly, met a lot of interesting people in the area of cosmetic science. All right, enough with the chitchat. Let's get on to the regular show. Since this is a solo show, I think it's just easiest for me to go through and just answer questions.
- [01:52]
Anna
Hi, Beauty Brains. My name is Anna and I recently started to listen to your podcast and I am hooked. From each episode I learn new stuff I didn't know about, so keep up the good work. My question to you. I recently bought a new sunscreen from Beauty of Joseon. I love it and it works really well for me. But I was still curious about the ingredients list as always, and I didn't see any well known preservatives. Only ethyl hexylglycerin was mentioned now in Europe. Ethyl hexylglycerin is not listed as a preservative. Does it have the same effect as, for example, phenoxyethanol or parabens? Or does it need another preservative to keep the formula stable? Thank you so much and can't wait to hear your next episode.
- [02:34]
Perry Romanowski
Well, thanks, Anna. Let's see this Beauty of Joseon. And I don't know why these companies make such a big deal about not using proper preservatives. I know the scares about parabens and Ferrari formaldehyde donors has really scared off a lot of consumers, but boy, they really worked well as preservatives for systems. They were effective, they were cheap, they were safe. But you know, they developed a bad reputation and so now we've gone to these alternative preservatives which I find a bit dubious. Well, let's see. First of all, this is a sun protection product and it's must be produced in Europe because it's not using the same kind of UV protectants that you get in the United States. We just have a lot fewer UV protectors that you can use as a formulator in the United States. Around the world, in Europe and Asia, Australia, they have a lot more options for formulators. But you know, as long as you're using sunscreen and it has an spf, you're safer than if you're not using sunscreen. But let's look at this product. What are they using? They use it for the. That's a UVA protection they get from the diethyl amino hydroxybenzoyl hexylbenzoate and they have methylene bis, benzotriazolido, the tetra. I don't even know why I'm reading these off here. Then for UV protection they've got the ethyl hexyltriazone, diethylhexylbutaminotriazone and then methyl bisbenzoil, triazoil tetramethylp butylphenol that works for both UVA and UVP protection. Anyway, if this was the United States, they'd be using zinc oxide and octocinamide. But these are approved in the eu, which is what mainly is working making this product work. All right, but you asked about the preservatives. Let's look at that and you are correct. Ethyl hexylglycerin is in there. And it's, you know, it's commonly called a preservative, but let's be frank, it's really more of a preservative booster. It's not a preservative on its own, but you know, it's believed to enhance the effectiveness of some other antimicrobials. And so in that way it can be part of a system to protect your formula from bacterial or other microbial growth. So what else do they have in there? It looks like they have one, two hexanediol, which is a humectant and that also doubles as the preservative booster, can help inhibit microbial growth and that's especially effective against yeast and bacteria, which are some of the main concerns. And they have pentalin glycol, too, another ingredient. You know, this one's multifunctional, but it can help to hydrate the skin, but it also can help preserve the product just by creating a environment in the formula that is a little more hostile to growth. But, you know, as they say from Jurassic park, life finds a way. And so if you don't have a good preservative system, you know, it might lead to some contamination. There's some other stuff they include in here some fermented extracts which some people consider supportive of preventing microbial growth, like lactobacillus, pumpkin ferment extract. They have soybean ferment extract, rice ferment, lactobacillus, rice ferment extract, asparagus ferment, all these different ferments. I, you know, this is the area where people are trying to develop preservatives. And what they go to are these fermentation things of different kinds of extracts, which presumably there's a yeast that creates some antimicrobial ingredients while it's fermenting. It's a little bit dubious to me. So there really aren't any traditional preservatives in this formula like parabens or phenoxy ethanol. But in some systems, you know, these ingredients and this blend of ingredients can inhabit bad microbes. They're these use of ferments are often part of this trend called bio preservation. And it's supposed to be gentler on your skin. Unfortunately, it's not as effective at killing microbes, so that can be a big problem. You know, I personally think that stuff they're using in this formula is not particularly good. And I wouldn't have a lot of faith that the product is going to be well preserved for a very long time. But obviously the company feels different because they're selling it and that's the formula they went with. You know, I would just say make sure, if you're going to use it, just make sure you smell it each time before you use it. Because if it starts to smell kind of weird, that means microbial growth is happening. Unfortunately, that does not mean that it always is going to smell weird when you have microbial growth happening. But that's one good indicator. Or the color of the thing changes, that's another good indicator. But I would say based on this ingredient list, I might worry a bit that it's going to become contaminated pretty quickly. And so, you know, I wish Companies would stick with parabens and formaldehyde donors. But you know, I my concern when formulating is the safety of the product. Not everybody is concerned with that. And when I say safety of the product, I say it's more safe to have a product that is not going to be contaminated with bacteria and yeast than to have a product that might be contaminated but it doesn't contain ingredients that people are more afraid of. And you know, people are afraid of parabens for not any good proven reason. But in the cosmetic industry we sell things through marketing and it just these Lactobacillus ferments, they sell products, they look a little safer or a little less scary than something that has methylparaben in it, for example, even though the methylparaben in my view is the safer product. Alright, let's move on to the next question. This one comes to us from Chiara and let's hear what Chayara has to say.
