Are boar bristle brushes better for your hair? Episode 138

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

You're listening to The Beauty Brains, where real scientists answer your beauty questions. And now, here's Perry and Randy.

Perry Romanoski (0:18)

Hello, beauty brainiacs from around the world. Welcome to episode 138

I'm your host, cosmetic chemist Perry Romanoski, and with me as always, my formulating partner in crime, Randy Schuehler. How's it going, Randy?

Randy Schuehler (0:30)

Hey Perry, good to talk to you again.

Perry Romanoski (0:32)

Well, Randy, we've got a big show today. You know, we're gonna try a little new format. We'll call it Beauty Science News, The Lightning Round.

So in the show, you can put like a lightning crash on after I say The Lightning Round.

Randy Schuehler (0:46)

Ooh, I like that. Actually, thunder makes the crashing sound, but okay.

Perry Romanoski (0:51)

Good point, Mr. Pedantic.

So anyway, we're going to try a new thing where we rapidly cover a bunch of stories rather than drone on about these stories like we usually do, right? Plus we'll answer your questions and tell you whether a boar bristle brush is better for your hair. If magic eraser removes spray tans, we'll cover whether sheet masks are better than moisturizers and tell you whether milk of Magnesia is good as a makeup primer. But first, some of that witty banter we're so famous for. You have anything, Randy?

Randy Schuehler (1:21)

No, you take it.

Perry Romanoski (1:22)

Oh, well. Actually, I don't have anything personal that I want to share today. I'm getting it. I've been told I'm a little too narcissistic.

But I did see an interesting story going on in the beauty industry. You know, J&J, they own that Aveeno brand. Well, they must be expanding more into personal care because they just bought this OVX brand, or it used to be called Organics.

Randy Schuehler (1:48)

Oh, yeah, sure. They do the little sort of squat, roundish bottles with all the kind of crazy...

Perry Romanoski (1:55)

Maybe the color, yeah.

Randy Schuehler (1:57)

Yeah, crazy colors and natural extract based.

Perry Romanoski (2:01)

Yeah, sure, I'm familiar with that. That brand has, you know, the hair care market hasn't been growing much at all, but that brand in particular was growing like 25% in the last 52 weeks.

Randy Schuehler (2:12)

I know it was on a huge growth rate. I just don't know what size it started with, so I don't know if in dollars that's big, but it's certainly percentage-wise.

Perry Romanoski (2:19)

Well, you can decide whether it's big or not. J&J just bought them for $3 billion. Wow, bully for that. I think our old comrades were involved in that brand.

Jim Marino and some of the people that were at Alberto, I think they were involved in that. I did not know that. That brand also used to be called Organics, and now it's called what, OVX?

Yeah, you know why they switched names?

Randy Schuehler (2:51)

Because it wasn't really organic.

Perry Romanoski (2:53)

Well, they got sued.

Well, it turns out in California, there are a lot of lawyers in California that if you use the word organic on your personal care product, they'll sue you because California has some organic standards out there, and it covers cosmetics. If you want a lawsuit, in fact, some of us tell me when I was in California that there are just lawyers who go to the stores, they look for cosmetic products that say the word organic, and if it doesn't have the organic symbol that's required in California, then they sue you. So the name change doesn't seem to have hurt them. I mean, they just sold the brand for $3 billion. So yeah, good for them. All right, hey, why don't we move into our lightning round of beauty science news?

Randy Schuehler (3:50)

Yeah, so we're gonna just kind of rattle off some recent headlines that appeal to us and just give us a quick commentary on each one. I'll start. You know, last week we talked about superfood as a beauty ingredient. How about waste food?

There are a couple of companies, one Swiss and one Netherlands based, that are now using waste food, such as linseeds, peas, rice, citrus peels, and old tomatoes to create cosmetic ingredients.

Perry Romanoski (4:20)

So look for that coming to a story. That sounds great. Well, at least we're not wasting food, right?

Randy Schuehler (4:26)

Yeah, that's a good thing.

Perry Romanoski (4:27)

I remember that story we had about using French fry waste oil for skin.

Randy Schuehler (4:33)

Oil, sure, for new surfactants.

Perry Romanoski (4:35)

All right, I got a story here. Hey, you know the Pope? It turns out he loves beauty bloggers.

According to this story, Pope Francis praised beauty bloggers for giving beauty tips that help neutralize aggression. And he goes on to say that beauty bloggers help start people taking a path of optimism and hope. So there you have it. We beauty bloggers are blessed.