Episode 357 - Silk pillowcases, white tigers and titanium dioxide

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

Perry Romanowski (0:26)

Hello Valerie, so good to see ya.

Valerie George (0:29)

Great to see you, and it's going to be an even greater show because we're gonna cover lots of questions, including is it true that satin or silk pillowcase helps prevent frizz? What do we think of the White Tiger skincare collection?

What is the most effective color to offset the Tyndall effect? What are our thoughts on the bioprogramming hair technology and if titanium dioxide is considered a possible carcinogen, why is it still used in lipsticks?

Perry Romanowski (0:55)

And also why are people still drinking coffee in California? Don't they have those signs on Starbucks saying carcinogen served here or something?

Valerie George (1:02)

Well funny you mention that because I just put together a Proposition 65 article where I mention coffee is on Prop 65, meaning it is known to cause cancer in the state of California along with bread from the acrylates in the crust and wine because of the alcohol.

Perry Romanowski (1:19)

Yeah, for people that don't know, California in the United States leads our country in regulating whatever. Regulating cosmetics anyway.

Valerie George (1:30)

Anything they can. The more the better.

Perry Romanowski (1:32)

But, I mean, it is, you know, I think it's like the sixth biggest economy in the world, you know. So it's pretty big.

Anyway, they have this thing called Prop 65, which is this law that has this list of ingredients that are, to them, are known to cause cancer. Now, in huge amounts, of course, but the problem there is like coffee has these small amounts of what? Acrylamide or something like that.

Valerie George (1:58)

Caffeic acid and acrylamides.

Perry Romanowski (2:01)

Yeah. And so since that's in there, the Starbucks has to put, you know, known to cause cancer. And it turns out if you're looking for it, you could find these ingredients in pretty much anything. So every store has like the sign, right?

Valerie George (2:15)

Yeah. Every store, every restaurant, every coffee shop, especially if they serve alcohol, they'll have it because that's also on Proposition 65

Perry Romanowski (2:22)

So people just kind of go blind to it then, don't they?

Valerie George (2:26)

Living in California, I never really paid attention to those signs.

Perry Romanowski (2:30)

You know, it kind of reminds me of when you ever go to Europe and you look at the cigarette packs.

Valerie George (2:35)

Yeah. With the photographs on them.

Perry Romanowski (2:37)

Cigarette packs have like the, right, the most horrific pictures of lung cancer or dying babies or something. But people are still just buying those and smoking, so they just don't even look at them, right?

Valerie George (2:49)

Yeah. It can't be me.

You know what I was really hoping you'd ask me today, Perry? I had prepared for this moment. How many days I was old?

Or how many? Yeah. How many days I'm old? Yeah.

Perry Romanowski (3:02)

How many days have you been living? Would probably be how I would have phrased it, but yeah, but so wait, well, I do have my spreadsheet. I know that today is my big 20,044th day and you know, 44 plays a special little place in my heart.

But so yeah, well, how many days do you live?

Valerie George (3:22)

Well, I don't have a spreadsheet to track it. Now, wait, before I answer this, do you actually go in every day and add a day to it?

Perry Romanowski (3:30)

No, you can have an equation on the spreadsheet and it says today minus the day I was born. And so you just open a spreadsheet and it's already updated.

Valerie George (3:41)

Well, I am 15,136 days old.

Perry Romanowski (3:45)

15,136. You just missed the palindrome 15,151, but oh no, you got to come out 15 days, you got the big palindromic day.

Valerie George (3:56)

What? We'll have to celebrate.

Perry Romanowski (3:58)

We will. All right, now, can that chit chat get any more inane?

Valerie George (4:05)

We're losers.

Perry Romanowski (4:07)

Perhaps we should move on to the news.

Valerie George (4:14)

If the Body Shop goes under, can you believe it?

Perry Romanowski (4:18)

The Body Shop, like, they're, they used to be pretty popular, right?

Valerie George (4:21)

They were at every airport, every train station, everywhere you turned, you saw the Body Shop.