Are herbal infused hair colors really less harsh? Episode 293

Perry Romanowski (0:00)

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 293 I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and with me today is the lovely Valerie George. Hello, Valerie.

Valerie George (0:31)

Hi, Perry.

Perry Romanowski (0:32)

I see you've been using that extra volume shampoo. Your hair's a little out there today, right?

Valerie George (0:38)

It's what it normally looks like when I don't do anything to it, yeah.

Perry Romanowski (0:41)

There you go. All right, well, Valerie, besides talking about your hair, today we're also going to be talking about some of the questions that people had sent in.

Valerie George (0:49)

All right.

Perry Romanowski (0:50)

Including questions about the Augustinus Bader Rich Cream and the You Beauty Resurfacing Compound products, whether herbal-infused hair colors are really less harsh, whether that droplet device has gotten any better, the droplet device that people keep asking about it.

Valerie George (1:08)

It keeps coming back up.

Perry Romanowski (1:10)

I know, just like a NASA rocket.

And finally, whether the lipospheric delivery system is a better way to get vitamin C than supplements for your skin. But first, of course, get ity chit-chat. How's it going, Valerie?

Valerie George (1:27)

I'm doing well.

So Perry, you know this, but many people don't know this, or many of our fans, some of them do know it. But I actually recently left Corporate America. I ran R&D and Regulatory and manufacturing for a very large salon brand. And now I am out of my own.

Perry Romanowski (1:47)

All right, which means that you can say whatever you want. Whoa!

Valerie George (1:50)

Basically, yes.

Perry Romanowski (1:52)

Well, except you can't talk about clients and stuff.

Valerie George (1:56)

Yeah, so I actually have opened my own formulation house, which basically means instead of working for one brand, I'll get to work with many focusing on hair and hair color. So I'm very excited for that.

And of course, I still have my ingredient business.

Perry Romanowski (2:09)

And if you want to launch your own haircare line, Valerie's your formulator.

Valerie George (2:14)

Yeah, as long as you have some capital behind you.

Perry Romanowski (2:17)

Sure, sure.

Well, congratulations on that. You actually look glowing and refreshed to be out of corporate America.

Valerie George (2:26)

Yes, well, it also helps.

I recently had that heart surgery, so I'm feeling great from that, all healed up. And so far, it's been a really good year.

Perry Romanowski (2:36)

Yeah, excellent, and it's hopefully will make recording more shows easier. I know a lot of times your job would call you away to Italy or to Texas, and you were traveling a lot and it made it complicated to connect with both of us. But look at us. This is what, our seventh show all year?

Valerie George (2:54)

We're doing great. We're on track for one episode per week. That also means we'll have time to do more exclusive events for our Patreons. And I think, you know, we have a couple things up our sleeves that we've been talking about Perry. We'll get to focus on that this year.

Perry Romanowski (3:09)

Indeed, that'll be fun. Speaking of fun, you shared with me something from Instagram.

Valerie George (3:16)

It was, I believe, a TikTok reel on Instagram, and it was a gentleman's lovely dedication to VO5 and the grip it has on 90s America. And what do you think?

Perry Romanowski (3:30)

Well, someone actually connected. They said, oh, the Joggler probably knows about that. And in fact, he mentioned, like, he was asking the question, like, why was everybody's bath had VO5 in it, right? And how come you could buy it for, like, 50 cents?

Valerie George (3:45)

Yeah, and why did everyone's hair smell like coconut?

And when you guys made the strawberries and cream fragrance, oh, my gosh, I remember that. We had it.

Perry Romanowski (3:54)

Well, he actually called out the strawberries and cream. And one of the first projects that I personally worked on, you know, when you're a cosmetic chemist, this is what happens. You come into a company, and the company already has formulas.

And so you think like, oh, you're a cosmetic chemist. You get to actually make stuff. No, what you really get to do is take someone else's formula, and maybe they want to swap out a different supplier for your Cocamidopropyl betaine. And so you just make a bunch of batches with some different supplier. And that is sort of the seedy underbelly of what most of the time you're doing as a formulator. But sometimes you get on a project where you get to be the formulator, right? And why was the formulator on the strawberries and cream?