Episode 376 - Collagen supplements, hair bonding and more beauty questions answered

Valerie George (0:00)

Hi, I'm Valerie, and you're listening to The Beauty Brains. 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 376 I'm your host, Valerie George, and with me today is Perry Romanowski. Hi Perry.

Perry Romanowski (0:28)

Hello, Valerie.

Valerie George (0:30)

On today's show, we're gonna cover lots of questions, six of them, including-

Perry Romanowski (0:34)

Whoa, six?

Valerie George (0:36)

How can a cosmetic company claim their product fixes DNA errors? How does hair coloring and hair bleaching affect hair damage differently? Why isn't there an SPF rating on hair care products that protect from UV damage? What are your thoughts about Regerand skincare? How good is 3-O-ethyl ascorbic acid, the vitamin C derivative? And finally, how does the Rebond Leave-in miracle Bond³ Building Mask work? But first, Aneen Chit Chat.

Perry Romanowski (1:04)

You know, last weekend, there was this industry event, like about, I don't know, the truth in beauty or something like that. And very interesting stuff. But a topic came up, like, you know, there was a lot of scolding of brands that were, like, just doing what they call misinformation, like about clean beauty and ingredient safety and such. And you know, it just struck me.

Certainly, that's on the brands for doing that sort of fear marketing stuff. But on some level, isn't it up to the consumers to just stop being duped by what, like, somebody who's selling something is saying? I mean, there's got to be, like, a balance, right?

Valerie George (1:48)

Well, the challenge is the brands who say these things actually really believe these things. That's the problem.

Perry Romanowski (1:54)

Yeah.

Valerie George (1:55)

And anyone can sit on their high horse and say how stupid these brands are for misleading other people. But if you have your own brand, I'm sure there's something you're not aware of. So I don't know. I try not to get too judgmental about it. And at the end of the day, yeah, it's up to the consumers to be informed.

Perry Romanowski (2:13)

It's the you know, it's a beauty industry. Once you go beyond moisturizing and cleansing, you know, you got to come up with some story to sell products.

Valerie George (2:22)

And people always want to say more, that's for sure, and figure out how they're unique over another brand. So I totally get it. But it's never going to go away. Snake oil salesmen have been around for hundreds of years.

Perry Romanowski (2:35)

And that's why we are here to do our little part in educating the consumers. You know, you can tsk tsk all these brands all you want, but, you know, that's capitalism and they're only doing stuff because people are buying it.

Valerie George (2:49)

That's the one thing I don't generally like about industry panels, is it's all people sitting up there preaching to the choir.

Perry Romanowski (2:57)

Yeah.

Valerie George (2:58)

Why isn't there anyone who disagrees and just says, nah, I think they're getting it right?

Perry Romanowski (3:04)

You know, have you had me on a panel? Well, I can play contrarian on lots of topics.

Valerie George (3:11)

I recently did have a panel in Florida that I spoke on, and it was actually really cool. It was at the NASA headquarters, the Florida Society of Cosmetic Chemists put it on, invited me to be a speaker of this panel. It was a really well-done sustainability summit, although we did drink from plastic water bottles. But that's fine. Always room to improve, right?

Perry Romanowski (3:31)

Sure.

Valerie George (3:32)

Well, for the panel, you do a little panel prep, you meet your other panelists. I did say, are we looking for a little controversy here? Like, do you need us to agree on everything? Because there's some things I disagree about.

Perry Romanowski (3:45)

Yeah.

Valerie George (3:45)

And just the consensus is, other people in the industry don't like criticism. And so they didn't really want the contrarianism that I had to bring to the table. But guess what? I brought it in anyway.

Perry Romanowski (4:00)

And for that, you might not get invited back. But you got to be you though, you know?

Valerie George (4:07)

You do you.

Perry Romanowski (4:08)

You know, I did here an interesting thing about sustainability. And I always think like, is the cosmetic industry unfairly thrown under the bus about sustainability? Because I heard this fact today about plastic bottles. And you know how many water bottles are bought every minute? A million bottles a minute.

Valerie George (4:29)

I have a friend who worked at an Amazon fulfillment center, and he actually boxed one water bottle that was purchased.