Episode 400 - Indoor sunscreen, micellar water, and a baby?

Summary

The Beauty Brains - Episode 400 Summary

Release Date: June 26, 2025

In this milestone 400th episode of The Beauty Brains, hosts Valerie George and Perry Romanowski delve into a myriad of beauty-related topics, addressing listener questions and sharing professional insights. The episode seamlessly blends personal anecdotes with expert discussions, offering listeners both valuable information and relatable moments.

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1. Celebrating 400 Episodes & Personal Updates

The episode kicks off with Valerie George and Perry Romanowski celebrating the impressive milestone of reaching 400 episodes. They reflect on the journey, highlighting that the most impactful content began around episode 166.

Notable Quote:

• [00:32] Valerie George: “But still incredible. The show has made it because without me, without you, we wouldn't be here.”

The conversation then shifts to personal updates:

• Perry shares about his recent trip to Italy, where he presented a talk on the future of formulating in cosmetic chemistry and the potential impact of AI on the field.
• Valerie reveals her pregnancy, discussing how she has managed her beauty routine during this time and addressing listener curiosity about any product changes she might have made.

Notable Quotes:

• [02:10] Perry Romanowski: “My talk was just about the future of formulating and how that's going to impact cosmetic chemists...”
• [07:05] Valerie George: “I'm almost across the finish line...”

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2. The Impact of AI on Cosmetic Chemistry

Perry and Valerie engage in a thought-provoking discussion about the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in cosmetic formulation. They contemplate whether AI could eventually replace human chemists, emphasizing the nuanced understanding and trade secrets that AI currently lacks.

Notable Quotes:

• [02:42] Valerie George: “The challenge is there are so many nuances that come from knowledge that AI can't find on the Internet.”
• [05:18] Valerie George: “And with ChatGPT, you can't unless you're really using critical thinking skills.”

Key Insights:

• AI may streamline the formulation process, potentially reducing the need for large teams of chemists.
• Human expertise remains crucial for nuanced product development and maintaining product quality.
• Overreliance on AI could diminish critical thinking and hands-on knowledge among professionals.

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3. Beauty News: Sunscreen Myths and Product Dupes

Valerie and Perry review recent beauty news, including articles from New York Magazine, The Strategist, and Form Deluxe. They discuss:

• Sunscreen Myths:
  • The effectiveness of layering mineral and chemical sunscreens.
  • The utility of tools like the "Sunscreen Decoder."

Notable Quotes:

• [22:17] Valerie George: “It's very nuanced. It's hard to tell. You just can't say, well, here's your active stuff...”

• Dupes in the Beauty Industry:

  • Valerie questions the stigma around product dupes, arguing that similar to other industries, beauty products often have equivalents.
  • Perry concurs, noting that product replication has long been a standard practice to offer more affordable alternatives.

Notable Quotes:

• [18:54] Perry Romanowski: “I don't really think it's a problem. Especially a dupe is really just...”

Key Insights:

• Sunscreen labeling and claims can be misleading; understanding true efficacy requires more than just ingredient lists.
• Dupes provide consumers with affordable options but are often based on longstanding industry practices of creating similar products.

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4. Listener Q&A

The heart of the episode revolves around answering listener-submitted questions. This segment is divided into several key topics:

a. Hard Water vs. Soft Water in Beauty Regimens

Question by Magdalena:

• Differences between hard and soft water and their effects on hair and skin.
• Effectiveness of shower head water filters on overall beauty.

Discussion:

• Hard Water: Contains magnesium and calcium ions, which interact with detergents, reducing their cleansing ability and potentially leaving hair feeling less clean.
• Soft Water: Replaces magnesium and calcium with sodium and potassium ions, leading to a more slippery feel during washing.

Notable Quotes:

• [28:18] Perry Romanowski: “Hard water has magnesium and calcium ions in it. And soft water, you switch it off for sodium and potassium ions.”
• [32:10] Valerie George: “So the problem I have with these shower heads is... you might notice a difference in feel.”

Advice:

• For noticeable differences, consider installing a whole-home water softening system rather than relying solely on shower head filters, which may have limited effectiveness and lifespan.

b. Chemical vs. Mineral Sunscreens

Question by Jamie:

• Reapplying Sunscreen Indoors: Is it necessary to reapply every two hours when not exposed to intense UV?
• Effectiveness of Powdered Sunscreens: Are they a viable alternative for reapplication?
• UV Penetration Through Glass: Can UV rays penetrate standard home and car windows?

Discussion:

• Reapplication: While regulatory guidelines suggest reapplying every two hours, in indoor settings with minimal UV exposure, frequent reapplication may not be necessary.
• Powdered Sunscreens: Often do not provide sufficient SPF protection as per testing standards and may offer minimal additional benefits indoors.
• UV Through Glass: Standard windows block UVB but allow UVA to pass through, which can contribute to skin aging.

Notable Quotes:

• [35:53] Valerie George: “I don't think you need to reapply SPF if you're just sitting in a room.”
• [40:06] Valerie George: “So it blocks UVB rays, the burning rays... but you could age through the windows.”

Advice:

• Focus on using a broad-spectrum sunscreen with adequate UVA protection, especially if spending extended periods near windows.
• Evaluate the necessity of reapplication based on actual UV exposure rather than adhering strictly to recommended intervals.

c. Rinse-Out Conditioners vs. Deep Conditioners/Masks

Question by Lisa:

• Can rinse-out conditioners and deep conditioners/masks be used interchangeably?
• Which is more effective for regularly heat-styled hair?

Discussion:

• Rinse-Out Conditioners: Typically formulated for daily use, providing essential moisture and detangling.
• Deep Conditioners/Masks: Richer formulations intended for intensive conditioning, especially beneficial for heat-damaged hair.

Notable Quotes:

• [44:47] Valerie George: “From a basic conditioning perspective, they're probably similar, right?”
• [46:32] Perry Romanowski: “If you look at a brand that has a mask and they have a deep conditioner and the ingredient lists are pretty similar, they're probably doing that same thing.”

Advice:

• Utilize deep conditioners or masks periodically to provide extra nourishment to heat-styled hair.
• Check ingredient lists to determine if products are merely thicker versions of regular conditioners or genuinely formulated for deep conditioning.

d. Avene Makeup Removing Micellar Water

Question by Catherine:

• Effectiveness of Avene Makeup Removing Micellar Water: Does it adequately remove makeup without rinsing?

Discussion:

• Micellar Waters: Contain minimal surfactants intended for light cleansing; may not effectively remove heavy makeup.
• Valerie’s Perspective: Prefers traditional rinse-off cleansers over micellar waters for thorough makeup removal.

Notable Quotes:

• [48:26] Valerie George: “I don't think these are really great makeup removers if you're relying on it alone.”
• [49:09] Perry Romanowski: “I don't think that micellar waters are your power cleansers.”

Advice:

• For heavy makeup, consider double cleansing—using micellar water followed by a traditional cleanser to ensure complete removal.

e. "20 Free" or "12 Free" Nail Polishes: Are They Safer?

Question by Misha:

• Safety of "20 Free" or "12 Free" Nail Polishes compared to regular nail colors in terms of toxicity and absorption.

Discussion:

• "Free From" Claims: Initially targeted common harmful ingredients like formaldehyde, toluene, and phthalates.
• Current Trends: Brands increasingly exclude a longer list of chemicals, some of which are not typically used in nail polishes, making the claims less meaningful.
• Nail Polish Chemistry: Relies on specific formulations similar across brands, focused on film formation and durability rather than the "free from" aspects.

