Does Diet Affect Acne – plus SkinMedica serum and hair damage – episode 207

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 product questions and give you an insider's look at the cosmetic industry. This is episode 207 I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and with me today, my co-host and most traveled cosmetic chemist in the industry, Valerie George. Valerie, you at home right now?

Valerie George (0:35)

Hey Perry, I am home in LA, finally.

Perry Romanowski (0:38)

Oh, all right. Well, Valerie, on today's program, we are going to talk about a couple of beauty industry news stories and then answer your questions about whether an expensive skin serum is worth the money even when it's produced by a pharmaceutical company, whether hot water is more damaging than hot styling devices to your hair, if nutrition pads can work to deliver actives, whether a shampoo or conditioner ingredient can make your hair grow faster, and finally, if there is a bar shampoo or bar conditioner that works as well as the stuff out of the bottle.

But before we get to that, why don't we have some of that famous inane chit chat that we always have? How's it going, Valerie?

Valerie George (1:21)

I'm okay battling a cold.

Perry Romanowski (1:24)

Oh, sorry to hear that. Hey, some news, Valerie, I'm coming to LA on January 31st.

Valerie George (1:31)

Oh, how exciting.

Perry Romanowski (1:32)

Yeah, maybe we can do an Instagram story or something over that weekend, if I even see you, or maybe we could have like a Beauty Brains meetup somewhere in LA for people who might be around.

Valerie George (1:45)

Yeah, well, I think we can definitely do that.

Of course, I know you're coming into town on a Friday night, you're gonna be here for a green beauty night by the Eco Well in LA on Saturday, February 1st. Maybe we could do a little get together at a hotel bar or something like that, if any of our Beauty Brains fans live in LA and wanna come meet us.

Perry Romanowski (2:07)

Oh, absolutely. My evening will be free on both of those nights. So, well, we'll work out the details and let everybody know, right?

Valerie George (2:15)

Yeah, we'll have to see. Driving around LA on a Friday night is like murder, so it's awful, it's absolutely awful. So I'll toy with what part of town we can connect in, and maybe we'll just do it Instagram Live.

Perry Romanowski (2:28)

Yeah, well, we could just take public transportation there, right?

Valerie George (2:33)

Yeah, that doesn't really exist in LA. It's like a car city.

Perry Romanowski (2:37)

Oh, I get it, all right.

Valerie George (2:39)

Yeah, and I promise I won't be contagious by then.

Well, we have a big show today. Can't wait to get started.

Perry Romanowski (2:45)

Yeah, let's hop on to some beauty science news.

Valerie George (2:54)

What did you see this week?

Perry Romanowski (2:56)

Well, Valerie, you know, there's always lots in the news, but one of the ones that caught my eye was this 1, 4-dioxane ban in New York. Oh, yeah.

This was in a few places, but I saw an article kind of describing what happened in chemical and engineering news, CNEN. According to chemical and engineering news, the New York state legislation has passed a law that will limit 1, 4-dioxane in cosmetics to 10 parts per million by 2022

Valerie George (3:28)

Even worse than that, Perry.

Perry Romanowski (3:30)

What's worse?

Valerie George (3:31)

Even lower? After, yeah, even lower.

Perry Romanowski (3:34)

Oh, so after 2023, it goes down, what, to two parts per million?

Valerie George (3:40)

Exactly.

Perry Romanowski (3:41)

Well, so what's this all about? 1, 4-dioxane is not an ingredient people put in cosmetics on purpose. What it is is a contamination, I guess, or a residual from the reaction to create some of the raw materials. Specifically, a thoxylated materials like sodium laureth sulfate.

And what the problem is that 1, 4-dioxane has been implicated in as being a carcinogen. And so you'll see these NGOs will complain about 1, 4-dioxane being a carcinogen, and cosmetics are carcinogenic. And of course, the amount that's in cosmetics is miniscule or at least really low.

And there's never really been a concern about it as far as safety goes until now. Now this legislation is getting passed, and it looks like this could significantly impact formulations like shampoos, body washes, and products like that.

Valerie George (4:43)

Yeah, so 1, 4-dioxane, as Perry mentioned, is an impurity in the ethoxylation process of surfactants or emulsifiers. And they usually, they being the manufacturer, when they're manufacturing these ingredients, they vacuum strip the 1, 4-dioxane off at the very end to lower the content of it.