- [09:04]
Anna
Hi beauty brains, what are your thoughts on topical Q10? I have seen a few Q10 products recently in either serum or cream vehicles from US brand Timeless and Nivea. Is the scientific data there or are these brands riding the trend wave?
- [09:20]
Perry Romanowski
You know, I remember working with Coenzyme Q10 way back in the day. You see, I was on the St. Ives brand and we were trying to expand our skincare line because the main one we had was collagen and elastin. You know, it was the St. Ives collagen. Elastin is a good product. It was our best seller. Well, that Apricot scrub was the best seller. But as far as moisturizers go, this was collagen. Elastomer was our best seller. We wanted to boost sales, of course, and coenzyme Q10 was the hot ingredient in the late 1990s. So that's how long that's been around. And anyway, my boss wanted me to find out some way that we could include that in the St. Ives product and then also get a patent pending claim. And so I had to do a bunch of these experiments which are kind of goofy, just to find anything that could you could possibly patent about Coenzyme Q10 and some of the other ingredients that were in our formulas. And I did actually find something related to this bouncing test that I came up with. When you blend it with a cellulose and the Coenzyme Q10, you can make things bounce different. But you know, it was, we ended up getting putting patent pending on there and it helped with. I never actually got the patent because they just Kind of abandoned it over time. But, you know, that's one of the pretty common tactics that companies will do. So if you see patent pending on there, to a consumer, that means, oh, you must be just days away from getting a patent. And no, what it really means is that some scientists found something that was maybe novel about it and they were so convinced that they would at least submit the patent application. Then something could be patent pending in applications for, you know, years really. And, but you still have that patent pending. And that goes a long way in the consumer's mind of being convincing about the product, something special about the product if it has patent pending. But honestly, when you see patent pending on products, it really shouldn't impress you. It doesn't really mean much. But coming up with some meaningless patent that maybe points out some novel thing, but it's not really relevant to the way the product works. It's pretty common tactic for beauty companies to do that just so they can put the words patent pending on there because, you know, consumers find patent pending impressive. All right, but let's say the, let's talk about the Coenzyme Q10 first. Coenzyme Q10, it's also called ubiquinone, and it's a fat soluble molecule that's naturally found in your body, especially in places like your skin and your heart and your muscles. It plays a key role in producing the energy inside cells and specifically in the mitochondria, which as far as cellular organelles go. Mitochondria, I would say, is my favorite. Although I do kind of like the ribosomes as kind of. Well, I mean, they do translate and make the protein, but. Well, anyway, anyway, this mitochondria is where coenzyme Q10 is mostly found, and there it acts as an antioxidant which is going to help protect your cells from damage. Now, scientists thought that since coenzyme Q10 levels naturally decline with age and sun exposure, if you applied topically, you know, that might boost the skin's defensive against oxidative stress. That could reduce the signs of aging and maybe improve energy production in your cells. You know, basically giving, you know, the tired aging skin a little extra boost and protection. So that's the theory there. And whenever you're looking at anti aging ingredients, it's always good to look for the theory. There should be a theory why something works. And so at least it has that now on paper, coenzyme Q10 sounds kind of interesting, but if you dig into the actual science about it, the story gets a lot less exciting. There was some early research showing that coenzyme Q10 could be absorbed a little bit into the skin and might help protect against oxidative stress. But when it comes to solid proof, like a big, well run, double blinded, placebo controlled thing and seeing some sort of major wrinkle reduction or anti aging effects, there just isn't anything there. Most of the studies are really small or they're just short term things, or they're done by companies that basically are publishing stuff because they want to sell products. That is the problem in the cosmetic industry. Whenever you see research about ingredients or products, you're only seeing stuff that is positive. And so if they run a study and they don't find anything good about it, they just don't publish. So everything you see there is filtered through this positive bias. And so that should give you a little pause about the things you see and especially give you some pause when the product and the research is published by a company that's trying to convince you of something. So that gets you to buy a product. So, you know, stay skeptical out there, people. All right, well, brands like Timeless and Nivea are definitely leaning hard into the antioxidant and the anti aging marketing wave of coenzyme Q10. Nivea in particular has made a really big part of their business coenzyme Q10 creams. But you know, the science there, in my view, it hasn't really caught up and it's mostly just hype. So Basically, is Coenzyme Q10 a complete scam? No, I wouldn't say that. I mean, it probably is an antioxidant, it probably is doing something. I just don't think it's something that you're going to notice very much. You know, it certainly isn't a magic bullet for skin. And when put in the context of a moisturizer, it's not going to look much different than if you just used a moisturizer. But having said all that, if you like the way the product that you feels that you're using and has coenzyme Q10 and you think it works, that's great. Just, you know, know that the benefits are probably coming more from the moisturizing ingredients than they are actually from the Coenzyme Q10. You know, there are other ingredients which have better evidence behind them. Maybe retinols, niacinamide, may, yeah, vitamin C, I don't know. I remain skeptical of vitamin C, but some, you know, not everybody does. So anyway, those three ingredients have at least more proof behind them than Coenzyme Q10. So if you're looking for the benefits that you think you're getting from Coenzyme Q10, you might look for some other ingredients. All right, let's move on to the next question. Zipping through here. This one comes to us from Samantha.
