Episode 364 - Dry Eyes, Sleepy Scrubs and Energizing Shampoos

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

Valerie George (0:30)

Hi, Perry, it's good to see you.

Perry Romanowski (0:32)

You too. We briefly saw you last week, but it wasn't long enough. But you know what isn't long enough either? Our show time, because we've got a lot of questions on today's show. We're going to cover questions, including is sun powder a sensation? Does a corneometer measurement prove a moisturizer works better? What does melatonin do in a body scrub? What does it mean when a shampoo claims it promotes hair growth? And can eyelash serum really cause dry eyes? But first, some chit chat. Yeah, you know, it reminded me, Valerie, I only saw you last week in the airport because I missed you at the show.

Valerie George (1:13)

I know, it was so busy. It's such a great time to see people get caught up in conversation. I know we tried to hang out a couple times after the show, but I had a class to teach online, and we just didn't get to connect.

Perry Romanowski (1:26)

That's right, you were quite busy, which is okay, you know, I got to see you right there at the end. And you know, I was, those shows, you go to these trade shows and you're walking around and you know a bunch of people, and then 20 minutes later, you just gotta move to the next booth. There's no way you can get to everybody.

Valerie George (1:43)

No, especially people really know who we are.

Perry Romanowski (1:47)

Right, right. I tell you, I'm not very good at ending conversations.

Valerie George (1:52)

I know.

Perry Romanowski (1:54)

So sometimes I will like just avoid starting it, and you know, I don't know. Maybe I have some social anxiety or something, but it's the ending that always gets me.

Valerie George (2:03)

What if we're the ones who keep people engaged and they're thinking, geez, I can never get away from Perry and Valerie?

Perry Romanowski (2:09)

It could be. You know, when I'm going around those shows, I always feel bad when I take like some of the candy that's out on the bowl, and I don't stick around to talk about something I'm not interested in anymore.

Valerie George (2:21)

Well, what's worse is pretending to be interested in what they have to get the candy. I did that once, and I felt terrible, but I was like, you know what? I need these Haribo gummy bears.

Perry Romanowski (2:33)

I know, I know. And then one place had margaritas. It was fabulous.

Valerie George (2:38)

Whoa, that sounds fun.

Perry Romanowski (2:40)

It was a great show. I had a great time teaching a class, and I nailed my tricks. That's always important for me, doing a little juggling, balancing a hat on a nose, and ukulele playing. And of course, oh yeah, teaching about cosmetochemistry. There's that, too.

Valerie George (2:54)

Man, I wish I had tricks like that. My only trick is being able to talk for 180 minutes nonstop about a topic.

Perry Romanowski (3:01)

Well, that's good, all right. Well, speaking of Suppliers Day, that's the raw material show that we're just talking about. Check in with last week's episode to learn more about that. But what do you see there? See anything interesting?

Valerie George (3:15)

Well, not super interesting because I had been previewed quite a bit of stuff before the show. A lot of the launches previously launched at a show called In Cosmetics in Paris. But I did see some themes. And one of them was a lot of fermented materials and a lot of biotech produced materials, which is a really cool topic for me. My graduate work was in biotechnology. And I think it's extra interesting now because the term, oh, it's biotech produced or it's produced through fermentation, it's thrown around like it's always a more sustainable or better option. And I don't think it's the case. So I think we'll continue to see some pushback against these companies or we'll start to see pushback against these companies to throw some metrics out there.

Perry Romanowski (4:03)

Well, I guess the idea is that it's replacing petrochemicals, and petrochemical is like a bad thing. But these, you know, I originally thought that these fermentation tanks or these biotechs were going to reduce the amount of land that's required for plant-based ingredients. But in fact, you have to feed those bacteria and mold something. And so they have to grow fields of sugar cane or whatever to feed back into there. So it's, actually, it takes up more land than if you would have just planted a food crop.