Episode 377 - Beauty Product Talk!

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 cosmetics industry. This is episode 377 I'm your host, Valerie George, and with me today is, not Perry, it is Sarah Bellum. Perry is, it has been so long since Sarah Bellum has been on the show. Perry is in Brazil, having a great time at IFSCC. He could not be on today to record, and so I said, Sarah Bellum, I am too scared to do my own solo episode, unlike Perry, who has a lot of confidence. And I said, please come on the show with me today, so we can talk product, because I feel like with Perry, we never get to do that enough.

Sarah Bellum (0:55)

That's true. That's true. He's not a big product user himself.

Valerie George (1:00)

Not at all. So how long has it been since you've actually been on the show? I think this is the first time since I've been a co-host.

Sarah Bellum (1:06)

I think so. Perry and I might have done an episode together a few years ago, Valerie, during the pandemic. But before that, it was many years. So it's good to be back.

Valerie George (1:17)

I'm so excited to have you back because the audience does love you. Maybe not as much as Perry.

Sarah Bellum (1:23)

I'm just kidding.

Valerie George (1:24)

But they do love you. And today, what we are going to do is we are not going to go through the usual show format, beauty science news and beauty product questions. We are actually just going to talk about what products we're using because we may love them. We may hate them. We may have gotten them for free. We may have bought them. And I think it's important to discuss all these things. So what category would you like to start with?

Sarah Bellum (1:48)

Gosh, Valerie, I don't know. I mean, I have a hair care product in front of me, so let's just start with the top and kind of work away down. What do you think?

Valerie George (1:58)

All right. Yeah, I love it. Head to toe.

Sarah Bellum (2:01)

Yeah.

Valerie George (2:02)

So what are you using?

Sarah Bellum (2:03)

Well, I start with hair, but it's probably the category that I'm the most basic in, to be honest. You know, I work from home, as you know, so I don't spend a ton of time styling my hair. And I have wavy hair, so I try not to like overdo it with the hair care products.

Valerie George (2:20)

And your hair is like really thick. You have like a lot of it.

Sarah Bellum (2:24)

I have a lot of hair, yes. So, you know, I'm a Pantene girl. I love Pantene shampoo and conditioner. I've tried other stuff. I always go back to it. The one product I do like to use once a week is L'Oreal's Wonder Water, which I find kind of hilarious because the formula of Wonder Water is really the same as the old school V05 hot oil and shower hot oil treatment that I used when I was in high school and then worked at Alberto Culver. So it's full circle for me. But I like the packaging for the L'Oreal product better. But when you look at the formula, it's the sort of same, you know, self-heating technology that's been in V05 forever. But Wonder Water is like huge on TikTok. And it does really give my hair that shine and like smoothness that I like. But it is kind of funny. It's, you know, the formula is pretty basic. But it's at a good price point. It works well. So, you know, I go with it. But it does make me laugh.

Valerie George (3:17)

We did. We do get a lot of questions about the L'Oreal Wonder Water on the show. And finally, after like months of people writing in, asking about it, I said, I'm going to give it a try. So I picked up a bottle. It's very inexpensive, as you mentioned. And I was like water, propylene, glycol, alcohol. This is so simple, like so ridiculously simple. And aside from the fact, it felt like it had 150% fragrance in it. It's very fragrant, too much for me, and it smells like a dryer sheet to me. But I actually really did like the way it made my hair feel. Like you, I have wavy hair, sometimes curly. It's as thick as a spaghetti noodle per strand. And it does a really good job of, yeah, making it smooth, making it looking aligned, feeling strong.