Notable Quotes:

• [52:00] Valerie George: “At the end of the day, the nail polish is still nail polish.”
• [53:49] Valerie George: “This whole like 20 free, 12 free thing, I hope you can see they're talking about things that wouldn't be in nail polish anyway.”

Advice:

• Understand that while "free from" claims highlight the absence of certain chemicals, they do not necessarily make the product significantly safer.
• Focus on reputable brands that adhere to safety standards and conduct thorough testing rather than solely relying on "free from" labels.

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5. Closing Remarks and Show Promotion

As the episode wraps up, Valerie and Perry encourage listeners to engage with the show by leaving reviews, submitting questions, and supporting through Patreon for prioritized responses and additional content. Valerie also shares a personal anecdote about her challenges with nail art, adding a light-hearted conclusion to the informative session.

Notable Quotes:

• [58:07] Valerie George: “Thanks for listening, everybody. If you get a chance, head over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review...”
• [58:57] Valerie George: “And remember, be brainy about your beauty.”

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Key Takeaways:

• AI's Role in Cosmetics: While AI can assist in formulations, human expertise remains essential for nuanced and high-quality product development.
• Water Type Effects: Hard and soft water significantly impact the effectiveness of beauty products, particularly in hair care.
• Sunscreen Usage: Understanding the necessity of reapplication depends on actual UV exposure; powdered sunscreens may offer limited benefits.
• Product Labels: "Free from" claims in beauty products can be misleading; focus on overall product quality and safety standards.
• Deep Conditioning: Essential for maintaining healthy, heat-styled hair; not merely dependent on product labels but on formulation and usage frequency.

This episode offers a comprehensive blend of professional insights, practical advice, and personal stories, reinforcing The Beauty Brains as a valuable resource for anyone keen on understanding the science behind beauty products.

Transcript

[Valerie George]

Hi, I'm Valerie and you're listening to the Beauty Brains. Welcome to the Beauty Brains, a show where real cosmetic chemists answer your beauty product questions and give you an insider's look at the cosmetic industry. This is episode 400. I'm your host, Valerie George, and with me today is Peri Romanowski. Hi, Perry.

[Perry Romanowski]

Hey, Valerie. Good to see you again.

[Valerie George]

I can't believe we made it to 400.

[Perry Romanowski]

I know, 400 episodes. Well, you and I are like 300, 235.

[Valerie George]

Yeah, yeah. But I mean, still incredible. The show has made it because without me, without you, we wouldn't be here.

[Perry Romanowski]

I know. And the best episodes really were after episode 166.

[Valerie George]

Sorry, Randy. Well, on today's show, it's going to be an amazing show. We have lots of questions that we're going to cover, including how does different water affect the performance of hair products? Do you really need to reapply sunscreen every two hours? Can rinse out conditioner and a deep conditioner or mask be used interchangeably? Does the Avene makeup removing micellar water really work? And finally, are 20 free or 12 free nail polishes safer? But first, inane chit chat.

[Perry Romanowski]

Valerie, I'm back from my big trip overseas.

[Valerie George]

How was it?

[Perry Romanowski]

Oh, it was wonderful. I went to Italy and first of all, I crushed it at my talk.

[Valerie George]

That's good.

[Perry Romanowski]

I only say that because at the end I got a good applause, but maybe that was because I juggled at the end.

[Valerie George]

It's possible. Not many people can juggle or juggle.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah, you don't usually expect to see that at the end of a scientific talk, but. So I always like to end with something like that just to ensure that I do get a few cheers. But the talk was fun. It was actually a pretty good conference. And what they do is they take talks that were posters at IFSCC Congress and then they'd get turned into papers or presentations. So it was pretty good overall.

[Valerie George]

What was your talk about?

[Perry Romanowski]

My talk was just about the future of formulating and how that's going to impact cosmetic chemists, about whether, you know, is there still going to be a cosmetic chemist job in 10 years, considering that an AI right now you can. Not quite right now, but I could imagine in just a few years you could write, I want a product that does this and it has these things, and then it would just spit out a formula.

[Valerie George]

I'm sure you could get a formula that way. I think the technology is going to advance, but the challenge is there are so many nuances yeah. That come from knowledge that AI can't find on the Internet. It's just not there because you're in a product evaluation salon analyzing the product. You, you learn all these things that maybe don't get published. And I think AI relies on user input to get that information. I don't know who's just gonna cough up all those trade secrets into some kind of software.

[Perry Romanowski]

I totally agree with you. For the most part, there is still, there's still gonna always be required some chemists to get some of the nuance. It's just that before you used to hire 10 chemists, whereas now maybe you can hire, you know, one or two.

[Valerie George]

I think a lot of facilities will rely on it to make products, but I think the difference between, you know, a shampoo and a good shampoo will be in the human.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah, yeah, well, so, well, hopefully.

[Valerie George]

And I just find, you know, the more people rely on AI, the less they actually learn. I teach a class at the University of California, Riverside in their extension program. And I can totally tell when people go to ChatGPT to get an answer because it's like, literally I put the answer on a slide and I gave you the slides. It's an open book test. And you went to ChatGPT and pulled up a bunch of nonsense that doesn't even make sense.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah.

[Valerie George]

What did you learn? You couldn't even learn to go look at the slide that has the answer that you could copy and paste.

[Perry Romanowski]

Absolutely. And you are so right that these AIs are trained with bad information. They're trained with a lot of good information, but they're also trained with bad information. And so when you get what you get left is not always accurate, which I, which is always the same. That's the same as true of like professional chemists that you work with in the lab. There's a lot of chemists out there that believe stuff that's not right and then they just pass it along. And we, we see that in things quoted in social media and stuff all the time. I'm like, that's not right. But. So humans are giving you wrong information. But these AIs come off like they're completely trustworthy. Like a calculator. You would never doubt if you put in something in a calculator that it's not the right answer. Right. You never doubt.

[Valerie George]

Except for when I had a concussion, I wasn't sure if the answer was correct because still you have to use some reasoning, like, does that seem right?

[Perry Romanowski]

Right.

[Valerie George]

And with the CHAT GPT, you can't unless you're really using critical thinking skills. And what I guess is it comes down to is people just aren't spending that time to use critical thinking skills and say, hey. Does that sound correct?

[Perry Romanowski]

Absolutely. I think AIs are certainly going to make human beings dumber unless you specifically don't let it. I know there's some people, like, they don't memorize things anymore because why do you need to? And I think that really degrades our ability to remember stuff. And people don't use maps anymore, they just use the Google, you know, tracking or whatever.

[Valerie George]

I know people who use GPS for the same route every day. And I like that you drive it every day.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right.

[Valerie George]

Or people who don't know directions, like, oh, now I'm driving north.

[Perry Romanowski]

I know. And it's making people dumber. And maybe it doesn't matter if you always have your gps, it doesn't matter. But sometimes that stuff goes out. Like when I was in Italy and you're in the mountains and you're like, I don't want to turn on my cell phone because they charge me like 10 bucks a day. So I just leave it in airplane mode and it's free. All I gotta do is find WI Fi. And that works until, you know, you're in the mountains and it doesn't work.

[Valerie George]

Yeah. Oh my goodness. Well, thank goodness you have your memory castles.

[Perry Romanowski]

Exactly. I think I love AI. I like to use it, but it does make you dumber. So that's why I keep my brain trained.

[Valerie George]

Yeah, you have to, especially as you age.

[Perry Romanowski]

So while I was gone, what were you up to?

