Beauty routines, sulfate free shampoos, armpit detox and more - episode 240

Valerie George (0:00)

Hi, I'm Valerie and you're listening to The Beauty Brains.

A show where real cosmetic chemists answer your beauty product questions and give you a unique look at the cosmetics industry. This is episode 240 I'm your host, Valerie George, and with me today is Perry Romanowski.

Perry Romanowski (0:27)

Hello, Valerie.

Valerie George (0:29)

So good to see you, great show today. We're gonna answer questions about what's a good beauty routine for someone in their 50s? Does Pacifica's underarm detox really help you get out those poor clogging toxins?

Can coconut oil absorb through your skin to cause an allergy?

Why do people hate sulfate-free shampoos, except for Valerie and Perry? And is Creme Placenta the creme de la creme? But first, let's see what we were up to this week. What's going on with you, Perry?

Perry Romanowski (0:59)

Well, you know, Valerie, I'm a little downtrodden.

Why? Because last Thursday, somebody called and they wanted to adopt the cat that I was fostering. And so on Monday, she was gone.

Valerie George (1:15)

Oh, she loved you so much, too.

Perry Romanowski (1:18)

She was a big fan of mine, yeah. And I, you know, I liked her. But I guess that's the nature of fostering animals, right? It's like, you don't get to keep them.

Valerie George (1:28)

Are you gonna get a new cat or no?

Perry Romanowski (1:30)

I think we're gonna take a little bit of a break. I mean, one of the reasons that we didn't keep her in the first place is that my wife's allergic to cats and she was wheezing and sniffing and her eyes are puffy. So, yeah, gives her a little break.

Although I have to say, if the cat liked my wife a little bit more, we probably would have kept her once.

Valerie George (1:54)

I could have dealt with being sniffily.

Perry Romanowski (1:55)

All right.

Valerie George (1:59)

Well, I had a dreadlock that I got for my birthday from somebody at work.

I work at a hair company. So there's a bunch of stylists at my work and they had cut the dreadlocks off a gentleman who had his hair worn in locks for nine years. So it was a nine-year-old lock.

Perry Romanowski (2:17)

So now it's just like, you use it as like a bracelet or something?

Valerie George (2:23)

Well, it's right here. Can you see it?

You can also see it on my Instagram. Yeah, it's really quite incredible. And there's like some stuff poking out of it. And I thought, what a better way to find out what's in it than to slice it open and look at it with 150 times magnification.

Perry Romanowski (2:42)

So you're dissecting the-

Valerie George (2:44)

I have like a little microscope here.

Perry Romanowski (2:46)

Oh, sure.

Valerie George (2:48)

I did. I did.

And it was what I suspected inside, but then I was like, well, you know what? Let me try to get all this debris out of it, like the waxes, the lipids, maybe hair product, for sure, dead skin cells.

Perry Romanowski (3:05)

Is there any like candy wrappers?

Valerie George (3:08)

Well, there were like some weird colored strings in part of it. But anyway, I dissected it, and then I said, well, let me soak it in alcohol to try to remove the alcohol. I didn't even vote. All of this is on my Instagram, by the way. I did not show the spent solvent because it was so disgusting with what it extracted out of the hair. And then, I got the hair section dry, the cross section I took dry.

And basically, all of the lipids that were still in the hair had kind of congealed like melted cheese. It was so awful.

I tried to show Mr. Cosmetic Chemist, but he didn't like it.

Perry Romanowski (3:52)

Well, it sounds fascinating, right?

Valerie George (3:55)

Well, I have several more inches I'm going to take a look at. So.

Perry Romanowski (3:59)

Well, I saw some of those pictures on Instagram. And it was very cool. And I'm very jealous of that little camera microscope you got there. That seems pretty cool.

Valerie George (4:08)

Yeah, it can take pictures of lots. So that was probably a big spend. I'm not going to lie. But I mean, everyone should have like a microscope, right?

Perry Romanowski (4:22)

Especially one that takes pictures. Now, if you could only turn that microscope on and check out some planarias.

Valerie George (4:29)

Yeah, no, that's not for me. I'd rather stick with my gross dreads. Well, let's head over to Beauty Science News.

Perry Romanowski (4:37)

Yeah, cue the music.