Do plant extracts work in skin care products – episode 222

Perry Romanowski (0:00)

Hi, I'm Perry, 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 cosmetic industry. This is episode 222 Yes, that's a palindrome, I always love palindromes.

Anyway, I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and with me today is, well, it's just me today, Valerie is off, but she'll be back next week, she assures me. Meanwhile, on today's show, I'm going to be answering questions about whether skin dupes, AI is a reliable way to pick your skin care products, whether you can combine vitamin C and niacinamide, whether blue light serums provide any extra benefit, and whether it is worth it to grow your own plant extracts for skin care. Actually, I've got a ton more questions I'm going to answer in a rapid fire way because I'm here by myself. And I'm also going to cover a couple of beauty industry stories that I just thought were interesting. Before that, I'll just talk to you about something that's been on my mind. There are these hosts of questions that I often have. I'm sort of a curious type, and I imagine a lot of you are too. And often when I want to find out the answer to something, I will simply go to Google or DuckDuckGo, if you prefer the more private search. But I'll just go to an Internet search engine and I'll look up the answer for that. But sometimes I get a question that I just can't find the answer to. And here are two examples. So if you have the answer to these, please let me know. So one is there's the behavior of squirrels, where a squirrel will run up a tree, but if it sees you coming, it sort of runs to the back of the tree. I remember once reading that that behavior had a specific word attached to that behavior. But for the life of me, I cannot find out what that word is. So if you know squirrel behaviorists out there, what would that behavior be called where the squirrel shimmies around to the back of a tree trunk so that you as a person cannot see them?

Another question that has plagued me more recently is, I have this mulberry tree in my backyard, and right now it's shedding all of these little, well, they look like mulberry plants, but they're just like these fluffy little, I don't know, cone-shaped kind of things. They're not fruits, but they're not seeds either. I just wonder, does anybody know what these things are? I looked it up on Google, my Google powers were just not up to the task, because I do not know what are these mulberry things that are being shed today in my yard, which I have to clean up. Well, this gives me something to do. Although I also have this maple tree where it's shedding all of these green helicopters, and I wonder, why is it shedding all these helicopters? These can't possibly all be seeds, because it does that in the fall. Anyway, these are the things that keep me up at night, but they're not the reason that you turned in to the show, so let's get on with the beauty science news.

The first thing that I saw, which was interesting, is a report out of the magazine Cosmetics and Toiletries. Now, this is actually one of the most widely read and best sources for cosmetic industry insiders. They are reporting on a survey conducted by the company that makes CeraVe.

Apparently, CeraVe looked at people's attitudes about sunscreens and why they might not use them. I should say upfront that it is a good practice to wear sunscreen every day, and it actually is proven to have benefits, both with stopping the negative skin aging effects of the sun and also protecting you from the development of skin cancer. So if you're going outside, please wear sunscreen.

But anyway, looking at this survey, they asked people why do they not wear sunscreen? What's preventing them? And it turns out the main reason is because people don't like how it feels.

Some people also avoid it because they think it causes acne. Other people think they don't like the white cast that it leaves on the skin, and this is going to happen with the sunscreens like zinc oxide and titanium dioxide. Also, people don't use it because they don't want to mess up their makeup, and they don't think they need it because they aren't going to be in the sun too long. Now, honestly, I can relate to a few of these, but you really should wear sunscreen every time you go out. Of course, you know, like I said, I am a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to this advice because I don't always follow it, honestly. My reasons for not wearing sunscreen for when I go outside, you know, first of all, number one reason why I don't or I'll forget to wear sunscreen is that I just don't think about it. It really just doesn't occur to me all the time. And if it's not sunny out, I won't think of it. And even if it is sunny out, I still, it's just not top of mind for me. So that's kind of my excuse there. I also don't see any immediate obvious benefit. I mean, it does, it is a bit of a lot of work for me. I don't use a lot of products anyway. So this is a lot of work just to go outside for a run. And plus I already cover up my skin when I go running. So, you know, and I always wear a hat too with a brim. So my face is generally always covered with shade anyway. So pretty much just my arms exposed. And, you know, honestly, they could look a bit better, you know, but, you know, they're fine enough looking for me.