[Valerie George]

Well, Perry, I've just been hanging out being pregnant.

[Perry Romanowski]

What? Get out of here.

[Valerie George]

Oh, you knew what our listeners did, being very pregnant. But I'm almost across the finish line, so.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah, well, that'll be fun. I mean, that's kind of is the explanation for why you have had to skip a few trips and such.

[Valerie George]

Yeah. But you know, we're almost there. It's been fine. It's very hot now in Texas and oh boy, you know, the baby is very large for his age and very, you know, large stomach and head and stuff. So it's just making me a little tired. I'm a high energy person and it's very hard to be high energy when you already have seven pounds in your stomach and you've got a little bit to go.

[Perry Romanowski]

Oh boy, that'll be fun for you. And then. Yeah, and it's got to be great. Hot summer in Texas being pregnant. Wow, that sounds fun.

[Valerie George]

Well, I'm definitely not wearing shoes. I'm also barefoot. But you know what's been interesting? When people especially like in the industry because, you know, we've kept it very private, Mr. Cosmetic Chemist and I, you know, I don't allow visitors over and, you know, it's just been from the shoulders up on zooms and that kind of stuff. But it's been interesting because when people do find out, they say, oh, well, are there any products you've been avoiding now that you're pregnant?

[Perry Romanowski]

Right.

[Valerie George]

And the answer is no, because. Well, one, I don't do retinoids anyway. That probably is a product that I would avoid, especially given vitamin A toxicity is real. Especially with little babies and stuff. You know, sal acid, I have used a little bit here and there. Not too. I'm not using tons. Right. It's just a little bit. So I'm not too concerned about it. But everything else is like, pretty safe.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah. I think especially for someone who's pregnant and looking on the Internet for stuff. There's so much stuff out there that can scare you, but it's not really based on evidence. It's just based on, you know, keeping people anxious and scared. Scared for whatever reason. I guess it makes you buy products more.

[Valerie George]

Yeah, well, yeah, I've gotten my nails done. You know, I'm not hanging out in salons that have a ton of fumes or anything. I'm going to like pretty good places. But I do that anyway, even pre pregnancy. So, yeah, I've just been doing my thing and, you know, I might disappear for a couple weeks coming up.

[Perry Romanowski]

Sure, sure. That'll be. That'll be fun for you. Maybe we'll just get a report here and there. But yeah, so that'll be just. Just a couple of weeks away.

[Valerie George]

Yep. So you've known the whole time. And some people may be wondering, like, why did you keep it a secret? Well, one, I mean, despite common belief on the podcast where we share a lot of stuff, you know, I'm a pretty private person. But also, you know, you just never know who, who is out there. But the reason the cat's out of the bag. Now, I wasn't going to say anything, but I have a customer of mine who threw a baby shower for me. It was very nice.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah.

[Valerie George]

And we had a lot of fun. And they posted some stuff on their Instagram and a couple Beauty Brains listeners follow them, it turns out. And they were like, wait, what? So, yeah, here I am. I was like, I might as well just stop being a weirdo. And tell everybody.

[Perry Romanowski]

Well, it's not that weird. Like you said, we don't share everything, but this is. This is a pretty big one. So congratulations, and we're looking forward to meeting the new baby.

[Valerie George]

And it turns out Pretty Kitty and I were pregnant at the same time. Except she had her babies. I haven't seen them.

[Perry Romanowski]

Oh, no.

[Valerie George]

I don't know what's going on. I've seen her, but not them.

[Perry Romanowski]

Oh, okay. Well, there you go. Well, you know, I got. When I got home from Italy, and we were gone for almost two weeks, all of the Portuguese were waiting for me, so they're happy. They're happy that I'm back.

[Valerie George]

Oh, that's good.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah.

[Valerie George]

Well, let's head over to some beauty news. There was also a lot going on while you were away.

[Perry Romanowski]

Well, Valerie, I saw this article published in New York magazine, and it reminded me of you because you did a whole thing on peptides for someone in Australia.

[Valerie George]

Well, that was the New Zealand radio show. And then I also did. Slate magazine, interviewed me extensively about peptides.

[Perry Romanowski]

That's right. You're. You're nearly the industry go to person for peptides. That's why I was reading this article in the. The New York. The Strategist. And I didn't see Valerie's name here, but I did see some other cosmetic chemists that they quoted, which, you know, he sounded. Said some decent enough things, but I thought we could look at. There were some things that I'm not sure that I would agree with, but one of the questions they asked was, do you need a peptide moisturizer?

[Valerie George]

I would say need is a strong term.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah.

[Valerie George]

You don't need anything.

[Perry Romanowski]

No, exactly. Especially if you're young. You're. You know, it's. I don't know. So do you need a peptide? I can understand how when you're like a cosmetic chemist and you're talking to a reporter and you're like, hey, do you really need this? Nobody wants to just talk to the guy who's like, no, this is all crap, you know? You know.

[Valerie George]

Is that why you weren't interviewed?

[Perry Romanowski]

Exactly. That's why I pass the interviews off to other people. But I think you need a moisturizer. That's. I agree. You need a moisturizer. Unless you want skin like mine where, you know, it's too much trouble to do moisturizing. But, I mean, I don't take. Don't take grooming advice from me. You can take product advice, but not grooming, rooming.

[Valerie George]

Well, I think peptides do do things. I actually studied peptides when I was in grad school for different purposes. But they're biologically active molecules. They can penetrate into skin. Even if they have a larger molecular size, they can get tricked into penetrating into skin. They're called Trojan peptides. And I think there's a lot of clinical data, in vitro for sure, that they do things. And the data for in vivo efficacy, meaning on a live person, unfortunately it comes from the raw material supplier. So you do have to take it with a little bit of grain of salt. They're only going to show you the best stuff. But I do think they, they work. Now, if you only used a moisturizer without peptides, would you be okay? Absolutely. I don't think you have to have them, but I think in certain instances they can be beneficial. And here's another misconception.

[Perry Romanowski]

Sure.

[Valerie George]

People think a moisturizer has to be loaded with peptides. I actually saw a brand saying, oh, other brands sprinkle tiny amounts of peptides. And not us, we put tons in. It's like, well, you actually don't need a ton because they are biologically active. So most of the studies are done at 0.1%, 0.05%, 0.01% active peptide. Very tiny quantities.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right. Small amounts can be effective sometimes. Just more does not necessarily mean better. And then there was one other part here, which the claim was that the one that has the most evidence behind it is Matrixyl 3000. Would you agree with that one there?

[Valerie George]

No, I actually think it's copper tripeptide one because it comes from the pharmaceutical industry. There's so much data behind that particular peptide. It's been around since the second 70s. Matrixyl didn't come into play until the early 90s, I would say. So from a use in cosmetics perspective, I would say it's very popular. It's one of the original ones. It does have a lot of supplier data behind it. I would agree if that were the angle. But to say it's the most studied, it's copper tripeptide one.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah, yeah, I'd agree there. And, well, one other thing here. Here is like, the question is, well, what do you look for? And the suggestion was to look at the data that's out there, but I just don't think that kind of evidence. I just don't think that kind of advice is terribly helpful for consumers because really, the only evidence that you're going to see is marketing stuff from the people trying to sell you this and whether it's the brand that is selling the product or it's the raw material supplier that's selling it to. So unless you're going to go to PubMed or something like that, or be lied to by an AI Gemini or ChatGPT, I don't think you're going to really have access to the data there. And so I'm not sure how helpful that is to look up data.

