Are lotions with water bad for your skin? Episode 157

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.

Randy Schuller (0:18)

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the 157th episode of The Beauty Brains Show. I'm Perry Romanowski, and I'm here with my partner, Randy Schuller.

Perry Romanowski (0:26)

I think you have that backwards, Randy.

Randy Schuller (0:29)

I'm a little out of practice. It's been a while since we've done this.

Perry Romanowski (0:33)

Geez, it has been a while. We haven't done one all year.

Randy Schuller (0:36)

Well, if only it were since January 1st. Well, but no, with all your political fundraising in the fall, we just didn't really have time to record much.

Perry Romanowski (0:46)

Yeah, boy, it was a rough fall, I have to say, right?

Randy Schuller (0:49)

All the way around.

Perry Romanowski (0:50)

Yeah.

But we are back. We are back answering questions.

Randy Schuller (0:55)

And we have some questions today about whether lotions with water are actually good for your skin or not, a question about whether air drying is bad for your hair, and if tomatoes are really good for the pores on your skin.

Perry Romanowski (1:07)

Whoa, I know they're good for the noodles on my plate.

Randy Schuller (1:11)

You just put tomatoes on noodles. That's a dish.

Perry Romanowski (1:15)

Well, you know my key to comedy, tomatoes on the wall, or my theory of comedy, right?

Randy Schuller (1:21)

So that's what we're going to cover today. I don't know if we... Do we need to chitchat a little bit? Have you done anything related to cosmetic science in the couple of months that we've been off that our listeners might enjoy?

Perry Romanowski (1:30)

Yeah, no.

You know what I like to do at the beginning of every year is review my goals from the year before. And I think in 2016, I gave myself an overall grade of a C.

Randy Schuller (1:46)

Wow, well done.

Perry Romanowski (1:48)

Yeah, my 55 goals, I had 11 As, and then 12 Fs.

Randy Schuller (1:57)

And our audience will care about this why?

Perry Romanowski (2:02)

You know, it's been a little while for this show.

Randy Schuller (2:04)

Yeah, actually, this is just a practice show, so to say anything you want, it's fine.

Perry Romanowski (2:09)

Do we need any explanation for why? I guess we already explained why we were...

Randy Schuller (2:14)

We don't have to explain a damn thing to anybody. That's my stance.

Perry Romanowski (2:19)

You know what we do have to do? We have to do some beauty science, too. Why don't you cue the music, Randy?

Randy Schuller (2:23)

All right, here we go. I'll take the first story, which is about the FDA limiting lead in cosmetics.

Now...

Perry Romanowski (2:33)

Wait a minute, it's okay to have lead in your lipstick?

Randy Schuller (2:37)

It's okay to have lead in your lipstick? And other questions about why the hell you haven't been podcasting for three months.

Yeah, obviously we've discussed this on the show before. That's the title of our last book. But it's time for a quick recap. So remember, lead is not a cosmetic ingredient that's added to a product for any reason. Rather, it's a contaminant that naturally occurs in the environment, and then it comes in in trace amounts with certain ingredients. And it's difficult, if not impossible, to remove all lead from any given product, depending, of course, on what ingredients you're using. But this hit the news pretty hard a couple of years ago, and I think there were two separate studies that showed many brands of lipstick, especially those with red colors, do contain lead. And you remember the numbers, the amounts ranged from a couple of parts per million or less up to about nine parts per million, I think was about the highest on the list.

So, the new news is that the FDA said that they want to limit... Oh, yeah, you want to make a comment there?

Perry Romanowski (3:38)

No, no. Well, what came out in those stories at that time, though, was the fact that the FDA does not limit lead, and anybody could put as much lead in their lipsticks as they want.

Randy Schuller (3:49)

Well, but again, lead isn't... It's not added, but the point is there were no limits.

Perry Romanowski (3:54)

No, absolutely. But that was the scare story, right?

Like, the scare story is about that whole thing, and that was put out by the campaign for safe cosmetics. And they do the same thing with, like, Halloween makeup, but they play up this lead, and they make it seem like, you know, manufacturers are adding lead.