Episode 258 - The keeping your expectations low Episode

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 258 I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and today is a solo show. Valerie had said she was kind of busy at work, and so she asked me to do a solo show today. And so, what I like to do with solo shows is I like to answer as many questions as I can. And in fact, we had a whole bunch of questions that have been sent in over the past year that we just for some reason haven't gotten to. And today, I'm going to be answering those questions. So, if you sent in a question via the form that we have on the show notes, then this is your chance to hear the answer.

So, let's get right to it. Beauty questions.

First question comes to us from Tamara. Tamara says, Cosmetologists keep telling me henna will make my hair unhealthy or break off. I mix henna powder and apply to my roots every month to make gray become natural or orange-red highlights. I never use the colored henna. I think it makes my hair stronger and shiny. Should I stop using henna?

Well, Valerie actually did a deep dive on coloring your hair with henna way back in episode 189 Now, I'm going to suggest that you go back and listen to that episode. But basically, henna can be safely used to color hair. But there are a number of negatives, mostly that it locks you into using only henna as your colorant because you don't want to use other standard permanent hair colors on top of henna. Actually, you can go the other way around. You can have standard hair colors and then use henna on top of that. But if you start coloring your hair with henna, you're going to have to keep coloring your hair with henna, and there are less color options. And so that's probably why cosmetologists tell you that because they figure you're going to want to change the color, and it's more easy to change the color when you're not using henna. But the bottom line is that if you like henna coloring, keep using it because you can.

Next question comes to us from Vina. Vina says, Can I use a multi-peptide serum to moisturize and strengthen my eyelashes, or even as a type of moisturizer for around my eyes? Is it eye safe? I bought it, and it is too much work to put into my hair every day. But if it would keep my eyelashes growing, that would be nice. I think a lot of people actually want to get their eyelashes growing, which is interesting, and is good for the eyelash companies. But let's talk about this. So to the question, yes, you can use a multi-peptide serum for moisturizing your face and around your eyes, but I doubt it's going to have much impact on your eyelash strength, or certainly on growth. Most products that you put on your face are safe to use around the eye area, except, of course, for some colorants in the US colorants are specifically approved for use around the eye by the FDA. So there are restrictions on the kinds of colorants you can use. But basically, if somebody is making a face serum, they're not going to use a colorant that can't be used around the eye.

But the only eyelash growth product that has been proven to work is Lattice.

I think the active ingredient is called Bimroprost or Bimroprost or something. It was an ingredient that was used to treat glaucoma, and they found out that people using that were having the side effect of their eyelashes growing more. That was commercialized by the pharmaceutical company under the brand name Lattice, and that's the only one proven to work. All of these other brands consider themselves knockoffs or copies of it. These aren't proven to work, and I wouldn't recommend using them. The rest are just marketing stories or they're illegal drugs.

Next question comes to us from Isabel. Isabel says, are products labeled as heat or color protectors really working? And if a person does a relaxing hair treatment, can they use Olaplex to reverse the results? Sorry about my English and greetings from Madrid. Madrid. I love that we have people from around the world who listen to this show. And it seems that people around the world have the same kinds of problems, which is good, at least from a cosmetic chemist standpoint, because then I can answer more questions. I actually worked on a color protector product that really did work. It was the Tressamay Color Thrive product, and it really would lock in your hair color, and so it wouldn't wash out as you wash it. So it would stay in better, and it would look better longer. Of course, it didn't solve the problem of your hair growing out, which can be a problem. So as far as color protectors go, there are some technology that works, but the product that I was working on, the Tressamay Color Thrive product, it's not on the market anymore, because while it did actually work, the process of using it and the benefit that was achieved just didn't seem worth it to people that keep doing it, I guess. That's the problem with all of these types of products. It's just really hard for consumers to notice any real improvements, because it's an improvement that happens over time, and it's like you're preventing something from happening. So it's hard for you to see it, so it's hard to get people to rebuy even when something is working. Now, this is true really of any color protecting product, but of course, most color protecting don't actually work, then they're just kind of marketing stories. But since people don't really notice whether they're working or not, they can get people to buy them. But I would say this is also true of heat protector products. I don't find the studies about heat protectors particularly impressive, and you'll still get some damage, but maybe you're mitigating a little bit with some protective silicones. But I don't think it's going to protect you in a manner that you're going to notice much different. As long as you're using a hair conditioner after you shampoo, that should actually mitigate any heat damage that you have. Of course, you're going to have to keep using conditioners, but that's my opinion on that. And as far as Olaplex reversing the results of a relaxer, no, I don't think that is going to work. The bonds that are created by Olaplex are not nearly as strong as the bonds that you're breaking when you're relaxing your hair. It's the cysteine-cysteine-dye-sulfur bond. And that's a really difficult bond to break, which is why you need to have such a high pH and such a strong chemical reaction to break it. Olaplex is not going to reverse that to any significant extent.