[Valerie George]

No. And the other thing is like a peptide isn't the only ingredient in a product. So there's going to be other things doing the work. Even if you have a placebo control in your study where you have the exact same formula with and without the peptide, I think you're just going to be hard pressed to say, wow, the benefit is so much more, or other things weren't influenced. And then the other thing, this is actually why I got into hair Perry, is that you have to hope this stuff pays off. But here's the thing. You're not going to remember 30 years from now if this peptide serum was the thing that did the job or if it even did the job, because you have like no baseline. Like you're going to age no matter what. It's not like hair, which is an instantaneous effect.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah, I mean, one of the reasons that I don't really spend much time, I mean, it's probably just because I'm too lazy or I don't care that much. But like facial stuff, it's like, okay, your face will look good. And then when you're 70, know there's, there's a point where your face is just gonna be old and leathery no matter how much you treat it.

[Valerie George]

Now, I will say that I look a lot younger than people my age.

[Perry Romanowski]

Sure, sure.

[Valerie George]

A lot of people think I'm 10 years younger than I am. And I have to say that's for wearing sunscreen. And not just wearing sunscreen, but conducting sun safety. Like, I don't wrinkle my face in the sun, I don't go out in the sun. I wear a hat, I'm under an umbrella. It's just doing that kind of stuff. So I'll say SPF probably is the best thing you could do for your skin.

[Perry Romanowski]

I completely agree with that.

[Valerie George]

Well, I saw a article in Form Deluxe. I think it's French, so it would be Form Deluxe. I'm not sure. Anyway, I was featured once. It's a new beauty publication. They're doing a pretty good job. But they published an article about the troubling world of dupe for fragrances. And I just kind of Thought, well, it's not just the fragrance world that gets duped. I mean, sure, it's pervasive. Like, you know, you might not necessarily be able to afford a Creed fragrance, for example, so you could go, you know, at least in the 90s, you could go to Kmart. And it was like, if you love Creed, you'll love Breed. They would have like a knockoff that smelled like in the vein, but not really the same. But I thought, you know, it's not just fragrances that undergo the dupe problem. If you think it is a problem. Really, every industry has knockoffs, Right. Like, how many car brands are inspired by the look of Range Rover? So they kind of model their car to look like a Range Rover or a Bentley or clothing? I would say this problem is really pervasive as well. And with beauty, it's no different in terms of non fragrance products. And, you know, the Duke culture on one hand is like prized because it's like, wow, giving access to people who have, you know, affordable alternatives. Like, you know, Sarah Bellum and I, the last episode talked through actual products and, you know, she recommended Elf. I picked up a couple based on our listener feedback from Instagram. And they're dupes of more expensive stuff. And, you know, it's pretty cool. But I mean, is it a problem? What do you think?

[Perry Romanowski]

I don't. I don't really think it's a problem. Especially a dupe is really just. I mean, they've been done forever, right? When you go to like a Walgreens and you see Pantene there, and then right next to it is, oh, the Walgreens brand, but it's like, oh, it's white and it has similar patterns.

[Valerie George]

They're called national brand equivalents.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah, right, right. Or Equate is another brand that you find at grocery stores up by Target.

[Valerie George]

Equate is Walmart. Up is Target.

[Perry Romanowski]

Oh, gotcha. Okay. Yeah. So all those stories already do it. And you know, the cosmetic chemists just are given that product and they say, oh, can you knock this one off? We used to call it knocking off.

[Valerie George]

Yeah.

[Perry Romanowski]

Or dupe is what everyone calls it now. I would say for things like fragrance, though, fragrances are a little harder to dupe because people's sense of smell is a lot more refined than their sense of touch and feel and such. And so I can give you two shampoos that are pretty close, but if I had the same fragrance in them, then you're gonna think they're the same thing, even though they're pretty far Apart, if you're like a trained shampooer thing. But I could give you two odors that are pretty close, but your nose is much better at saying, oh, they're definitely different.

[Valerie George]

Something's different. Yeah. The reason I don't think it's necessarily. Well, it's not that I don't think it's an issue. I don't know why everyone's getting their panties in a twist. Because on one hand, like, that's how brands are built, right? How many times have you been approached by someone, you know, you don't have a lab anymore. But I get approached all the time, oh, I love this product. And I want to recreate it, but recreate it a little different. And every product, even when I worked at a major brand, it was like, oh, well, we have to make this new product now. And the market leader is this. So let's take everything, what they've done, but make it different, improve upon it. You're still using someone else's work to essentially duplicate it and modify it. Or sometimes, honestly, it was just like, you just have to knock this product off or reverse engineer it, and everyone's doing it. But when it comes to something like this, they're like, dupes are such a problem. And I'm like, you can't tell me you haven't ripped off someone else's work, right?

[Perry Romanowski]

I mean, everybody, they say that even there's only like seven stories that ever been told. And they're all just kind of repackaged and told in a slightly different way, but the stories are all been told. I think most, like, cosmetics have all been made. I mean, we all have the same ingredients, so it's just all subtle twists on something that's already been done. There hasn't been any huge breakthroughs in like, forever?

[Valerie George]

No, not really. So I don't know why. Just like forward facing. Everyone was like, oh, my God, this troubling world. And then it's like, behind, they're like, so this new product launched. What are we gonna do?

[Perry Romanowski]

Right? And you know, there are some specific brands that we called it the fast follower. Where you would have, say, Herbal Essence launches a shampoo sku that was selling really well, and they were selling for like three bucks a bottle. VO5 would say, all right, let's knock that one off and sell you the same sort of the same thing, but for 99 cents. There's a market for that. It's been around forever.

[Valerie George]

Well, speaking of spf, I think you actually saw a couple things.

[Perry Romanowski]

You know, I did I saw this article published in the cut about sunscreen myths and, you know, the 10 sunscreen myths. Interesting enough. And yeah, can. You can't layer mineral and chemical sunscreens. They call that a myth. Right? You can, you can layer that stuff. Can you mix sunscreen into your foundation? I think a lot of these ones we kind of covered on our previous shows. So. So I don't. We won't go over them there, but there was one thing that I saw on here that was a tool that called the sunscreen decoder. And I was curious about it, so I went to the. And I'll put a link in the show notes. But it's a sunscreen decoder and I'm looking at this and I'm sure the website makers are sincere and they want to help people, but they put this tool in. It says, analyze the sunscreen screener. It says, paste your sunscreen ingredient list here and we'll analyze it. I do that. It just, it just says what the active sunscreen is and then it says inactive agreements. I'm like, how is this helping anybody?

[Valerie George]

I also did it and I found it unhelpful.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah. The article says they, they launched Sunscreener is a free online platform designed to help shoppers decode sunscreen formulas. Now, if you were going to make something to help a consumer decode a formula, like a sunscreen formula, what would you have in it? I mean, you certainly have to have something more than just, oh, here's the active ingredients and here's the inactive ingredients.

[Valerie George]

I mean, yeah, the drug facts box tells you that. I mean, I think it's challenging because there were some other things in this article which I really disagreed with from a formulation and regulatory perspective. And what brands are doing, having worked at brands and having worked at brands that have made SPF products.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right.

[Valerie George]

It's very nuanced. It's hard to tell. You just can't say, well, here's your active stuff. They're chemical filters. Here's your stuff. They're mineral filters.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right.

