Are microplastics in cosmetics bad for the environmental? – episode 225

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 225 I'm your host, Valerie George, and with me today is Perry Romanowski. Hi Perry, I'm back.

Perry Romanowski (0:27)

Hello, Valerie, it's great to have you back.

Valerie George (0:31)

I'm super excited for today's show. We're going to be answering questions about microplastics in cosmetic products, metallic colorants in hair color, the best products to use when undergoing chemotherapy, and whether or not you should use expired sunscreens and more. We're going to do a rapid answer round to get through some of the questions that we've had from our consumers.

Perry Romanowski (0:52)

Yeah, Valerie, I was looking at our list of questions that have been submitted, and we have a backlog of 900 questions. Although I have to say, we do prioritize people with audio questions, so if you're sending in an audio question, it's much more likely you're gonna get on the show.

Valerie George (1:13)

Yeah, audio and Instagram, although I haven't been on Instagram lately. We'll talk about that in a second. But in addition to all these questions today, we are gonna cover some beauty science news.

Perry Romanowski (1:23)

Wow, this is a fully packed show.

Valerie George (1:25)

Fully, fully packed. Well, Perry, I've been a little in and out lately, and thank you so much for doing the solo episodes. I told you last week, I miss everyone, tell everyone hi for me on the show.

And I'm a migrainer. I suffered chronically from migraines my whole life. And as an adult, they've gotten incredibly bad, and I have a new set of neurological symptoms going on. And so I took this week off work to help recover from it. I've had an ongoing episode for about three weeks now. And today, I thought, you know, okay, I'm not doing any work, I'm relaxing, I'm gonna go to the mall. We have a beautiful outdoor mall by my house in Los Angeles. And there's an organic taco restaurant that has California and Baja style tacos. And I was like, I'm really craving these tacos, I'm gonna go get some. So the mall is absolutely empty, which is awesome for parking, walking around, et cetera. And I went to go up to the restaurant on the second deck, and the up escalator was not only off, but it was barricaded.

And I was like, I just want to go up, I don't want to have to walk around and try to find another way up, because then I don't know if I'll find my car. And I saw this gentleman breeze past me, and he walked right up the down escalator. And I was like, wow, that looks really easy, okay?

Well, it turns out it wasn't as easy as it looked. And with some of the neurological stuff I have going on, you know, the elevators have those stripes on the steps.

Perry Romanowski (3:05)

Yeah, sure.

Valerie George (3:06)

They're essentially like graded textured steps, yeah. Well, it totally got me dizzy. And I was like, trying to go up these steps, I got stuck in the middle.

I just kept trying to go up, and I was like, what's happening? Cause like, I had to focus on the steps so I could step on them, but then it was making me dizzy. And all these people were waiting at the top of the escalator, and I finally made it up.

And they're just like, are you all right? And I was like, whoa, that was hard. I don't know why I just didn't go down the escalator and like try a different route. I wouldn't let it go. I was like, I'm gonna do this.

Perry Romanowski (3:43)

Well, you were determined, and it's good to hear you made it up the down escalator.

Valerie George (3:47)

I've been laughing hysterically for like two hours. I was like, that was so embarrassing. All these people were just waiting up there watching me. Probably like, what is this wacky lady doing?

Perry Romanowski (3:56)

If only you would have Insta-storied it.

Valerie George (3:59)

I know, that would have been funny. Oh well.

Perry Romanowski (4:02)

All right, should we move on to some beauty science news?

Valerie George (4:06)

Yeah, let's get started. Big episode today.

Perry Romanowski (4:13)

I saw a company advertising, or there was a story about it. They were suggesting that coffee waste is going to be the next new hot ingredient. So this biotech company called Cafe Bueno, nice company name, they're taking used coffee grounds, and then they're squeezing out all this extra material. And then they're saying that this is going to create an oil that's going to be a great new material, and it's going to be great for anti-aging and for hair.