Amino acids in hair plus other beauty questions answered – episode 221

Valerie George (0:00)

Hi, I'm Valerie and you're listening to The Beauty Brains.

Welcome to The Beauty Brains, a show where real cosmetic chemists answer your beauty product questions and give you an insider's look at the cosmetics industry. This is episode 221 I'm your host, Valerie George, and with me today is Perry Romanowski. Hi Perry.

Perry Romanowski (0:27)

Hello Valerie.

Valerie George (0:29)

On today's show, we're going to be answering questions about is blow drying hair at low heat better for your hair than air drying? How important are amino acids in hair care products?

And how do you go about studying cosmetic science? And we'll cover some beauty news too, but first, Perry, I saw you ran a marathon?

Perry Romanowski (0:47)

Well sort of, I ran a marathon. Now you know that I'm a bit of a runner, right?

Valerie George (0:52)

Not just a runner, but a juggler, right? You run and juggle, or yeah, you run and juggle at the same time, right?

Perry Romanowski (0:58)

I do, yes. Every time I run, I juggle.

And I'm a streak runner too, which I have not missed a single day of outdoor running in 11 and a half years.

Valerie George (1:10)

How many, you track it in days though, right?

Perry Romanowski (1:13)

Yes, 4,162 today, 4,162 days, yeah, so that's my little project.

Valerie George (1:23)

You know, what's impressive about that before we talk about the marathon is that you live in probably the most unfriendly weather city that I can think of, Chicago.

Perry Romanowski (1:34)

And it can certainly get a little cold and hot.

Valerie George (1:37)

And snowy and wet. Yeah, well, I mean, that's pretty impressive.

Perry Romanowski (1:41)

Yeah, there are some days I was out there in that polar vortex and it was negative 20F. And wow, you know, you just bundle up. So anyway, I had this notion, my friend told me about this idea of, you know, what can you do during this pandemic times and your quarantine? So you really need things in your life to kind of look forward to or to plan. Otherwise, all the days kind of start to bleed together. They do. It's kind of bleak. So one of my my friends told me about this idea that this person that he knew had to do a marathon.

And this wasn't just a normal marathon, I call it the pandemic marathon. But you know, a marathon is 26.2 miles.

So the idea was I would just run two miles every hour for 13 hours and boom, I've got a marathon. So I started at seven o'clock in the morning. I ran 2.2 miles. I figured I'd get that extra 0.2 out of the way before.

Valerie George (2:40)

Oh yeah, yeah.

Perry Romanowski (2:41)

Yeah, because you don't want to do that at the end.

So then every hour from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. actually it was 7 to 7, because you just got to get in before 8, I ran two miles.

Valerie George (2:55)

So you would run two miles and then go back home.

Perry Romanowski (2:59)

Yeah, I'd run, I actually had to square, I ran the exact same square route.

Valerie George (3:03)

Wow.

Perry Romanowski (3:04)

It's a half a mile each leg of the square, and they ended up back at my house.

Valerie George (3:08)

So I wonder what the neighbors thought. Like it was Groundhog's Day or something.

Perry Romanowski (3:15)

So it was good. I mean, my total marathon time was like three hours and 45 minutes of running, which isn't bad for marathoning, but I think I could try that again and maybe get a little faster.

And I had no drops, so I didn't drop any beanbags.

Valerie George (3:34)

Question. Do you usually drop beanbags?

Perry Romanowski (3:38)

During a marathon, maybe I have one or two drops, but I have made it through an entire marathon with no drops.

Valerie George (3:44)

That's pretty cool. Second question.

Did you have any outfit changes? Sorry. That's one of the first things I think of. What do you wear?

Perry Romanowski (3:52)

Actually, I did change my shirt at about the fifth lap.

So, I had two shirts, and they were both pretty wet and smelly, I have to say. I probably could have changed more frequently, but it's a pandemic. Nobody's near me.

Valerie George (4:13)

No judgments there. Well, that's pretty cool.

I did not even run two miles, so I think that tells you where I'm at.

Perry Romanowski (4:23)

Well, running is not for everyone. Actually, it took me eight years of consistent running before I actually liked it. I hated running.