Episode 256 - Medical grade skincare real or imagined?

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 256 I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and with me today is my co-host, Valerie George. Hello, Valerie.

Valerie George (0:33)

Hi, Perry.

Perry Romanowski (0:34)

We got a big show today, Valerie. Are you excited?

Valerie George (0:37)

Big, big, big, yes.

Perry Romanowski (0:39)

Yeah, we're gonna be answering your beauty questions about what ingredients caused flashback and it's not acid. We're gonna talk about does the two-step cleanse really help skin?

What are the best detangling ingredients? And we're talking about hair.

Is skincare recommended by your plastic surgeon actually better? And what's the difference between prescription skincare and cosmetics? But first, boy, Valerie, I've been following you on social media this weekend. Boy, you've been tearing it up.

Valerie George (1:15)

What a turbulent weekend for me on social media, man. So first thing, I saw this post by Dr. Jen Gunter, who is an absolute fabulous gynecologist. And if you haven't read her book, The Vagina Bible, I highly recommend it. It was everything I had wished I learned about myself in health class.

Perry Romanowski (1:41)

I have not read that one. Maybe I'll try to get the audiobook.

Valerie George (1:46)

That'd be great.

However, what's interesting is she put this post about a trend that's been going around the internet, and it's menstrual blood face masking. Not sure if you know what that is, Perry?

Perry Romanowski (2:03)

I don't know, but it seems like that's taking DIY, or really putting the Y in DIY.

Valerie George (2:12)

I'm not sure. I was joking with someone on my Instagram, like could we call it cruelty-free? Would it be considered a vegan or organic? Anyway, but yes, it definitely puts the Y in DIY, and that's not the kind of DIY I'm going into business for.

So anyway, basically the premise is pretty straightforward. You take your menstrual blood, and you put it on your face.

Perry Romanowski (2:40)

Oh, putting any blood on your face doesn't sound like a good idea.

Valerie George (2:44)

Yeah, definitely a bad idea. So I don't know if it's one of those things where it's like, someone's just saying this to see what kind of traction it can get on the internet, but definitely a bad, bad, bad idea.

Perry Romanowski (3:01)

Well, I would also say maybe it's tapping into that vampire facial BS thing that, I think it was the Cardassians made that famous or something like that.

Valerie George (3:14)

Yeah, I don't know. I just, if a gynecologist with the prestige that Dr. Jane Gunter has is saying, don't do it, and my instinct is saying, don't do it, I would say, don't do it.

Perry Romanowski (3:28)

Yeah, I'm with you there. And speaking of not doing it, I saw that you put a picture on your Instagram of a product that you had that was just layered in the prettiest looking black mold that I've ever seen in a product.

Valerie George (3:49)

Yeah, so this was a product that comes up on pads, and there's like 60 pads to a container. And you wipe your face with it for some skincare benefit. And I had opened it later. I bought it mid-to-early last year, opened it later last year.

So, you know, it was sealed, totally sealed, it looked great when I opened it. And just a bit later, there was mold all over it. And well within the period after opening Symbol.

And I was kind of surprised because the last time I was in it, it was fine.

And again, I've only used it a couple times. So we moved, and Mr. Cosmetic Chemist goes through these phases where like, I'm not allowed to have anything out on the counters, and he'll like put them in a bag and then hide the bag. And then I'm like, where's, you know, my retinol serum or where's my azelaic acid? And then I can't find anything. And then he's just like, oh, I put it away. And it's like putting it in a brown paper bag and hiding it is not putting it away. I was pretty surprised. And so the first thing I did was I actually reached out to the brand. I provided them batch code on the bottom. I explained when I bought it, when I opened it, when I noticed the mold. And I said, did you do any preservative efficacy testing on this? Because obviously, I think that's a requirement to go to market to understand whether or not your preservation system is working. And I'm going to wait for their response and see what they say.