Does Beer work for hair and answers to other beauty questions – episode 185

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 scientists answer your beauty questions and give you an insider's look at the beauty product industry. This is episode 185 I'm your host, Valerie George, and with me today is the most famous cosmetic chemist, at least according to Google and himself, Perry Romanowski.

Perry Romanowski (0:32)

Hello, Valerie.

Valerie George (0:33)

Hi, Perry. It's good to see you again this week.

Perry Romanowski (0:37)

Yeah, yeah, it's been a little while. I had that show last week, but I'm so glad that you're back to help shoulder the load of answering these beauty questions and talking about all the stuff going on in the beauty industry.

Valerie George (0:50)

We have a lot of fun stuff to talk about today. We're going to be answering your beauty questions about, does this product actually keep the surface of your makeup cooler as claimed? Whether or not DIY sunscreens are a good idea?

Are there any hairsprays that don't have alcohol? And we have two new segments for you.

Perry Romanowski (1:11)

Well, before that, I did stumble on something that some of the Beauty Brains listeners might be interested in.

Valerie George (1:18)

Oh, what's that?

Perry Romanowski (1:19)

Well, you remember the former co-host, Randy Schuller?

Valerie George (1:23)

I do remember him.

Perry Romanowski (1:24)

Yeah, I was tipped off. He was a comic book kind of nerdy guy. He might not have noticed that. But of course, he's loving all these new comic book movies that are out. But he actually was responsible for creating one, or being the inspiration for one of the characters that then went on to get its own movie and stuff. He designed this outfit for Spider-Man, which eventually turned into a character called Venom.

Anyway, he actually had written a story, and they're actually going to do a whole comic book on the story that he wrote, so.

Valerie George (1:58)

Oh, wow, really?

Perry Romanowski (1:59)

Yeah, I'll put a link to, in the show notes, to where that's happening. But the story's supposed to, the new comic book that he's going to get writing credit on is coming out in August.

Valerie George (2:10)

From cosmetic chemist to comic writer.

Perry Romanowski (2:14)

To really just comic book nerd, yeah.

Valerie George (2:19)

Well, it is good to be back today, but I will say that it's short-lived. I'm going on vacation next week, and I think you are too, right?

Perry Romanowski (2:28)

I am. And you're going to Europe?

Valerie George (2:32)

Prague.

Perry Romanowski (2:33)

Oh, that's fun. I'm going to Punta Canta.

Valerie George (2:36)

Two P's.

Perry Romanowski (2:38)

Is it Punta Canta or Punacana?

Valerie George (2:41)

I'm not really sure. I don't really like the beach anyway. I'm more of a non-warm weather person, even though I live in LA.

Perry Romanowski (2:49)

Well, I hope we'll both have fun, and we'll have to find some time to record, maybe just little segments we'll record and put them together as a show.

Valerie George (2:57)

Yeah, a couple questions or something like that. Now, let's move on to beauty news, and we actually have a new segment going on for our fans.

So this new segment we have for you guys is called Not So Clean Beauty, a public service announcement. And what we wanna do here is let our fans know who are probably beauty junkies or maybe know someone who is a beauty junkie about cosmetic recalls for whatever the reason is.

Perry Romanowski (3:31)

Right, one of the things that you hear on the internet, or you read on the internet often, is that the cosmetic industry is unregulated, at least in the United States.

And that's clearly not true. I mean, there are recalls. And so the FDA, who does regulate the cosmetic industry, they actually publish when products are recalled.

Valerie George (3:50)

But who's going to the FDA website to read about a recall or who's subscribed to the FDA recall mailing list? Probably not a lot of people. So what we thought we would do here is let you know if any cosmetic products have been recalled between our episodes so that you can see if you have it in your bathroom or wherever you keep your beauty products. And I think it's really important because one time, I did go to the FDA website to look up cosmetic recalls. And this was years ago.

And I accidentally went to the food page for FDA recalls. And right in front of me was a recall for a jar of peanut butter.

And I actually had the affected batch number in my kitchen cabinets. And had I not gone to the FDA website for cosmetics, I would have never noticed that my food was being recalled. I just threw it away. So anyway, hopefully this public service announcement will help our fans realize that they may have some not-so-clean beauty or not-so-right beauty in their house.