[Valerie George]

So many things that are not ingredients go into determining the SPF and the efficacy and the longevity of the product. And it's not just, you know, they're accusing brands of using these boosters and like lying to, you know, consumers about it. It's. It really is like particle size and particle size distribution and what type of film was left on the skin, polarity of the emollients in the product. There's so many things a little tool like this isn't going to be beneficial. To you, even if it could detect all those nuances, at the end of the day, it comes down to SPF testing.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right. Ultimately, that is what matters. And so if the SPF is on there, I mean, if they're using reputable test testing labs and they're doing it the right way, you're gonna get a number that should be reliable. But what it also comes down to is how do you like how it feels? Like you can't. You can't read the back of a bottle and say, oh, you're gonna like how this feels because of these ingredients. No, you have to actually test it yourself. So I don't know. I don't find the sunscreener terribly helpful. And I'm just not sure at consumers you get more misled than you get informed by. By looking at stuff that isn't helpful.

[Valerie George]

Well, especially since consumers already have this notion and the brand doesn't do this, by the way, but consumers already have this notion that chemical sunscreens are terrible for you.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right.

[Valerie George]

And so to actually call that out, I think if someone already has this bias in their mind, just reaffirms. But they probably would already know the answer. You know, it would be cool to have like, wow, Avobenzone is really great in UVA protection. Whereas, you know, it has to have a stabilizer. Oh, the stabilizer's here. And really kind of breaking it down for the consumer in that way to show, like, how. Why the formula could be really great.

[Perry Romanowski]

And it seems to me the more information that you give consumers, you just start to overload them with stuff they don't really need to know about. I know sometimes I sound like the advocate for stay ignorant people, but, you know, sometimes you don't need to know everything because knowing more can make you more, I don't know, make you more worried, make you just lead you to.

[Valerie George]

Bad decisions, especially if you don't understand the full context or reasoning behind it. And you can't always go Internet sleuth that. Right. A lot of it's learned from other people or being in the industry and working at a corporation.

[Perry Romanowski]

So my advice, when you're picking a sunscreen, first look for the spf. You want something broad spectrum has got uvb, UVA also. And then you just gotta try it.

[Valerie George]

Oh, yeah. Well, let's head to some beauty questions. Our first question comes to us from Magdalena. Hi, Valerie and Perry. First of all, I'm a longtime listener and lover of the podcast. I'm an esthetician, and I'm so grateful for the education your show provides. I recommend it to all the other beauty professionals I know. I would love for my two favorite chemists to help me understand the differences between water, specifically hard water, and soft water. I've spent most of my life showering in tap water, not thinking much about it. However, I recently stayed at my partner's family home and was shocked to experience their water. They have a water softening system installed in their house. They love the feel of soft water. I can't stand it. I feel like I'm showering in conditioner. I feel slimy and like I can't get clean. I was so baffled they would choose this soft water lifestyle that I started doing some research into it. Then I realized I need some beauty brains help to understand what is going on with the soft water. How would you explain the difference or what is happening?

[Perry Romanowski]

Okay, basically, hard water has magnesium and calcium ions in it. And soft water, you switch it off for sodium and potassium ions. So it's just kind of a swap there. That's what these filters are doing. And the reason that hard water feels harder as I guess those metal ions can interact with your detergents and they can reduce the cleansing ability of those detergents. So your hair or your skin doesn't feel as squeaky clean, I guess. And so basically the soft water is going to feel, I guess, more gentle or as you say, slippery and slimy.

[Valerie George]

Yeah, they. The calcium and magnesium in tap water, we'll call it, from really anywhere. All municipalities have calcium and magnesium present. They can interact with your detergents and form like a scum on your bathtub or maybe like a little craft crust on your shower head. You can sometimes notice it, but like Perry said, they swap them out for a different type of ion. Sodium and potassium are not divalent. They're monovalent metals. And they don't have that same type of impact on skin or hair. And it's interesting because this is something I notice as well too. And I mentioned it a couple episodes ago, maybe with the cerebellum episode, I'm not sure where I was. Like, there's products I loved in Los Angeles. I can't stand them in Texas. They just don't work the same on my hair. And it really is a water quality difference.

[Perry Romanowski]

And it could be. It's kind of complicated about what specific chemical interactions are going on there. But just suffice it to say that there are some going on there that for someone who's perceptible enough, they might be able to notice differences. Now, I Will say it could also kind of just be if you know, you know, you're given that knowledge and so you kind of bias yourself. So there might not be much going on chemically, but if you're told, oh, this is hard water, you're going to start to feel something like that. And that kind of brings us to that shower head question.

[Valerie George]

Magdalena had another question with this. What are your thoughts on the shower head water filters? My understanding is supposed to be installed like a regular shower head and filter the water as you shower, which is supposed to be beneficial to hair and skin. I was very skeptical of such devices and doubtful that a shower head would have noticeable impact. However, I was gifted a jolie shower head about a year ago and pretty much immediately noticed a difference in how my hair felt after showering. Once I started using it. I think I even feel a difference between a fresh filter and one that's at the end of his life. I'm not sure if it's placebo or actually doing something. So I'm curious on your take on filtered shower heads. Thank you so much for all you do to keep us brainy about beauty.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah, that's a good question. I'm not like a shower head expert, but, you know, we use, what, reverse osmosis to deionize water and such, and those last for a pretty long time. Although a shower, the tiny. Like our deionizers had these gigantic filters. And a shower head is just going to be kind of.

[Valerie George]

And they're meant to do hundreds of gallons. Right.

[Perry Romanowski]

What's a. What's a shower? How much water you think you use about there?

[Valerie George]

I'm going to guess 10 gallons.

[Perry Romanowski]

Okay. Well, I think in looking that up. Yeah. 10 to 25 gallons or.

[Valerie George]

Oh, wow. So, yeah, that shower filter is very small. So to handle that much water continuously, I don't think they have a long lifespan.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right. So it would make sense maybe you notice it right in the beginning, but that's going to get used up, you know, in one or maybe two or three showers. I would expect. It's not really doing much at all after that. Right.

[Valerie George]

Yeah. So the problem I have with these shower heads is, again, you might notice a difference in feel.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right.

[Valerie George]

For sure. And if you have really damaged hair and you have a hard water problem, you're really going to notice an improvement in your hair when you switch to a filter. But I would probably recommend having a water softening system system installed in your home.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah.

[Valerie George]

Just from a price point. Just because those filters are so expensive.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah. And you might also Be noticing something right away when you switch filters because you know how expensive it was. So you just. You're gonna start noticing, right? I don't know.

[Valerie George]

Yeah. So bottom line, does Magdalena have to worry about different waters, and do we think she should keep using the filter?

[Perry Romanowski]

I would say that I don't think the soft. The sliminess that you're getting from your soft water, it's not bad. It is different, so it's not surprising. The shower heads, you know, they're kind of just these gadgets, which they're not like magic wands. And they probably don't work very long, if they do work at all. But, you know, if you like how it's doing, it's fine.

[Valerie George]

I would pass on the showerhead.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah, I would.

[Valerie George]

And focus on the water for the home. That's what I would do.

[Perry Romanowski]

Well, yeah, with the shower head, it seems like a pain in the. I don't know. I wouldn't use it. But if you were gifted it, you try. Does there is some legitimacy to that? You could have an effect on you. I mean, honestly, I think most people wouldn't notice differences anyway. I think it's pretty subtle. But if somebody notices a difference, there is a reason, possibly, that they would.

[Valerie George]

Exactly.

[Perry Romanowski]

Our next question comes to us from Jamie. Hi, guys. You're wonderful, and I've learned so much. I have a question about chemical versus mineral sunscreens. Oh. Tying back into our news thing, I put on mineral SPF in the morning. The eltamd.

