Are cosmetics poisoning our water supply? Episode 154

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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

Perry Romanoski (0:19)

Hello, and welcome to The Beauty Brains. I'm Perry Romanoski, and with me as always, Randy Schuller. Hello, Randy.

Randy Schuller (0:25)

Hi, Perry. Hi, everybody.

Perry Romanoski (0:27)

Yeah. This is episode 154 by my clocking.

Randy Schuller (0:33)

You are correct, sir.

Perry Romanoski (0:35)

Yeah, and boy, are my legs tired.

Randy Schuller (0:38)

What happened?

Perry Romanoski (0:40)

Well, you know, it was the marathon last weekend. Yeah, that was my 39th marathon.

Randy Schuller (0:46)

39 marathons, wow. How many hours of running is that?

Perry Romanoski (0:51)

Well, you know, if it's four times 39, 160 hours, approximately, I would guess I've been doing marathons for approximately 160 hours. Which is almost as long as that we've been recording this show.

Randy Schuller (1:06)

Nice. Nice way to tie it back to the show.

Perry Romanoski (1:09)

Well, we've got a big show today. Today, we're going to have some science stories, as always, and we're going to answer a bunch of questions that were sent in, including information about whether beauty products are poisoning water supplies. We're also going to be talking about dry oils and other questions that you sent in.

But first, let's get to some beauty science stories, huh?

Randy Schuller (1:34)

I'll play the music.

Perry Romanoski (1:42)

Here's a story about some new technology that's going to help prevent scarring on people who are severely injured. And maybe it'll lead to a cosmetic cream, too. Turns out a team out of the University of Western Australia have been studying compounds that inhibit an enzyme that enables the cross-linking of collagen. You see, when a scar is formed, this enzyme causes the collagen molecules to form chemical bonds within themselves, and that leads to the scar formation. So they had this idea that if they could prevent this cross-link bonding, then they could prevent scar formation or improve scars that already exist, right? Interesting. Yeah, so they're working with this pharmaceutical company to find compounds that inhibit this enzyme called Lysol oxidase, or LOX. That's the thing that causes the collagen to cross-link. And one of my favorite things about this study is that I learned that they have this test called scar in a jar model.

So it's a lab culture that mimics scar formation in a Petri dish. Apparently, they take skin cells from a scarred area, and they grow those cells up, and those cells are, presumably, they're defective in that they have this LOX enzyme. And so, anyway, they found a few compounds that inhibit the LOX enzyme, and the next step will be to move that technology to test in mice and pig models, and then, if that's successful, move to human trials.

And while this technology is being developed for burn victims, there is no reason why it couldn't be used for cosmetic application, too. So maybe there is hope for me to get rid of this disfiguring scar that I got in the middle of my face from that chainsaw incident.

Randy Schuller (3:38)

I think that actually builds character.

Perry Romanoski (3:41)

Well, didn't we have that story where people thought people with scars on their face were better looking or more rugged or something? I think that was episode 58, to go back.

Randy Schuller (3:51)

Hey, my only problem with this story is that if this were a horror movie, the researchers would overdose the test subjects with this anti-scarring stuff, and it would over-relax their skin, and they'd become this horribly disfigured clay monster that would kill people on trips.

Perry Romanoski (4:10)

Exactly, like the blob. You ever see Dark Man?

Randy Schuller (4:13)

Yeah, exactly. It's the Dark Man scar removal product.

Perry Romanoski (4:18)

Love that movie, Dark Man. Hey, you got a story, don't you?

Randy Schuller (4:23)

You remember a couple of weeks ago, we talked about this breakthrough scientific study showing that bald guys are less attractive?

Perry Romanoski (4:31)

We did see that.

Randy Schuller (4:32)

While we're waiting for the hate mail from that story to flood in, I thought I would share another male hair-related story. Apparently, facial hair transplants are on the rise.

Perry Romanoski (4:43)

Really?

Randy Schuller (4:45)

So, the way this works is they cut follicles out from the back of your scalp.

I don't know if it's back hair, I guess it's just like back of your neck. I don't know.

Perry Romanoski (4:55)

No, that's the hair that if it grows too long, my wife insists that I go get a haircut that day. She's like, man, get rid of that hair.