Does Beverly Hills MD Brow Serum work and other beauty questions? episode 213

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 cosmetic industry. This is episode 213 I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and with me today is fellow formulator, Valerie George. Hello, Valerie.

Valerie George (0:31)

Hi, Perry.

Perry Romanowski (0:33)

How you holding up there in that quarantine?

Valerie George (0:36)

I feel very isolated, but it's a good thing.

Perry Romanowski (0:39)

Yeah, of course. Well, we have a lot of beauty questions to answer today, and we're gonna get to a few of them here, including what do you think of the Beverly Hills MD Brow Serum? Yes, we're gonna talk about a product there.

We're gonna talk about whether lash tints are safe.

We'll also discuss why some anti-aging ingredients affect skin colors, among some other questions. And finally, why do dermatologists keep saying holionic acid is pointless? Wow, they do, huh?

But first, why don't we get to some of that inane chit chat we're so famous for, Valerie? What have you been doing with yourself? I mean, the country is in total lockdown, practically.

Valerie George (1:22)

Well, it is insane. I actually have a photograph of 405 that I took today, where it is completely empty. It's very bizarre, especially when it usually looks like a parking lot.

Perry Romanowski (1:33)

And 405 is the highway in California.

Valerie George (1:36)

It's the major north-south highway on the west side of Los Angeles.

Perry Romanowski (1:39)

Famous for always being crowded. Yeah, so, yeah, you know, on the plus side, it's cutting down all the smog, right?

Valerie George (1:47)

Yeah, it's really good for the environment. But yeah, it's totally crazy times.

Perry Romanowski (1:51)

Yeah, I really can't believe it. I mean, and this isn't going to turn into virus talk. This is going to give like a... Give the people the break from all the virus talk. But, you know, we are sort of confined to our homes and all the... I'm amazed all the restaurants and bars are closed. I mean, what am I going to do with myself?

Valerie George (2:10)

Well, it's the usual business for you, right? You work from home anyway.

Perry Romanowski (2:13)

That is true. And, but my wife is home working too. Like her entire company told everyone to work from home for at least the rest of this month.

Valerie George (2:23)

Mr. Cosmetic Chemist is the same. He's home as well.

Perry Romanowski (2:26)

But it did give us a chance to come up with some mixture that we called the Quarantini, which was like a gin cocktail, which is very good.

Valerie George (2:35)

Yeah, well, This Podcast Will Kill You, one of my favorite podcasts. They do a Quarantini every episode.

Yeah, that's fun.

Perry Romanowski (2:44)

Actually, I started to listen to their, I think their latest episode, and they were apologizing because they hadn't covered the coronavirus yet.

Valerie George (2:53)

Well, they do cover it.

Perry Romanowski (2:54)

Or hadn't updated, yeah.

Valerie George (2:56)

Yeah, they need to update it because I think so much information has come out recently.

It's really crazy.

I actually didn't have a Beauty Science News article this week just because everything flooding my feed is related to COVID-19, and it's really just incredible. I mean, the beauty industry, like many other industries, is virtually shut down at this point. For hand sanitizers, I keep seeing that. A few companies are saying, hey, we're going to manufacture a bunch of hand sanitizer and donate it to keep the market going, which I find interesting because carbomer, the main ingredient that's used to thicken hand sanitizer, to thicken the water and the alcohol, is on sales control because of the surge in demand. Isopropyl alcohol has sales control on it. Ethanol has sales control on it. So unless you currently buy and have forecasted volumes, you can't have any new business coming in. So I'm wondering how they're able to get the raw materials to make the hand sanitizer.

Perry Romanowski (3:58)

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I've seen a lot of people on my Cosmetic Formulation Forum complaining they can't get ethanol, they can't get alcohol, they can't get thickeners, and yeah, it's quite amazing.

And still, if you're stuck at home, just use soap and water, people.

Valerie George (4:16)

Soap and water works great. I actually ran out of hand soap, and we are totally sold out of hand soap at work.

And I guess I could make my own, but I found an old gallon of shampoo that I had made, so I'm just using that. It's like the same stuff. It's a sulfated shampoo. It's very generic. I use it to clean my lab wear, my home lab wear, but I've just been using that. It works the same.