- [16:26]
Anna
I've heard you guys talk about how you shouldn't buy online products, but this product used to be sold at Target in stores and now seems to be only online. So I'm curious about your thoughts and if you think this could actually help reduce hair loss or even new growth. Also, can shampoos actually do anything since you rinse them out? Thanks.
- [16:47]
Perry Romanowski
All right, Samantha, first of all, the products that are sold online, that is true. We do often give the advice that just be wary of products bought online. Now, having said that, if you're getting it through an online source that you have faith in, like an online store that you bought from before, or like Target online or Walmart online, you can feel fairly confident in those products. Just something like Amazon, you know, for a product like personal care products, I'd have a little less faith in that because that's coming from. It might be coming from Amazon, but it could just be coming from some person who got a counterfeit version of the product that you're buying online. You know, for a lot of things that probably would be more trouble than it's worth to get a counterfeit version of something you could just get at the store. But, you know, I'm just a little weary of buying products online, so. But this product that you asked about, this is the Pura D or hair thinning therapy shampoo. And I'm taking a look at it and the first thing I notice is that their label is, are the ingredient label. They are not following the rules because, you know, whenever you see aloe vera leaf juice as the first ingredient in something like shampoo, you can be confident that that company does not know how to label their products. The first ingredient in a shampoo should be water because it's mostly water. In fact, shampoos are probably 80 to 90% water. The rest of it is detergent and then, you know, some other conditioning ingredients or formula, aesthetic adjusters, preservative fragrances, that sort of thing. Anyway, in this formula they're using sodium lauryl glucosides. Okay, so they're going with a sulfate free shampoo. They're using the cationic conditioner bis hydroxyethyl diamonium chloride. I generally don't like to mix a cationic surfactant in with a Anionic surfactant, which is what they're doing here. So this foam, I don't think the foam is going to be particularly good in this. They have a lot of oils in it too. So. But the question here is, you know, is this going to help reduce hair loss or even inspire new growth? No, this isn't something that you can get much benefit from from a shampoo, you know, because especially since they just rinse right out and they have like a conflicting thing. A shampoo is designed to remove things from your hair. And so when a shampoo is designed to put something in your hair, it that makes it clean your hair less good. Now, the exception might be two in one shampoos that are delivering silicones to your hair. Those do a good job of at least delivering the silicones. But I would say that the cleaning of your hair is not as good from a two in one, but that, you know, maybe you can make a good two in one that cleans your hair pretty well. But as far as creating a shampoo that's going to leave ingredients on your hair that are going to help with hair thinning or maybe inspire new growth, nah, there's no good evidence of that. I know I worked on a brand where we had a deal with Minoxidil, we had our Men's Consort line, and Minoxidil is essentially Rogaine. And you were able to incorporate Rogaine into the shampoo. But really all that happened was it just got rinsed right off and it went down the drain, which is what happens in shampoos. That's what's supposed to happen. So it wasn't a terribly effective delivery system. More effective. If you're going to use a product like that, you'd want to get it from your hair conditioner or even better from a leave in conditioner because then you know that the active ingredient is sticking around. But as far as active ingredients in this Pura d hair thinning Pura Dior Hair Thinning shampoo, I'm not seeing anything. They just have these extracts and these other unproven ingredients. So I would not expect this to help very much with reducing your hair loss or even inspiring new hair growth. Okay. You know, the only thing that really works for that as far as topicals go, is Minoxidil. Nothing else is really pretty proven. Our next question comes to us from Laura.
- [21:33]
Anna
Hey, beauty brains, would you please take time during an episode to share your unbiased list of top skin and hair ingredients that stand out? I understand the basic premise of cleaning, moisturizing, retinol and the importance of daily sunscreen. But what about any specific recommendations to target issues such as aging, dryness, etc. Thank you.
