How effective are DIY Vitamin C recipes? episode 236

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 a unique look at the cosmetics industry. This is episode 236 I'm your host, Valerie George, and with me today is Perry Romanowski. Hi Perry.

Perry Romanowski (0:27)

Hello Valerie, good to be here.

Valerie George (0:30)

Great, on today's show, we're gonna answer some great questions about do allergens last through soap reactions when you're making them? What is CBD doing in my adult product?

And is this DIY vitamin C recipe worth all the hype? But first, Perry, I wanna tell you about a webinar that I pre-recorded today for a regulatory summit.

Perry Romanowski (0:53)

Oh, that sounds fun. Now, do you have to dress up to do a webinar?

Valerie George (0:57)

I did not dress up, but I made sure my hair was done because they were- Yeah, they were recording my face to be in the lower right window of my presentation.

But I'm not a regulatory expert. I do have a lot of regulatory knowledge because the company I work for by day regulatory reports into me, so I do have a lot of exposure to that. But they chose me to speak because of my presence online, and it's pretty obvious that I have a good collaboration with marketing. Given that, especially we have the Beauty Brains podcast, and all we do is debunk marketing myths.

Perry Romanowski (1:32)

Well, that's nice, although some marketers might take a little offense at our debunking.

Valerie George (1:38)

Yeah. Well, it was interesting because it got me thinking, I have a great relationship with our VP of marketing, and it's just awesome. And I think it has a lot to do with some of the stuff I spoke about in the talk, which was the title. I didn't get to choose my own title. They gave me a title. It was how to make PR and marketing your best friend and not your worst nightmare.

And just really about how the claims landscape, because, again, it is a regulatory summit, that the claims landscape is incredibly complex with the FDA, the FTC, and litigation. It's very hard to be a brand and make claims. And the FDA says you have to, whatever you say about your product, it kind of has to be true. And the FTC says you have to provide proof for your claims.

So it just got me thinking, and actually made me a little appreciative of what a good relationship I have. And I actually asked our VP of Marketing, I said, what would you want to say, or want me to say, or even want to hear at this type of talk? And she just said, you and I have a very unique relationship, and I didn't have this at another company. So that made me very happy to hear. But Perry, just given all that we do, I think maybe our fans think we don't like marketing departments. And for me, that's not the case. I get frustrated with marketing for sure sometimes.

But we're all in the same team. So how did you feel about your marketing team?

Perry Romanowski (3:10)

Well, I have to say that one of the things about the cosmetic industry that is a little bit frustrating for scientists is that the industry is run by marketing.

It's a marketing-driven industry. Whereas if you're in maybe the pharmaceutical area, it's technology-driven. Or if you're in electronics, it's more technology-driven.

Although those things, too, as a technology in an industry matures, there's less ways to differentiate your products through technology. And when you can't differentiate that way, you can only differentiate through stories. And that's really why marketing kind of runs the beauty industry. It was always a clash between what the marketers wanted because they wanted to do more and more, make crazier, crazier claims. And the R&D people were always the people who had to say, no, that's not really right, or you can't do that. And it kind of sucks. It kind of sucks to be the group who's always like the wet blanket. Like, oh, yeah, I'd love to say that this can grow hair. It doesn't, but I'd love to say that.

Valerie George (4:20)

Yeah, we're like the no people. Yeah, right, right.

Perry Romanowski (4:23)

So I always, I tried to, whenever I could, I tried, because I don't want to be that no person. I want to be like, yeah, we might be able to do this. But the reality is there isn't a lot of new technology in the beauty industry. A lot of the technologies are mature. And so there is just this natural clash between R&D and marketing. But when it comes down to it, marketing does get people to buy products.