Episode 262 - Answering questions at live event

Perry (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 262 Today is a special episode. Valerie and I had recorded a patrons-only event, and we thought we'd bring you the audio from that where we answer questions live to the patrons who had attended.

This is one of the benefits of becoming a patron for The Beauty Brains. The people who are online got their questions answered right away, and we had to cut down some of the content that we had from that to fit into today's show, so you don't have a fully unedited version. This is an edited version, and I have to apologize if the audio doesn't sound perfect. Sometimes that happens with the vagaries of the Internet. But I hope you enjoy it. It sounds pretty good, and we cover a lot of questions. So here you are, our Patreon event from March of 2021

All right, why don't we get to that first question? You know, this one comes to us from Lindsey. She says, does hot water dry out your hair? I guess I've got to wonder, when people say dry out their hair, Valerie, what do you think they mean?

Valerie (1:37)

Well, it's interesting because when hair actually has water in it, it feels dry. Like kind of the opposite of what you expect happens. Like when hair feels hydrated, it's not actually like there's more water present in it because when your hair has water in it, it's frizzier, it's stiffer, it feels raspier.

So I always thought that was super interesting. I think it comes down to consumer perception, the feeling of dry hair.

I think it's really lacking lubrication in the case of hair. In the case of your skin, for sure, it's lacking water content. But with hair, I feel like dry hair is hair that you can actually feel the hair fiber, not like a lubricated coating on it. That's what I think dry hair is.

Perry (2:28)

I think dry hair is more about how it feels, not really necessarily about how much water is in your hair. Although when your head is in the shower and your hair is just drenched with water, it feels pretty wet.

And it's lubricious, but once that surface water goes away, then it's more about the coatings and the conditioning of your hair. And in that way, I don't think there is going to be any difference between warm water or cool water about whether it's gonna dry out your hair or not.

Valerie (3:01)

For sure, in the case of skin, there is a big difference for skin.

Perry (3:05)

Yeah, I could see that.

Although I remember I was a dishwasher at Denny's, and my hands... I never wore gloves or anything. My hands would start to crack here all the time, and I used the hottest water. Yeah, it was terrible. And somebody should have told me to wear gloves.

Valerie (3:25)

Yeah, I know. Do you know what's interesting about this? You know, people used to say that, oh, if you rinse your hair with cold water, like it's shinier, it's healthier. And now when you look on the internet, it's like, oh, that's one of those myths.

I will say the one thing I think about cold water versus hot water in hair is that hot water, to me, rinses things away better. And so I think you get, with cold water, I think maybe you have more of a coating on your hair, and that's why you have the perception of it's healthier, it's shinier. I think there's just more residue left, where for me, I get the best rinsing with hot water.

Perry (4:05)

Yeah, I would agree. Okay, thanks, Lindsay, for that.

Okay, Laurie had a question.

Laurie says, I have wavy hair, fine to medium. I recently bought Derma-E Thickening Shampoo and Conditioner, and I hated it. It made my hair thick but limp, all wave gone. Can the hair expert please explain what is the science behind thickening products and what is the main ingredients so I can avoid it in the shampoo? Thank you and love your show. Well, Valerie, you know what I did for this question?

Valerie (4:39)

What'd you do?

Perry (4:40)

I actually went through and did a little work. And so here is that Derma-E ingredient list.

Derma-E, right. And so the top one here is the shampoo.

And you can see there's a ton of different ingredients. And the bottom one here is the conditioner. And you can see there's a ton of different ingredients. Now, I think what's helpful to people, when I am looking to talk about the process by how we sort of analyze products, or at least how I do, whenever somebody asks about a product, the first thing I want to do is find the ingredient list. And because that can give me a sense of what's really making this product work. The first thing, you know, it's the first thing I noticed about this list, Valerie?