- [21:55]
Perry Romanowski
Well, you know, interestingly enough, I was just asked by a reporter for the same kind of thing and we sat down and we talked about it and the article was published. Let's see, where was it published? It was published in Women's Health. The article called the only four skincare ingredients proven to work according to research look for these powerhouses. That was published a couple weeks ago in April. So what did she come to? So let's say the first one that we said was effective and you know, you mentioned this already, is sunscreens. Sunscreens are proven to work and they are proven to make your skin look better and protect you from the damage of UV radiation. If you look at the main things that cause people's skin to look older, it's gonna be UV radiation. And of course, if you're a smoker, that too. So the first two things you want to do to make sure your skin stays youth, youthful looking is use sunscreen and don't go to tanning beds. That's terrible for your skin, but use sunscreens and don't smoke. Now in the United States there are really only like eight, eight sunscreens that are active ingredients that are commonly used around the world. Europe has a lot more. Asia and Australia they have more. But if it's a sunscreen and it says SPF values on it, it's going to be effective. And so that's an ingredient that works, I would say those ingredients. Now there hasn't been a lot of additional research there, but when these things come out, they can demonstrate that these sunscreens work. And it's pretty well established that as far as preventing the view of your skin looking older, wearing sunscreen and staying out of the sun is probably the most important thing that you can do. Okay, what else? You did mention retinoids too. And I say retinoids. I would say these are probably the second most effective anti aging topical ingredients that you can use. These are vitamin A derivatives. And as far as things go, skin, aging and acne, these are considered by a lot of people to be the gold standard. And you know, they can almost have drug like effect. In fact, some types of retinoids are drugs that you have to buy. Retinoic acid, tretinoin, that's actually get a, you get a prescription for. But the, there are derivatives of retinol which then can be converted to retinoic acid when they're topically applied. Things like retinol, retinaldehyde, retinol palmitate, retinol, propionoate and adapalene. Of these they don't all have the same effectiveness. I think retinaldehyde is probably the second most, although retinol is very popular too. So those are the second most effective of the retinoids as far as I can tell. So you know, those things really work too. Now another thing that has some decent evidence behind it is niacinamide. Niacinamide is vitamin B3 and it's considered kind of a go to all over ingredient. It can have an effect on hyperpigmentation, it can help to reduce inflammation, regulate your oil production. It's got a lot of things it's in niacinamide is involved in a lot of biochemistry going on in your skin and you know, it's been topically used for anti acne, for eczema rosacea, all kinds of things. There is some decent evidence supporting the use of niacinamide for anti aging products. And you know, it's, you know, I, I think, I think niacinamide products, they're less irritating on skin than retinols and you might see some effects from it. But you know, the problem with something like niacinamide is there's no immediate evident effect of it. And so if you're using it, you're gonna have to use it for a month, six weeks before you start to really notice anything. And then you have to say to yourself, do you remember what your skin looked like a month ago? And if the results are, you know, unimpressive, they're, they're very subtle. You know, those are some subtle results are things that you can see in the lab, but the subtle results are not something that you see as a consumer with a long term use. You just don't remember what your skin looks like. So it's, it's really hard. And unless it's going to be this gigantic effect that you just obviously notice, then that doesn't happen with, I mean niacinamide can show you some small effects but it's not going to be this huge effects. But you know, it's better than trying nothing. So I mean it's maybe a little bit better than moisturizing, but that's it. The other, the fourth ingredient that was talked about and I think it's pretty well established to be clinically effective are alpha hydroxy acids and beta hydroxy acids. These are Chemical peels, they help to inspire turnover of the skin and exfoliation. And you can actually see it. I mean, when you use something like niacinamide, you don't really notice the difference right away. But when you use something like alpha hydroxy acid, you know, you notice that right away your skin starts to peel. I remember an episode of what Sex and the City where Samantha uses the one of these hydroxy acid peels and she used too much and it made her skin look all red. That's actually happened. So you know, you use it, you can tell something's going on. And so that's a benefit to using these kinds of products. And of course they do also also work. So if you want to look for alpha hydroxy acids, you know, typically over the counter is going to be anywhere from 5 to 10% concentration and it's going to help to exfoliate your skin and make it look better over time. So those, in my view, those four interventions for skin are really the ones that are most effective, at least when it comes to targeting aging. And as far as dryness goes, of course, you know, Petrolada mineral oil as standard moisturizers are all going to be pretty effective at treating dryness. Now there are other ingredients that are talked about, peptides that get a lot of publicity about peptides, I don't think there's a lot of good evidence for them work doing much from a topical treatment. Ceramide is another good ingredient in there. They don't really do much more than if you had glycerin in your system too. Although I know some companies that of course are selling ceramides, swear by how great they are. And ceramides do exist in your skin naturally. It's part of your natural moisturizing factors. But in the context of a formula and topical application, I don't think you're going to see much noticeable about ceramides. And then of course there is hyaluronic acid. Hyaluronic acid is another. It's a good humectant. But again, if you're it's not going to do much more than something like glycerin, which is a really good humectant for your skin. The other one that people tout very well is vitamin C. And you know, if you might have heard other shows on here, I'm not a huge vitamin C fan because honestly, first the results that I've gotten from clinical studies, double blind studies and such that they're published, they're not really impressive to me. I mean, they maybe show Some, some small effect. And of course somebody's gonna say it's statistically significant. But are you really gonna notice it after a month of using it? I don't think you're gonna have much impact and much to notice. Certainly not compared to something like a retinol or maybe even a niacinamide. And the other problem with vitamin C is that it is very hard to stabilize. And so it doesn't. It, you know, you could have it on the label and you put it on your skin and it's not really an effective vitamin C. So there's that. So I'm a little skeptical of vitamin C. Now if Valerie was on the show, of course she would disagree with me. She's a big fan of vitamin C. And I think that just demonstrates to you that not all cosmetic chemists and formulators and scientists think the same about these things. But you know, I would believe it if I saw. I just am not convinced by the evidence that I have seen. All right, our next question comes from Alu. She says, well, let me give it to her. Hello, beauty brains. I've read a new article about paraben exposure and I'd like to know what you think about it.