[Valerie George]

Eltamd. Perry and cerebellum is using this sunscreen. That's so embarrassing.

[Perry Romanowski]

Okay. Altamd. Before work, I work a desk job, and I asked my dermatologist RN if it's really necessary to apply or to reapply every two hours, provided I haven't sweated it off. She said for mineral, no. But if it sits on top of the skin. For a chemical sunscreen, it is necessary because they break down. This kind of contradicts everything I've heard. But I really don't like reapplying every two hours when all I'm doing is sitting in front of a screen, then talking or taking a walk at lunchtime. This is especially true for tinted sunscreens because they usually just make you look oily and orange if you apply more. Is what she said true? My question doesn't really pertain to going outside or exercise or hike where you'll be sweating. I get that. I know to slather myself in those scissors. Also, what do you think of those powdered sunscreens? Such as color science. I have dry skin and am hesitant to add powder throughout the days, even though that's an easy way to reply. Every two hours. And then the eltamd. The eltamd that I wear is the UV Restore 40. Finally, my last part of the question. Boy, she filled in all of these questions and they. That's okay.

[Valerie George]

So smart. Jamie's so smart.

[Perry Romanowski]

My husband believes UV can't penetrate glass. Is that this true? I'm specifically asking about our old house windows and car windows. Thanks so much, Jamie. All right, lots to unpack there. Let's start with the ELTA md. Do you gotta reapply that?

[Valerie George]

Well, I don't think you need to reapply SPF if you're just sitting, let's say, in a room like I'm doing right now.

[Perry Romanowski]

Sure.

[Valerie George]

You're not. Yes. You have oil secretions going on and there's some natural light coming into my, my room. But your sunscreen is not decomposing. It's not degrading. You know, there's stabilizers in it.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah.

[Valerie George]

You're not getting intense UV exposure. And so for me, I think, would I notice a difference 30 years from now if I applied it or not? No. And so I'm not going to do it.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah.

[Valerie George]

But there is a reason. The back of the sunscreen bottle says to reapply every two hours.

[Perry Romanowski]

And that reason is regulations. Yeah.

[Valerie George]

The testing methodology, the rules.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah. So that's why that's there. Now, do you really. And you know, lots of people on social media will tell you, oh, you have to reapply after. But honestly, as to what the RN was saying. No, the chemical sunscreens in, you know, indoors are not chemically breaking down over time like that. They break down. I would agree. They get used up if they absorb UV light and they.

[Valerie George]

In extreme sun, but not in an indoor office environment.

[Perry Romanowski]

Exactly. And I would also say that while the mineral sunscreens sort of have a different interactions and they don't chemically degrade in the same way, the problems isn't necessarily the degradation of just the, the UV blocker, it's also the, the film forming and such. And if you're moving around and such, you're going to cause gaps in that film on your skin. And that's really the more important reason why you would want to reapply. So that's going to apply whether it's a organic chemical sunscreen or an inorganic mineral sunscreen.

[Valerie George]

Exactly. So in an office, my personal belief is you don't need to Reapply every two hours. You could use something like Color Science, which is a powdered product that dispenses through a brush. There's a couple brands that have this type of powder apparatus, including Brush On Block and Hustle Beauty. But is it an effective way to get SPF coverage? I would say you're not going to realize the SPF on the packaging because the SPF testing methodology, I think, is 2 milligrams per square centimeter.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah. Some ridiculous amount. Yeah.

[Valerie George]

So that's a lot of powder. If you were to weigh out 2 milligrams on a scale and think about just one little centimeter on your face, so you really would have to put a ton on. Now, would it help a little tiny bit, maybe. But again, if you're inside in an office, I just don't think you need to add that powder. Now, especially if you're also wearing makeup on top of the sunscreen, I think you're actually okay, because iron oxides in tinted foundation at least help remove visible light exposure, which you are exposed to in an office. And visible light actually can cause hyperpigmentation in skin as well as other problems. But in terms of UV protection, I think you're fine to just put on The ELTAMD, clear UV, restore 40 once.

[Perry Romanowski]

And go especially indoor. And, you know, a lot of that makeup uses titanium dioxide anyway as part of. Of the base. And that's. That's a sunscreen.

[Valerie George]

Yeah. Now, if you wanted to, like, throw some powder on for your commute home, I could see doing that. Okay, I'm going outside now. Let me throw it on. But I gotta do. I don't know about that.

[Perry Romanowski]

I mean, really, like you say, in 30 years, are you gonna say, oh, I didn't do this? And I noticed a different. I'm like, probably not.

[Valerie George]

All right, what about this part with the glass? I actually learned this in physics in high school, so.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah.

[Valerie George]

Well, I'm glad I at least had this because I felt like it's helped me with aging a little bit.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah. Her husband isn't exactly wrong, but I don't think he's totally right. It depends on what he said. But does glass block uv? It blocks some of uv. It doesn't block out. Right.

[Valerie George]

So it blocks UVB rays, the burning rays. So you actually can't burn through the windows, but you could age through the windows. Like uvb, uva.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right. It doesn't block uva, which is the one that causes tanning, and it also is the one that's suspected in causing Melanoma. Yeah.

[Valerie George]

So look at me. I'm worried about the superficial stuff, but yes, also.

[Perry Romanowski]

Well, nobody wants to be burned either, so. Yeah. So yes and no is the answer there. So if you're sitting in front of a big sunny window all day, you are getting some UVA rays exposure. And so your sunscreen is helping you.

[Valerie George]

In that regard, provided it's broad spectrum and it has a really great UVA coverage zone.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right.

[Valerie George]

Otherwise it's not.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right. So if that was.

[Valerie George]

There's that.

[Perry Romanowski]

If that was a debate between you and your husband, I think both of you can declare victory.

[Valerie George]

Well, I'll tell you another interesting thing, Perry. Since I learned that in high school, I've actually been very cautious about wearing driving gloves.

[Perry Romanowski]

Oh.

[Valerie George]

And you know, we're, of course, wearing my spf. I did that before that anyway. But I even had. Not on the car I have now, but it's on my list to, like, go get done. And it's something I keep forgetting about, but I actually had, like, a UV film on the windshield of the car. It's not tinted.

[Perry Romanowski]

Sure.

[Valerie George]

But to help block additional UV rays coming in from the UVA spectrum.

[Perry Romanowski]

I mean, no wonder you look 10 years younger.

[Valerie George]

Isn't that crazy? And then I got a crack in my windshield, and I was like, well, there with that.

[Perry Romanowski]

You know what?

[Valerie George]

You do come with a new windshield, you got to redo it.

[Perry Romanowski]

Crack. You can just put a little sunscreen there, right? Oh, yeah.

[Valerie George]

Oh, my goodness.

[Perry Romanowski]

You know what? I love that driving gloves idea. In fact, I love driving with gloves on. And in fact, I would bring it back, like. But my wife thinks it looks dumb, especially in the summer.

[Valerie George]

It kind of does. But mine are, you know, skin colored, so you can pick, you know, what shade looks great for you. But mine have the fingertips cut off because I don't like my fingertips being covered.

[Perry Romanowski]

Oh. See, I do it because I have this nervous habit of picking at the skin around my fingers while I'm driving. So that stops me from doing that.

[Valerie George]

Oh, yeah, you need the fingertips ones.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right. So, yeah. But I like the nice black gloves in the middle of summer. It's kind of odd.

