Collagen for skin, tea tree oil for acne and other beauty questions – episode 199

Perry Romanowski (0:00)

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

Hello, and welcome to The Beauty Brains, a show where real cosmetic chemists answer your beauty questions and give you an insider's look at the beauty product industry. This is episode 199 I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and joining me today is my co-host, Valerie George. Hello, Valerie.

Valerie George (0:31)

Hi, Perry.

Perry Romanowski (0:33)

All the way from Arizona.

Valerie George (0:34)

All the way from Phoenix area-ish Arizona.

Perry Romanowski (0:38)

Excellent. Well, Valerie, we got a great show today. You know what we're gonna talk about?

Valerie George (0:43)

Tell us, what are we gonna have on the air today?

Perry Romanowski (0:46)

Today, we're gonna talk about whether you should take collagen supplements, whether there's a difference between men and women's hair care, whether tea tree oil isn't as effective as benzoyl peroxide for acne, and can vitamin C change color. But first, before we get into the regular show, Valerie, why don't you tell us how you're doing?

Valerie George (1:09)

I'm okay.

As we mentioned, I'm in Phoenix-ish Arizona. It's very dry out here. I thought California was dry, but man, it is dry out here.

Perry Romanowski (1:18)

But it's a hot dry, right?

Valerie George (1:20)

Yeah, definitely hot. It's very warm, and I had to go out into the desert to my location, and I thought, well, I'd roll down the windows. I'm in the wilderness, and it just smelled like a campfire the whole ride.

Perry Romanowski (1:33)

Wow, they got fires out there, too?

Valerie George (1:36)

Well, I couldn't see anything, but maybe people are burning wood in their stoves. I don't know. It's about 75 degrees outside.

Perry Romanowski (1:44)

How does that affect your skin at all? Anything you notice there?

Valerie George (1:49)

Well, I haven't been here long enough this trip to notice anything yet, but typically, I just tend to feel dry. So I have some squalling, and I usually pack that with me, and I just add a drop or so into my moisturizer.

Perry Romanowski (2:05)

And does that affect your sense of humor? Of humor, too? Is it dry?

Valerie George (2:10)

Well, I have been known to have a dry sense of humor, but what I should have brought with me are some sheet masks.

Perry Romanowski (2:16)

Well, actually, that reminds me. Yesterday, my wife and I were taking a little walk around Chicago, and somehow she dragged me into this mask store.

Valerie George (2:23)

You're so lucky. She had to drag you, really?

Perry Romanowski (2:27)

No, no, she didn't have to drag me, but I'm always very interested to see what kind of products are out there. This store was like a Korean beauty store, so it was just all Korean products imported from Korea and things.

Valerie George (2:43)

Wow, what was the coolest mask you saw?

Perry Romanowski (2:45)

Well, what was interesting to me about the masks was they're all like propylene glycol and glycerin.

Valerie George (2:57)

Yeah, they're usually based on propylene glycol, butylene glycol. There isn't a whole lot to the formula other than an extract, and typically that leads with one of the glycols.

Perry Romanowski (3:07)

Yeah, and there were a lot of the regular stuff. There are hyaluronic acid, there was calendula, the soothing mask, a little rose blossom. We got a ton of them, ceramides. It was like every beauty product or ingredient that you've heard advertised in skincare, they had a mask for that.

They had the placenta mask, too.

Valerie George (3:32)

Yeah, that's not for me.

Perry Romanowski (3:35)

But you know what's funny? Like, I see masks as very gimmicky.

It seems to me that if you use a good skin moisturizer, a mask isn't going to give you much benefit. But my wife, who is also a cosmetic chemist, she just loves these masks. So there must be something more to it than, at least, than I know, right?

Valerie George (3:58)

Yeah, they're fun. And I will say not all masks are treated the same. I think Dr. Jart makes a couple of really nice masks that aren't based on glycerin or propanediol or any of the glycols.

Perry Romanowski (4:10)

I got a Dr. Jart one there.

Valerie George (4:14)

Oh, that's a nice one.

Perry Romanowski (4:16)

Yeah, skin, art, and science. Well, there you go.

I'm sure I'll have to report in to see how Shannon liked those.

Valerie George (4:23)

All right, thanks.

Perry Romanowski (4:26)

Shall we get on to some beauty science news? Theins.

Valerie George (4:34)

Yeah, last week, we all saw this article. Two representatives from New York State introduced a bill to the House of Representatives in Washington, DC called the Natural Cosmetics Act. Yeah, this act aims to define the terms natural and naturally derived, which currently have no meaning.