- [31:40]
Anna
Thanks.
- [31:40]
Perry Romanowski
Love your show. The other thing that I should mention, that Alu also said that she is a professional in the cosmetics industry and is doing a podcast called Cosmetics Surlari, which is in her native language that is supposed to educate consumers to make informed choices. And that native language is, I believe it's Turkish. So yeah, so check that out. If you, if you understand Turkish, check out Cosmet Cosmetic Surlari and see what that's all about. Maybe I'll check that out myself. All right, well, you link to the study here and to tell you the truth, I look back and I was reading it, I'm like, this seems very familiar to me. And it was familiar because we talked about this way back in show. 335 to be exact. Superfan Timothy had actually asked about it. But I'll just do a quick retake here on this study. So the study is titled Reduction of Daily use Parabens and Phthalates Reverses accumulation of Cancer Associated phenotypes within disease free Breast tissue. This study aimed to investigate whether a short term reduction in exposure to parabens and phthalates and these are common chemicals in personal care products or at least parabens can be. Phthalates are not common. Anyway, anyway, they wondered if you reduced your exposure to this, could you reverse early cancer like molecular changes in breast tissue. And so the underlying assumption was that by cutting out what these, they called these things xenoestrogens, they wondered, could the participants breast cells show healthier, less pro canc carcinogenic behavior at a molecular level. And so the study, they did the study, they found that after 28 days, a switch from paraben and phthalate switch to paraben and phthalate free products. The participants had lower urinary levels of these chemicals. And they also reported shifts in breast tissue gene expression that was interpreted as a reversal of cancer associated molecular signatures, Especially in pathways involved in cell survival and estrogen signaling. Now in lab tests, breast cells from participants after the intervention also showed that the authors considered a more normalized response to estrogen exposure. So, you know, what does that all say? I mean, if you look at this study, there's some weaknesses here that are serious enough that I call into question whether these conclusions are meaningful at all. First of all, the extremely small and highly selective sample was healthy menstruating women. It makes it impossible to generalize these results to a broader population, including men or older women or those people that are higher risk of breast cancer. Second, the intervention was only for 28 days, which really in the case of a person's life is just a blink of the eye. It could take years for cancers to develop. So if you're suggesting that such a short term chemical reduction can meaningfully reverse cancer, so to phenotypes, it's biologically implausible without any long term follow up data. Now this study was done two years ago, so maybe a few years they're gonna follow up. But yeah, they got their headlines about it, so I doubt that they will anyway. This study also relies entirely on surrogate molecular markers rather than clinical outcomes. So they just look at changes in gene expression and even those that are linked to to in important ways that does not necessarily translate into a meaningful change in a disease risk. The control group actually also showed unexplained decreases in chemical levels. So that kind of hints that maybe there was some other external variable that wasn't properly controlled for. Like if you're doing this study and you have one group that stops using parabens and phthalates containing products, and then you have another group that stops using or that continues to use whatever they were just using. Both groups should not go down in the chemical markers that are supposed to be associated with higher or lower levels of cancer. And in fact, that's what they did. They found the control group, those chemical levels went down and the test group, they went down a little bit more. But why would they have gone down at all in the control group? That's. That's not really answered. That's kind of a question. And you know, on top of that, the study has this complicated statistical modeling and it has this tiny data set that raises the real possibility of just kind of overfitting random noise and making it sound like some sort of biological signal. So all this is to say, well, the study, it has some interesting things about it and it taps into certainly popular concerns about exposure of certain types of chemicals. I think it dramatically overstates what it found. It really provides no real evidence that reducing parabens and phthalates in personal care products is going to prevent breast cancer. And its claim of reducing cancer associated phenotypes should be regarded with some strong skepticism until it's backed by some much larger, longer term study focused with clinical research. So I'm not terribly impressed with this study and it does not raise concerns for me about having parabens in your cosmetics. I mean, parabens have been in cosmetics for, you know, 80 years and there has not been an associated uptick in cancer that has been associated with parabens. Just doesn't exist. And you have these tiny studies, these tiny short term studies which try to imply that it does. You know, I'm not buying it and my mind could be changed on this, but we need better data than what we're getting or better studies than what we're getting here. And as far as phthalates go, you know, phthalates are not extensively used in cosmetics any longer. They've been removed by, by almost everybody. So I don't even think that should be a concern at anybody. At any rate by any consumers. But of course it makes for a better headline if you can say scare people with the word phthalate in your cosmetic is. It's always fun for me to say phthalate because it's very challenging to say the ph, which is get the F sound and then you got to do the th right after that. Phthalate. All right, let's move on to the next question. Next one come to us from Jen.
