Episode 335 - What's a good skin care routine, plus we talk parabens, bleach and heat protectors

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

Valerie George (0:32)

Hi, Perry.

Perry Romanowski (0:34)

You know, that used to be a show, didn't it? Wasn't it called Hello, Valerie?

Valerie George (0:40)

Before my time.

Perry Romanowski (0:42)

I think it was in the early 80s. Sorry, it's a good show.

Well, you know what else is a good show? Today's show, because on today's show, we have answers to questions about whether parabens in cosmetics are dangerous and if avoiding parabens can reduce your chance of cancer. How to figure out what you really need in a skincare routine? What should you really look for in a heat protectant? And, should you be bleaching your skin?

But first, some of that chit chat. Valerie, what is going on?

Valerie George (1:19)

Not much. I'm headed to Italy next week to do some customer work.

Perry Romanowski (1:25)

Really, Italy? What part of Italy do you go to?

Valerie George (1:27)

Well, I usually travel all over Italy, depending on what's happening, but this time I'll be in the middle of the country.

Perry Romanowski (1:34)

Ah, so that's like Rome area, right? Rome's the middle, isn't it?

Valerie George (1:38)

Exactly.

Perry Romanowski (1:40)

You know, Rome is a lovely little town.

Valerie George (1:44)

Little town. It's just a small little metropolitan area.

Perry Romanowski (1:49)

You know what I very much liked about Rome is you get out of the subway and you walk up the stairs and boom, there's the Colosseum, which is like thousands of years old or something.

Valerie George (1:59)

They never would have imagined metal electric rail system would transport people underneath.

Perry Romanowski (2:07)

Right.

Valerie George (2:08)

They would be shocked.

Perry Romanowski (2:09)

See, humans, we get more clever over time, right?

Valerie George (2:13)

Yeah.

What about you? Are you traveling anywhere?

Perry Romanowski (2:16)

Well, I am heading out to Toronto this week. I'm going to be speaking at the local chapter of the SEC about clean beauty AI and how it's going to impact the job of a cosmetic chemist.

Valerie George (2:30)

Any spoiler alerts?

Perry Romanowski (2:32)

Well, you know, I think everybody knows what I have to say about clean beauty, which is that it just makes the job of a cosmetic chemist a lot harder because there's all these great ingredients that you can't use anymore. And I think ultimately, what happens to consumers is that they're getting products that probably cost a bit more and don't work as well, but they feel safer about it, I guess, right?

Valerie George (2:58)

Yeah, I meant a spoiler alert on AI and the changing job of the cosmetic chemist. I also think I know what you're going to say.

Perry Romanowski (3:05)

You know, I'm still working out my brain about how AI can impact formulating, but you know, at the very least, you go to AI and say, hey, give me a shampoo formula, and it can spit out a formula. Now, the truth is, it was trained on what's available on the internet.

And so the computer, the AI right now, they don't know what is garbage and what is, you know, actually verified science.

Valerie George (3:34)

So or what a commercially acceptable formulation is, right?

Perry Romanowski (3:38)

So the stuff you get, the stuff we're getting right now, that's not, it's not terribly helpful.

However, you know, in the coming years, I could see some differences there. But the industry still is pretty secretive about formulas and things. It's not widely available. So it'd be hard for an AI to get trained on what's a really commercially viable formula unless companies start letting stuff out of their companies and on the internet. And, you know, I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Valerie George (4:10)

No, and it's certainly difficult to get the nuances that happen in formulation because it is a science, but sometimes there's a little art and finesse in delivering on the consumer expectation and experience. So that's what I think.

Perry Romanowski (4:26)

Yeah, absolutely. And we don't have that good connection. But you can't look at a formula and say, oh, this is going to work really well. You actually have to make the formula. You actually have to give it to people and they have to try it.

And whether somebody likes a formula or not depends so much on factors that are just not easily controlled. Like, for example, if you put the wrong fragrance on a product, half the people will hate it and half the people will love it, even though from a performance standpoint, it works exactly the same.