Are retinol products with the same level of retinol the same? episode 315

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 315 I'm your host, Valerie George, and with me today is Perry Romanosky. Hi Perry.

Perry Romanosky (0:25)

Hello Valerie. Boy, it's been a while since we've done a show, but you know, both of us were traveling.

Valerie George (0:30)

Yes, we were. So today we're not going to answer any beauty product questions because we have been traveling, traveling, traveling, which we'll tell you guys about. But we're just gonna do some of that famous inane chit chat and a bunch of beauty science news plus a retraction we have to make.

Perry Romanosky (0:47)

Whoa, a retraction. Well, I just did want to make sure we get a show in, so that's why we're doing it now. Retraction, I didn't hear about any of this retraction, but we'll save it for a little bit down the road.

But before we get to that, Valerie, where you been? What have you been up to?

Valerie George (1:04)

Well, first I want to talk about this being our 150th episode together.

Perry Romanosky (1:09)

Whoa, 150 episodes, whoa. I'm gonna put in some sound effects right there.

Valerie George (1:15)

Yeah, yeah. Can you believe it?

Perry Romanosky (1:19)

I cannot believe it.

It's been a great time. I'm so glad that you had suggested we restart The Beauty Brains. It's been a lot of fun. And we appreciate all of the great questions that we've had sent in. So 150 episodes, we do about four questions an episode. That means we've answered.

Valerie George (1:40)

Hundreds, 600 at least.

Perry Romanosky (1:42)

600 questions at least, wow.

Valerie George (1:45)

Yeah, yeah. So what have been your favorite moments of us together? And by the way, I will say that this is just one milestone.

In a little bit, it will soon be to the point, I would say maybe in 17 episodes, it's gonna be to the point where I am the longest Beauty Brains over Randy.

Perry Romanosky (2:06)

Oh yes, that's right. The second longest running host, all right. Yes, yeah.

Valerie George (2:11)

Longest co-host, yeah.

Perry Romanosky (2:12)

Exactly, now that will be, we will have a big celebration then. Maybe I'll even write a song.

Valerie George (2:18)

And guess what? People would still call me Randy.

Perry Romanosky (2:20)

They will still, yes. But then again, you're Randy and aren't we all, okay.

Valerie George (2:28)

Yeah, so do you have any favorite moments together over the episodes?

Perry Romanosky (2:32)

You know, my favorite times are when you were describing hair coloring, but specifically, I really enjoyed the henna hair coloring episode. I forget which one it was. If we were more professional podcasters, you would know what episode that, but look back in the archives. But you went through and explained, like I didn't know a lot about henna coloring. You explained how that works and why once you do it one time, you know, it's pretty much stuck that way, right?

Valerie George (3:01)

Yeah, yeah, very hard to get out of the hair. Well, that's funny you remember that.

I remember just the times we've had a good laugh over some of the questions that come in. Not laughing at the questions, but you know, the people, you know, our listeners sharing their funny experiences, and then, you know, we'll just laugh for days about it. I don't know.

Perry Romanosky (3:18)

We do have some excellent, interesting questions. You know, it's always interesting to me too, because while I spend a lot of time making beauty products, I don't spend a lot of time using them. And so I feel sometimes there's this whole culture of beauty products that I'm sort of separated from. I can tell you how the chemistry of it works, but I can't tell you like how people are using them. And that's always very interesting and illuminating to me when consumers or listeners will tell us about products that are important to them. And I look at them and I'm like, I look at the chemistry and I'm like, why are you even using that thing?

Valerie George (3:56)

Yeah. Whereas I'm like, oh cool, I should put it on my list.

Perry Romanosky (3:59)

Right.

Valerie George (4:00)

Yeah.

Perry Romanosky (4:01)

I know you, I've always been interested in how you're a big fan of azialic acid.

Valerie George (4:06)

Azelaic, yeah. Well, for the rosacea pustules, yeah. Do you remember that dermatologist wrote that thing?

Perry Romanosky (4:13)