- [38:41]
Anna
Hello. I really like the texture and efficacy of some of the natural deodorants on the market, but find them to be very pricey for what they are. I find it hard to spend over $10 on a small stick of what appears to be primarily coconut oil, cornstarch and baking soda. I found a DIY recipe on Pinterest that contains similar ingredients to What I've been purchasing this DIY formula is she butter, coconut oil, arrowroot powder or cornstarch, baking soda and an essential oil. You are supposed to pour the mix into a 50mg tin to harden it, then use your fingers for armpit application. My question is, would this be a safe product to make and use? Is it missing preservatives or an important safety ingredient that store bought natural deodorant might have? Would you guys recommend this as a safe substitute to make on my own? I have so much respect and appreciation for your freely given expertise. Thank you.
- [39:37]
Perry Romanowski
Well, all right, Jen, here. Oh, DIY recipes and natural deodorants first. I love that you're curious and you're enthusiastic about making your own personal care products. It could be a fun hobby. I think sometimes people try to get into making their own products because they think they're going to save money. Let me tell you, you're not going to save money and you're not going to make products that are better than what you can buy on the shelves. It's just you can't get all the same ingredients. You don't have all the same equipment. And when you do get the ingredients, it costs more for you to buy a small amount than a big company like P and G is going to buy truckloads of something. And it reduces the cost by a lot. So anyway, but it's still fun to make your own products. In fact, Valerie has a ingredient shop where simply dash ingredients where you can, you know, get the ingredients you need to make your own stuff at home. And you know, some people have fun there and you can customize things and so it can be a really fun thing to do. But like I say, keep your expectations low of what you're going to produce. Now it's absolutely true that many natural deodorants use simple ingredients like just coconut oil, starches and baking soda. And so making one at home, you know, you have access to that kind of stuff. So that can be pretty easy to do. That said, it's important to approach DIY skincare with some caution. Now the recipe you mentioned has shea butter, coconut oil, arrowroot powder, which is cornstarch and then baking soda and some essential oils. I'm looking at that. Generally that's going to be safe for personal use if you handle all those chemicals properly. And because honestly, this blend doesn't contain water, which so that just means the formula is anhydrous. So that's typically not going to require any extra preservation the way that a water based formula would. So that's good news for you because you don't have to worry about testing for microbial contamination or anything like that as long as moisture isn't left standing in your product. I can see if you're, you know, armpits are sweaty and you put that dry or that natural shampoo deodorant under your armpit, you get some moisture on top of there and that could start to attract microbes and grow. But as long as that doesn't happen to a big extent, you should be pretty safe with that formula. Now, a few things to be careful about essential oils. First of all, essential oils can irritate your skin. It can cause allergic reactions if the concentration are too high. And it's really, if you want to be safe, don't use your essential oils at levels of, you know, more than 1 or 2% in the total formula. You know, some of these oils can be really irritating. And you know, poison, poison ivy is really an essential oil that is not good for your skin. And things like cinnamon and citrus oils can also be highly irritating. In fact, most of the allergens that you have to listen, the fragrance allergens you have to list at the EU are natural ingredients that are derived from plants. And as far as baking soda can be, it can be harsh on sensitive skin and sometimes that can cause irritation or rashes. Now some people do fine with it, others might need a general alternative. So you could probably switch it out for magnesium hydroxide or even just use lower concentration of baking soda. But it is something to consider. And finally, there's also the contamination risk. Even though it's anhydrous, you know, you want to make sure you avoid getting any kind of bacteria or mold in the formula while you're making it. So just make it under clean conditions and you should be all right. Now, as far as how this compares to commercial stuff, you know, a brand like, like say Humble or something might add extra stabilizers or skin smoothing a soothing ingredients, you know, so they might also include antimicrobial ingredients just to be safe, which is, that's the better way to do it, I think. You know, of course they also test their batches to make sure they're stable over time and they don't develop microbial growth. So that's something that's not as easy to do at home. And overall, you know, I'm fine with you making this natural formula that you had. It is a good starting point to learn about formulation and you know, you could customize a product for yourself. There's something very satisfying about making a product yourself and, you know, just doing it yourself. There's something very satisfying about that. But, you know, just be mindful about hygiene and use those essential oils sparingly and you should be okay. I would probably do a patch test using the essential oils before you start using it daily, but. But, you know, have fun with it. All right, we have time for just a few more questions. This one comes to us from Sydney. Sydney says, well, what do you have to say there, Sydney?
- [44:54]
Anna
Not necessarily cosmetic, but for personal care. Have you ever heard of a hand sanitizer called germstar one? The FDA does not allow companies to make claims about killing viruses. But in Europe, this product is able to be advertised as killing enveloped viruses like norovirus or coronavirus. How would you go about finding the clinical studies about efficacy if the company is not allowed to distribute their studies to Americans but are still able to in the uk, would you use a product such as this? They claim they are able to kill norovirus because of an added emollient that causes the alcohol to more effectively kill enveloped viruses. Alcohol based hand sanitizers are generally not effective against stomach viruses, so the science also seems dubious.
