Can I mix my own sunscreen? Episode 132

Allison (0:00)

You're listening to The Beauty Brains, where real scientists answer your beauty questions. And now, here's Randi and Perry.

Perry Romanoski (0:17)

Hello, welcome to The Beauty Brains. I am cosmetic chemist Perry Romanoski, and with me as always...

Randy Schuller (0:23)

Randy Schuller, also cosmetic chemist. Don't forget about me.

Perry Romanoski (0:26)

Oh, that's right. You were better a formulator longer than me.

Yeah, a little bit. Hey, Randy, we've got a big show today, and we're trying out our new format again. We'll cover some beauty science news that both of us found interesting, and we answer questions that listeners sent in. So today, we'll learn about whether beauty science is empowering.

We also will learn about sunscreen and the difference between sunscreen and sunblock, and lots of other sunscreen questions. This is actually all sunscreen.

Randy Schuller (1:01)

All sunscreen all the time. Tis the season.

Perry Romanoski (1:05)

But before we get on to that, I wanted to relay this interesting thing that happened to me at dinner the other day.

And it's beauty related. So, I was having dinner with a friend of mine who's in the industry. He's also a formulator. And I hadn't seen him in a while, and we are actually the same age. And he says to me, he says, boy, how do you look so much younger than me?

I'm like, I don't know. Which is funny, because I don't use really any anti-aging products. Hell, I shave with just water and a razor. I don't even use shaving cream. What?

Randy Schuller (1:44)

I didn't know that. I know that you wash your clothes as you shower, but that's about the extent of my knowledge of your personal care habits.

Perry Romanoski (1:53)

It's more efficient. Actually, I've seen a few YouTube videos where people, they take a video of them getting ready. I thought maybe I would put together one of those for The Beauty Brains. That's awesome. Look for that in the future. Anyway, so the guy says to me, well, how come you look so much younger?

I don't know. You know, I exercise a lot. I think exercising helps you look younger. And then I said, well, I don't smoke. And it turns out he's a smoker.

I'm like, the number one thing you can do to look younger, forget everything. I mean, I suppose cosmetic surgery is probably the number one thing.

But for lifestyle choices, the number one thing you could do to look younger, don't smoke. Smoking makes you look older. The number two thing, incidentally, is to wear sunscreen. So don't smoke, wear sunscreen. And that's pretty much what? 85, 90 percent?

Randy Schuller (2:53)

That's a big chunk of it. And the same advice applies to, you know, you see all these fear mongering stories about, you know, don't use this ingredient or that ingredient in your cosmetics.

Stop smoking first, then worry about those ingredients, because the damage from the cigarettes is much worse.

Perry Romanoski (3:10)

Exactly, so there you go. All right, should we start out today with the beauty science stories?

Randy Schuller (3:16)

Yes, but hey, let me give a quick shout out first. I want to say thanks to Jennifer, who did the introduction for today's show.

And I just want to remind everybody that you, if you want to hear your voice on the program, you can actually do it a couple of ways. But if you want to record the intro to the show, you just pull out your trusty smartphone, and you just say the same thing that Jennifer said at the top of the show. Just go back and replay that to refresh your memory. And then just email that sound file to us at thebeautybrains.gmail.com, and you can introduce the show for us.

Perry Romanoski (3:48)

Yeah, we like to get a variety of voices on the show, which is why we appreciate audio questions.

Randy Schuller (3:55)

And that's the second way. Exactly. You can record an audio question, and we'll get to our cosmetic questions portion of the show. I'm rebranding that now. You see how I've done the alliterative title? It's Cosmetic Questions.

That's the section of the show.

Perry Romanoski (4:08)

Very nicely done.

Randy Schuller (4:09)

But before we get to that, we have to get to some beauty science news.

Perry Romanoski (4:15)

Alright, I'll take the first news story today. And it's beauty related. I'll get to how it's beauty related, but it's actually a food story. It's an announcement by the Kraft food company about their mac and cheese product.

So Kraft just announced that it reformulated its classic macaroni and cheese product by removing artificial preservatives, flavors, and dyes from the products. Now to do this, they replaced standard food colorings with spices like paprika, annatto, and turmeric. For preservation, they probably just rely on a low level of water, and then they have a high level of salt in the product.