[Valerie George]

Oh, my gosh. Well, our next question comes to us from a patron. Lisa, what's the difference between using a rinse out conditioner and a deep conditioner or mask? Can they be used interchangeably? Does one work better than the other on regularly heat styled hair?

[Perry Romanowski]

You know, I suspect, Valerie, that you and I might have differing opinions on this one.

[Valerie George]

Your opinion is just throw VO5 on it and that is not an answer.

[Perry Romanowski]

That's not my, that's not my answer. My answer really is, as a consumer, you can't really know because there are some brands out there that will just take one or two versions of their conditioner, make it thicker, and then call it VO5. I don't work for VO5 anymore, so I can't say that's true. But back when I did work for them, that's what we did. We did that you would take just the standard conditioner, add twice as much cetyl and sterile alcohol so it get thicker and you call it a three minute miracle or something like that. And it worked perfectly fine. So some brands can do that now, other brands don't. Other brands maybe look at it a little bit more nuance and will change up the formulas a bit more.

[Valerie George]

That's what we did. So for us at the salon brand that I worked at, a conditioner was, you know, in a spec, had a specific water content to it. So it wasn't too rich, too heavy, unless the product category it fell in required it to be richer or heavy. So, for example, a volumizing conditioner was very lightweight. A conditioner for coarse dry hair, you know, maybe would be a little more substantive, but that doesn't mean it was more conditioning per se. But when we went to develop a mask or a deep condition conditioner, in air quotes, we would change up the formula. We would most notably reduce the water content, which would make it thicker, like Perry said, usually increase your thickening agents because it also adds to that consumer perception. But then we would, you know, maybe enhance the heaviness or like the occlusiveness on the hair. So at least like felt a little bit richer and maybe it was doing more conditioning. But from a basic conditioning perspective, you know, they're probably similar, right?

[Perry Romanowski]

I think what, what we kind of discovered was that consumers can't really tell a difference. And so the big difference in the like, ultimately you use a product and at the end of the day, on a blinded basis, you can't tell a difference. And so ultimately we went with cost of goods and keeping it down. And it becomes more of a marketing story that drives your perception than like a chemistry thing.

[Valerie George]

Now if I had regularly heat styled hair, I would probably use a mask more often instead of a conditioner. So I would shampoo and then I would put the mask on and leave it on a longer time. Presumably the mask would have a higher oil content, more silicones, that kind of stuff.

[Perry Romanowski]

Now wearing that mask is not to Keep, keep that out of your eyes, Right.

[Valerie George]

Oh, my goodness. So, yeah, I would use it, rinse it off in the shower, and then I definitely would be supplementing with a heat protectant. Yeah, hopefully you're already doing that. And this will help reduce the amount of breakage in your hair by using things that are both extra conditioning in the shower and then protecting heat left on the hair. Because if you regularly heat style your hair, you're probably getting a lot of breakage and mechanical damage.

[Perry Romanowski]

Here is one area where I say looking at the labels can be very telling. So if the brand happens to be doing the trick that we used to do on the brand I worked on of just taking the standard formula and zhuzhing it up a little bit and calling it intensive or deep conditioner, it had very similar ingredient lists. And so if you look at a brand that has a mask and they have a deep conditioner and the ingredient lists are pretty similar, they're probably doing that same thing.

[Valerie George]

That's a great tip.

[Perry Romanowski]

Hey, we got an audio question.

[Valerie George]

Hi, beauty brains. I've got a question about something I got at the dermatologist office. It's Avene Makeup Removing Micellar water. And my question is, what do you think about this stuff? And they in particular, the fact that it's strong enough to take off makeup, but it says you don't even have to rinse it off. Is it doing anything for my skin or what the heck is it doing? Thanks so much.

[Perry Romanowski]

All right, Catherine's Avene Makeup Remover, Micelle Water. You're a big Micelle fan, are you? Or user?

[Valerie George]

Well, I've used them. Am I a fan? Nah, I just personally prefer rinse off cleansers. So typically with a micelle or water, are you familiar with them?

[Perry Romanowski]

I am familiar with them. L' Oreal had one. And, you know, I remember Sarah Bellum saying that she loved the l' Oreal Micellar when it came out. Although I don't know if she's still using it. So maybe that was kind of a fatty kind of a thing to me.

[Valerie George]

I thought it would be a fad. I'm actually still surprised people use them. But basically what they are is water. And they put a little bit of surfactant or solubilizer in it.

[Perry Romanowski]

Sure, yeah.

[Valerie George]

And you literally just so soak a cotton pad and you wipe it on your skin and you don't rinse it off. And the idea is the surfactants or solubilizers in the water at a very small amount will wipe away some of the oil, impurities, brands say debris, all that kind of stuff. But it's really more like the solubilization and physical wiping. You wouldn't rinse afterwards. And so the reason I don't like it is I'm like, well, what if you're leaving a little surfactant behind? Probably not a big deal, but for me, I'm like, I would just rather use a traditional cleanser and. And wipe my face.

[Perry Romanowski]

I'd also think you're leaving makeup behind. Right.

[Valerie George]

Like, well, that's the premise of Catherine's question. So is it strong enough to take off makeup without rinsing? And in my opinion, the surfactant level is so low.

[Perry Romanowski]

Like.

[Valerie George]

Like, so low.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right.

[Valerie George]

That I don't think these are really great makeup removers if you're relying on it alone to remove makeup and cleanse your face. If you are a heavy makeup wearer, like Mac makeup, for example, is pretty substantive. I don't think it would be strong enough to take off a full face of makeup. So I think you would probably be better off double cleansing. And this really, to me, is more for, like, where you have a lot of skin contact.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah, absolutely. I don't think that micellar waters are your power cleansers. At least power enough to remove makeup, but they sell them, so some people like that anyway.

[Valerie George]

Yeah. And what's interesting is, you know, they say that this product is a makeup removing micellar water. Again, I'm sure it takes off some very light makeup application, but it's just using water, little bit of solvents, glycerin, pentalin glycol. The surfactants are coca glucoside and a solubilizer polyglyceryl 4 cap rate 6 caprylate, which is a, you know, very nice, lightweight solubilizer. But basically, they say in the morning and evening to face and eyes with a cotton pad. Presumably you wouldn't have makeup on in the morning. If you have to use a fresh cotton pad, repeat, and then finish the cleansing process with a fine mist of Avenet thermal spring water. But all their clinical results are not about how well it is removing makeup. It's about skin hydration. And it's no surprise because you're leaving on glycerin and pentalin glycol.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right. So is it doing anything for your skin? It can have some cleansing effect, but there's probably better options out there.

[Valerie George]

Exactly. Well, our last question also comes to us from a patron, Misha.

[Perry Romanowski]

You know, Misha is our newest patron. She just joined so welcome, Misha. Misha.

[Valerie George]

Well, welcome.

[Perry Romanowski]

And, you know, being a patron, we. You get your questions answered, like, real quick. So here's misha's question.

[Valerie George]

Are 20 free or 12 free nail polishes any safer? I'm sorry, 20 free. Oh, my God.

[Perry Romanowski]

Wow.

[Valerie George]

Are 20 free or 12 free Nail polishes any safer than regular nail color in terms of toxicity and absorption?

[Perry Romanowski]

20. This was all like, 20 free? 20, 20, because what was it?

[Valerie George]

It used to be 3, and then it became 5. 5, and now I'm surprised to see 12 20.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right. What did the. What did the 23.

[Valerie George]

You know what? I'm gonna come out with a nail polish that's 1800 chemicals free and use the European Union's banned chemical list, where like 1700 of them would never be used in cosmetics anyway.