- [45:45]
Perry Romanowski
All right, this is an interesting question. Now, I have not heard of the hand sanitizer Germ Star one, but it's good to see you thinking critically about the regulatory and the actual science. So let's see. So, yeah, you are correct. The us in the us, the FDA does have strict rules about what companies are allowed to claim about viruses. And unless they have, they have to meet these very specific standards that are either set by the EPA or the FDA in the OTC monographs. Now, in Europe, especially under agencies like ETCHA or other local regulatory bodies, the standards are a bit different, which is why germstar1 might legally advertise broader antiviral claims there than in the us. The US is very strict in those kind of things, which is interesting because people say, you know, the US is not particularly aggressive or it's not regulated at all. It is regulated. So if you're paying attention, if you want to mislead people, you can say it's not regulated, but it definitely is regulated. So now as far as finding clinical studies on this efficacy, I would suggest you can check with the European regulatory databases like the ECHA, ECHA or the UK's medicine and health regulatories agency, the MHRA. They might have those studies already on file. You can search PubMed or Google scholars for independent studies mentioning Germstar or their active ingredient combinations. I did that and I didn't really find anything. So maybe you have better look or something, but I didn't see anything there. You could look at the product's safety data sheet, which might include some regulatory testing summaries. And then finally you can contact the company's European branch directly. Companies often will share technical data sheets or summaries upon requests if it's just for educational purposes. So that's kind of what I would do now as far as whether I would use it. Honestly, you know, I'd like to see third party studies first. I'm a little skeptical of what the company's saying because you're absolutely right. The typical alcohol based hand sanitizers are just not as effective against non enveloped viruses like norovirus. And if they claim that an emollient somehow can make the alcohol kill the norovirus more effectively, that would be quite novel. And you know, I just need some more solid evidence before I would feel confident in that claim. Now, it's not impossible. You know, formulation chemistry can sometimes dramatically change how anactive works. But you know, without independent verification, I remain skeptical. But it's nice you're doing your homework here, which is cool. And I would say until you see some stronger evidence, stick with the trusted methods of washing your hands with soap. All right, here's a short question from Belinda. She says the products Ziip and myolift qt, are these at home devices safe and effective? Well, Zip and My Lift are both microcurrent at home devices that are designed to tone your facial muscles and improve your skin appearance by delivering gentle electric currents. Well, Ziip was created by an esthetician and uses both microcurrents and nanocurrents, pairing with an app that offers different skin care programs like lifting, clearing, brightening. And so, you know, my first question there is like, what does an esthetician, why do they know about, you know, creating electrical devices? I wouldn't go to them first with my design of electrical things, but you know, they use them, but that doesn't mean that they kind of know how or why they work. All right, MyoLift QT, on the other hand, it's a more clinical style device that's FDA cleared for cosmetics uses and it focuses on muscle toning. Now both of these devices require this conductive gel to work safely and effectively. But as far as safety goes, these devices are generally considered safe for home use if you follow the manufacturer's instructions. However, it should not be used by individuals who are pregnant or if you have a pacemaker, there's a bunch of other stuff that you should worry about but it's, it's written on there if you're going to use them, you know, start at the lowest setting and don't use it on broken skin. And when used correctly, the zip or the myolift, maybe there's just general, gentle, non invasive way to get, maybe get some firmer radiant complexion. But honestly I doubt they'll do much for you because while microcurrent devices are popular in the beauty world, it's important to view these their claims of the critical eye. And although small studies and anecdotal reports suggest that they can temporarily lift and tone the skin, the scientific evidence supporting long term structural changes is really limited. Much of the visible improvement, this may simply just be from the mild stimulation you get from the muscles and the increased circulation rather than actually doing anything long term like rebuilding collagen or reversing wrinkles or something. And additionally results tend to be subtle and temporary and they require consistent and ongoing use, which makes it less of a miracle treatment and more of a, like a maintenance tool. And it's more likely that you'll use it for a little bit and then you'll just kind of forget to do it and stop using it. It'll just take up space in one of your drawers. So you know, you should be cautious of these kind of exaggerated marketing promises and you know, professional grade treatments probably offer better effectiveness than what you're going to get for home at home devices. It's just while it can make some logical sense, there's no good evidence that these things have much effect. Chira says if you know the brand, what do you make of the brand Altruist. And she gives me the link there. The second question, why does DHA based Tanner stink? Well, as far as Altruist goes, I looked at it and you know, typically I look at these things expecting to be disappointed by the marketing and the overpriced products. But Altruist is this dermatologist Skincare SPF every day. You know, they're all about reducing the incidence of skin cancer. You know, they're using pretty standard stuff, sunscreens, they have spf. So it's important to have sunscreens in your product