Hydroquinone creams, Vitamins in hair and more – episode 196

Perry Gronmanowski (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 scientists answer your beauty questions and give you an insider's look at the beauty product industry. This is episode 196 I'm your host, Perry Gronmanowski, and with me today is Valerie George. Hello, Valerie.

Valerie George (0:30)

Hi, Perry, hi, Brains fans.

Perry Gronmanowski (0:33)

On today's episode, we're gonna be answering your questions about whether there are any benefits to having vitamins in your hair products.

We're gonna talk about whether anything works better than hydroquinone for age spots, whether shave-minimizing products work, and whether film-forming ingredients are easy to wash off.

Plus, we'll get a couple of cosmetic industry news stories to talk about. But before we do that, let's say hello to Valerie. How is it going, Valerie?

Valerie George (1:02)

Things are okay, in case anyone was wondering. I am safe from the fires that are ravishing Los Angeles.

Perry Gronmanowski (1:09)

There's fires out there in California?

Valerie George (1:11)

Yeah, it started Thursday night, and it closed several major highways. It was right at this point where you pass from one valley to another. So my roadway to work was blocked. So Friday was a work from home day. And for much of the lab, I just went ahead and gave them the day off since nobody could drive through. I did have one employee that had to evacuate from her home, but she is fine. And hopefully this weekend, she got to go back.

Perry Gronmanowski (1:38)

So that kind of thing makes you want to come back to the Midwest, right?

Valerie George (1:41)

A little bit. We do have great weather every day, but sometimes when these fires happen, the air basically smells like campfire and it starts to dust everything with ash particles. So, but you don't have to put up with it too often. But the air quality definitely was not good. So I stayed inside this weekend and worked on some big projects I had going on.

Perry Gronmanowski (2:02)

Oh, sounds like fun. Well, I hope you stay safe out there. You know what I did today.

Valerie George (2:07)

I heard you, you did a lot of running.

Perry Gronmanowski (2:10)

I did. I participated in the Chicago Marathon for my 20th time in this race.

Valerie George (2:17)

Do you mind disclosing your time to our fans?

Perry Gronmanowski (2:20)

I finished the marathon a minute faster than last year, three hours and 43 minutes.

Valerie George (2:27)

Now, I want to remind everyone, Perry just doesn't run marathons. He juggles during them. So he joggled 26.2 miles.

Perry Gronmanowski (2:36)

Yeah, juggling is for the future.

Valerie George (2:38)

I couldn't even juggle for.2 miles, so I think that's really cool.

Perry Gronmanowski (2:43)

Well, thank you. I practice a lot, though.

But it did give me time to catch up on some podcasts, so we'll get into that in a little bit.

Valerie George (2:51)

Well, first, let's do some beauty news.

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal called The Rise of Fancy Face Cream for the Rest of Your Body.

And it was a short article, they didn't reveal anything to mind-blowing, but they did say that there has been a surge of high-end skincare companies making powerful skincare creams for the body, not the face. And they went on to discuss three brands that had recently launched this year, and the author thinks that it's going to be quite a bit of a trend. And I was looking at some of the creams because I'm vain, I'll just say it. I think like most of our listeners, we want to look our best and feel our best. And I thought, well, I take care of my face and my décolletage, which is my neck and my chest. Why not take care of the rest of my body?

Perry Gronmanowski (3:49)

I learned a new word there.

Valerie George (3:50)

Yeah, so I was looking, and the creams are like, one of them is $165, and it's only four ounces. And I'm sorry, I don't know how far that goes on your body, but I did notice one thing that the author did say, it's high-end skincare companies doing this. And I think it's a great idea. I just don't know the viability of it.

So when you...

Perry Gronmanowski (4:20)

Four ounces for your whole body? What is it, like hand cream?

Valerie George (4:25)

It's $40 an ounce for your body, I mean, from head to toe. And I get it, skin is your largest organ, it is the protective barrier on your body, it takes a lot of insults, you wanna treat it well. But I wanna speak from a formulator's perspective why outside of high-end skincare, I don't think this trend will really be super impactful.