[Perry Romanowski]

Wait, I just see this ad. I looked up 20 free nail polish on Google because I was curious what the 20 are. And the top one comes 30 free nail polish.

[Valerie George]

So Misha and us, we're not even up to date.

[Perry Romanowski]

I know. I see your 20 and I raise it to 30.

[Valerie George]

Like, I'm raising it to 1800. I'm pulling that EU banned chemical list where it's like, you know what? I didn't put jet fuel in my nail polish.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right, Right.

[Valerie George]

So kerosene didn't make it.

[Perry Romanowski]

So what is the deal with this 30 free or 20 free? What are they free from?

[Valerie George]

Well, here's the thing. I don't really know because when the whole free from claim first started out, it was, well, our nail polish doesn't have formaldehyde. It doesn't have toluene, it doesn't have camphor, which I don't know why you would put camphor in nail polish.

[Perry Romanowski]

Sure.

[Valerie George]

It doesn't have phthalates. It doesn't have parabens. You wouldn't put parabens in a nail polish anymore. They're water free. But now I feel like they're adding many different new chemicals that absolutely have nothing to do with nail polish.

[Perry Romanowski]

I just found the 30 ingredients that they exclude from their nail polish.

[Valerie George]

Please read them.

[Perry Romanowski]

Okay. Formaldehyde, Formaldehyde releasers. Okay. All animal derived ingredients. So no carmine sulfonamide, ethyl tolsylamide. So xylene, toluene. Okay, so those are the standard ones. Then they say phthalates. That's not. And then acetone, triclosan. Okay.

[Valerie George]

Why would you put an antibacterial in the nail polish?

[Perry Romanowski]

Okay, how about. How about this? Hydroquinone. They're not putting.

[Valerie George]

Oh, okay. You don't want to put a skin lightener in.

[Perry Romanowski]

They don't put in mineral oils or.

[Valerie George]

Wax, which you wouldn't put in a nail polish anyway.

[Perry Romanowski]

They don't put in sulfates.

[Valerie George]

You wouldn't put sulfates in a nail polish anyway.

[Perry Romanowski]

Edta, Lead. They don't put lead in.

[Valerie George]

Well, nail polish doesn't need edta.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right.

[Valerie George]

Because that's a key leading agent. It finds free metals in water. But lead, they can't make that promise because all colorants have lead content.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right, right. They're just saying they don't put it in there. Like nobody else puts it in there there either. But so they just make up all of these. Anything that sounds scary to people, they're just saying we don't put that in there. Even though most of that stuff you weren't gonna put in nail polish anywhere.

[Valerie George]

I also found gluten and palm oil on a separate list.

[Perry Romanowski]

Oh, boy.

[Valerie George]

Well, poor fragrance. Thank goodness for that.

[Perry Romanowski]

So that's what's going on here. So does that get to the question of just not having these things in there make them safer?

[Valerie George]

No, because at the end of the day, the nail polish is still nail polish. Nail polish is another interesting aspect of cosmetic science in that I feel like you have to learn it from another person, like hair color. And it's not really, it's not really using like conventional cosmetic chemistry. It's actually utilizing paint chemistry. And in order to have paint, which is usually a non water based material, it has to have things that evaporate into the air, so it dries. It has to have polymers, so it lays into a uniform film on the nail bed. It has to not be so rigid that it cracks, but not so flexible that it just, you know, kind of falls off. So it's this really delicate balance of ingredients. And so at the end of the day, all nail polishes have those types of things in them. And if ingredient lists were to were to be disclosed, you would find them to be very, very, very, very similar, no matter the brand. And so this whole like 20 free, 12 free thing, I hope you can see they're talking about things that wouldn't be in nail polish anyway.

[Perry Romanowski]

And the original things where you're taking out toluene and acetone and formaldehyde stuff, those were found pretty much in everything but the substitutes there. Everybody is using the same substitutes, so you're getting the same kind of effects.

[Valerie George]

No one's using toluene anymore, or should be. No one's using formaldehyde anymore because these things are carcinogens and you're not permitted to do that. So there's not really a point of distinction between these brands and the conventional brands you'd find at the market. And in fact, I would say, again, I just hate recommending the bigger brands, but they're probably doing the right thing and they're probably testing heavy metals for lead content in the pigments. Maybe these other brands aren't.

[Perry Romanowski]

I will also add though that there are only so many manufacturers of nail polish in the world.

[Valerie George]

Very niche.

[Perry Romanowski]

And so everybody's kind of using the same chemicals and the same people are making them. So even, even though the brands might be different, the manufacturing sites are generally the same.

[Valerie George]

Exactly. So, Misha, hopefully that answers your question. Don't be scared. Just use the nail polish. That works best for you. Yeah, I'm going to give a little plug look at my nails. Perry, what do you think of the color? It's a little peachy coral color. So not me. I get the same color like every time. But I was like, I need to do something different. And I saw this like little peach color and it reminded me of this shirt I wore all the time in eighth grade.

[Perry Romanowski]

Oh, wow, that's fun.

[Valerie George]

And I was like, okay, I should get it. It's super fun. But anyway, it's Dazzle Dry and it doesn't chip for three weeks. I talked about Dazzle Dry before. Yeah, I don't get into their free from stuff. I just wear it because it, it lasts for three weeks without chipping.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah. Very cool. Now, did you have to do it yourself or did you get it done?

[Valerie George]

No, you know, I, I'm not very good with my hands and I got a D in art in eighth grade. Like, I'm just not, you know, a person who can color in the lines. I just don't have that type of dexterity, so. So I get them done.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah, yeah. No, it's good. You know, it's hard because especially if you're, say you're right handed, to try to paint with your left hand could be complicated.

[Valerie George]

The other real reason I do, I mean, I do paint my own nails sometimes and it doesn't look as great as like when they really do it. The secret to nail longevity is in the preparation of the nail bed.

[Perry Romanowski]

Yeah.

[Valerie George]

So make sure it's being buffed and prepped appropriately. Oils removed from it before you apply the different coats. But the real thing is the shaping. I just don't. I'm not a visual person. And so for me, you know, I have longer nails. They're very thick from genetics. And so they, they shape really nicely and don't break. But I can't shape them. Oh, they don't look the same.

[Perry Romanowski]

Right, right. They do not look the same. But, you know, it does look the same or at least sound the same.

[Valerie George]

The ending of our show, we are out of time.

[Perry Romanowski]

There it is.

[Valerie George]

Thanks for listening, everybody. If you get a chance, head over to Apple Podcasts 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.

[Perry Romanowski]

And speaking of questions, if you have a question, just record it on your smartphone and email to thebeautybrainsmail.com or you can just post it in the form that we have in the show notes or leave a comment on Buzzsprout or Spotify or wherever. We get questions from all over. And if you want your question answered really quickly, like Misha, like Misha got. Well, you can just become a patron. And if you want to do that and support the show, go to Patreon, TheBeautyBrains and subscribe at any level. You also get a transcript of the show. And like I said, your questions get a higher priority.

[Valerie George]

Also, follow us on our various social media accounts. On Instagram, we're at the Beauty Brainstorm 2018 on X, we're at the Beauty Brains. On Blue sky, we're at the Beauty Brains. We have a Facebook page and a TikTok.

[Perry Romanowski]

And we also have a big congratulations to Valerie. Looking forward to the big event in a couple of weeks.

[Valerie George]

Oh, well, thank you and thanks again to our listeners. And remember, be brainy about your beauty.

[Perry Romanowski]

Thanks, everyone. Kittens.