and you use it every day. That makes a lot of sense that that's a good thing I would say. And they're using real ingredients app. But what I found most impressive is that the, these things are priced reasonably. You know, it's you know, you can get a 50 mils for, I know, 8 pounds or it's about 10 bucks. You know, it's a little high, but as far as brands go. Yeah, I'd say, let's say it's. It's not, it could be a lot worse. Let me just say that. So I think these products probably look pretty good. I mean, they're sunscreens. You could probably find things that are less expensive that you might like better. But you know, these I think would be effective products. So altruist, you know, keep up the good work. It looks like a good product, you know, and if you like how the aesthetics of it even better. Now as far as the second question of DHA tanners go, why do they stink? Well, DHA tanners are, they smell because to create a DHA you use this amaliar reaction. And DHA is a sugar derived ingredient which reacts with amino acids on the surface of your skin and that creates the brown pigment and it mimics a suntan. It's, it's different. A sun suntan, for example, is melanin creation. But DHA does not create melanin. It just creates kind of that color. But, but this malleated reaction, unfortunately this reaction also produces volatile compounds like sulfur containing molecules, aldehydes and ketones which have this distinctive musty or burnt or metallic smell. And the strength of the odor is going to depend on the concentration and purity of the DHA also can be affected by how you're formulating it. So a lot of companies will try to add some sort of fragrance that can mask this, but it's difficult to do that. And even your own skin chemistry can affect what it smells like. So for some people it might smell worse than others. But interestingly, DHA itself doesn't smell that bad. It's just those byproducts that are created when you're making the DHA that makes it smell worse. To me it smells a bit like graham crackers or something like that. At least the Jergens version does. So some of the newer self tanners out now use. They try to use this low odor DHA and special fragrance technology to cover it up. But you aren't wrong. These do tend to stink a bit. Here comes one last question we got from Sarah.
- [55:13]
Anna
I received a few tubs of the Aquaphor baby ointment for my baby shower. However, the tubs say preservative free. What is the difference between the baby version and normal aquaphor? Should I be concerned about the tub? Not Having any preservatives? Thanks.
- [55:28]
Perry Romanowski
Okay, well, Aqua 4 Baby and regular Aquaphor Healing ointments are pretty similar. You know, both are primarily made up of petrolatum, which is really the gold standard when as far as it comes to occlusive agents. They also have mineral oil, sericin, lanolin, alcohol, panthenol, glycerin, and bisabolo. This is pretty standard. It's ingredients for a moisturizer and I will say they are the most effective ingredients. Mineral oil, petrolatum, glycerin. That's pretty much, you know, I would say that's the gold standard as far as performance goes. Panthenol probably doesn't do much in there, but you know, some people do believe in panthenol and lanolin certainly has some nice effects too. Now, the baby version is marketed as preservative free, but that's mostly just kind of a labeling distinction because that's not really a big formula change. Neither of these versions actually contain traditional preservatives like parabens or phenoxyethanol because they are anhydrous and they don't really need them. Ointments, formulas from like Aquaphor are, you know, they have no water, so microbial growth is just much less of a concern. So in this case, the lack of preservatives really isn't something that you should worry about. Normally I SQ products that say we don't have preservatives, but you know, these, these products don't actually really need it. Now that said, just because the packaging, the product is in tubs, there is a small risk of contamination if you like repeatedly dip your wet fingers into it. And so it's important to use clean and dry hands when you're using this or you know, use a spatula to scoop it out to keep things hygienic and that'll make things safer. But overall, you know, this is a safe and very well tolerated product. And the baby label is, you know, more just about reassuring parents that that's safe for babies. That doesn't mean that there's a much difference at all between the baby product and this one. And speaking of baby products and this one, do you hear that music? Well, I'm the only one I'm talking to, so yes, I hear the music. Thanks so much for listening everybody. Hey, if you get a chance, can you head over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leave us a review that's gonna help other people find the show and ensure we have a full docket of Beauty questions to answer. And speaking of questions, if you have one, you can just record it on your smartphone and email it to us@thebeautybrainsmail.com and you can also use the form to to submit a question. Just check out the show notes in this episode. And if you're a patron, of course you can just ask your question right through Patreon. Speaking of Patreon, the Beauty Brains are on patreon. Go to patreon.com thebeautybrains and subscribe at any level. And if you go there, you're going to get a copy of the transcript of this show. You'll also get your higher priority for your questions to get answered. I know we have a few Patreon questions. We'll definitely answer them in the next show. Also, you can follow us on our various social media accounts. On Instagram, we're at the BeautyBrains 2018. On X or Twitter, we're at the BeautyBrains. Although I don't really go there much, I've switched over to Blue sky and there were the Beauty Brains and we have a Facebook page and TikTok publishing a TikTok. But I mean just that video is so short. I don't know, maybe I'm just too old for it. But maybe we'll get on there. Anyway, thanks again for listening and remember, be brainy about your beauty. Thanks everyone and goodbye from Sophia Bulgaria Kittens.