Episode 305 - Hair protein treatments and more

Valerie George (0:00)

Hi, I'm Valerie, and you're listening to The Beauty Brains.

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 305 I'm your host, Valerie George, and with me today is Perry Romanowski. Hi Perry.

Perry Romanowski (0:26)

Hello Valerie, I like the sing-songy-ness of your voice today.

Valerie George (0:31)

Oh, thank you. I'm a morning person, and it's morning, and I'm in such a great mood, and I know we're gonna have so much fun on today's show answering questions about, what do you think of the Aphogee Two-Step Protein Treatment and Balancing Moisturizer? Does human keratin bind to the hair and make it stronger and repair damage? Does hydrolyzed wheat protein work as well as hydrolyzed soy protein? Can brow thickening products work?

And do inorganic filters reflect or absorb UV rays? But first, Chit Chat, how have you been?

Perry Romanowski (1:03)

Oh, not bad. I'm kind of reeling over, there's this thing on social media with my other account, Chemist Corner.

Somebody said that I was jealous of the Olaplex people.

Valerie George (1:16)

Oh, stop being so jealous, Perry.

Perry Romanowski (1:19)

I'm not jealous of them.

It's perfectly fine. Bond builders are perfectly fine products. I think they get a little way more hyped on the internet than they deserve. But I do not wish any Olaplex people ill or anything. Sell away people.

Valerie George (1:38)

Am I jealous of them because I don't think bond builders work the way people think they work? I must be so jealous.

Even though I could start my own bond builder company with legitimate technology. I'm so jealous.

Perry Romanowski (1:51)

I don't sell any products or bond building products, so what's to be jealous of? They don't have a podcast as good as The Beauty Brains.

Valerie George (2:01)

Yeah, maybe they're jealous of us.

Perry Romanowski (2:04)

I think so.

So what's going on with you, Valerie? Business keeping you busy?

Valerie George (2:09)

This weekend, I went to something called The Dinner Dance, which is an event in the Southern California Society of Cosmetic Chemists.

It's basically prom, and we had a fun night. I met a lot of fans who listened to the show and had so much nice things to say about you and me, and it was awesome to meet them.

Perry Romanowski (2:31)

I always like that when visiting and see people. I think one of the most gratifying was when I was at a Christmas party at some friend's house and some rando was there, and they go, I recognize you from your voice.

Valerie George (2:47)

Yeah, that feels pretty neat. Now, it was great to hear their feedback, and mostly just hear it. One story actually came to me from the woman sitting next to my husband, Mr. Cosmetic Chemist, at the event, which a few people got to meet. They were like, where's Mr. Cosmetic Chemist? And I'm like, right over there.

But this one woman was telling him how we inspired her to get her start and keep going in the industry, which was really good to hear.

Perry Romanowski (3:15)

That's very cool.

Valerie George (3:18)

I don't want to name names, but it was really great to hear that feedback and know that we have such a positive impact, not just on people who buy products and use them and want their myths dispelled, but people in the industry. I was surprised about that.

Perry Romanowski (3:31)

Yeah, it's very cool.

Valerie George (3:34)

Should we head over to some beauty science news?

Perry Romanowski (3:37)

Let's do it.

Valerie George (3:43)

Speaking of that, I think there's some more drama going on over on social media.

Perry Romanowski (3:47)

Yeah, if there wasn't social media, what would anybody talk about?

Valerie George (3:53)

Yeah, what did people talk about?

Perry Romanowski (3:54)

Well, this was something that I had seen.

Like at the end of April, this kind of blew up on social media. But I bring it up today because this is an article published by Cosmetics and Toiletries looking at the Honey Pot reformulation controversy. So basically, what happened here is I saw that somebody had posted a side by side of Honey Pot products. And this was, I think it was a body wash. And they showed their old bottle and their new bottle and the ingredient list. And the ingredient lists were different.

Well, if you, and they had claimed that now they've changed the formula and everything that was good about it and they sold out the company. And so this company was taking a lot of heat over it. And actually, they were even interviewed on NPR asking them, you know, what was going on. And the founder of the company was assuring everybody that they just made changes. So what they did was they added a preservative because apparently the products, as they originally were, didn't last as long.