Is a basic beauty routine ok and other beauty questions answered - episode 254

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

Valerie George (0:31)

Hi, Perry.

Perry Romanowski (0:33)

Good to see you, Valerie. You know what, we got a big show today.

Valerie George (0:36)

Big, big, big.

Perry Romanowski (0:38)

Yeah, on today's show, we're going to be answering your questions about whether hair dye can permanently stain your skin, whether herbal supplements can be used to fight acne, whether a basic beauty routine is okay, how you might treat post-COVID skin, and is polyethylene really a microplastic in cosmetics? But before we get to that, why don't we get a little of our famous inane chit chat that the reviewers on iTunes love?

Valerie George (1:13)

Well, I'm glad they love it. It's always good to catch up and just give people a little preview about the stuff that we have going on in our lives.

Perry Romanowski (1:22)

Yeah, so I got these two foster cats that I'm trying to get from out from under the bed because they spend the entire day under the bed.

Valerie George (1:33)

It must be nice under there.

Perry Romanowski (1:35)

Yeah, I think, you know, some days I just look at that, I'm like, maybe I want to just stay under the bed all day.

Valerie George (1:41)

It sounds nice, yeah.

Perry Romanowski (1:43)

It does, it does.

So what do you got going, Valerie? I noticed you were doing a little something on Instagram.

Valerie George (1:49)

Yeah, our readers know we've been going a little insane that some people on TikTok started this slander that DMDM Hidantoin in your shampoos is giving you, is causing hair loss. And we know that's not true for a multitude of reasons, but I was just reminiscing how up in arms I got that people started this rumor on TikTok based on the Tressamay lawsuit. And everyone just believed it without asking, without digging in. And then I found myself being a little bit of a hypocrite because there was this video, it's something you can't unsee.

So by the time our viewers listen to this, it'll be gone from my stories. But there was a TV show in Italy, and they had someone dressed up as Donatella Versace. And if you're not sure who that is, she likes plastic surgery, which is totally fine. And she on the show had squeezed her lower lip together about like, oh, I'm thinking, let me squeeze my lip together. And it stayed squished together. And then her hair was coming out, and I was like, oh my God, I can't believe her lips would stay like that.

And I was like telling everybody I knew, and then it's actually not real. So I fell for my own thing. It was awful.

Perry Romanowski (3:12)

Well, that just demonstrates how difficult it is to exist in this world where anybody can put anything on the internet, and you don't really know what's true and what's not true.

Somehow I have a fairly good BS detector of internet stuff, although I'm not immune. I just assume everything is fake until I can see that it's real.

Valerie George (3:36)

Well, truth be told, I only fell for it for about an hour, and then I spent so much time looking it up, and I couldn't find it, and then I eventually found the real thing, and it was just like a little skit or something like that. So I did do my own research, though, but I had already fallen for it and told about five people before then.

Perry Romanowski (3:56)

Well, it's hard not to fall for stuff, especially when there's a lot of interest in a topic, and if it's crazy interesting or crazy different, it seems so much more... It gets so much more attention. It's just hard to...

Valerie George (4:16)

Well, to the lay person, it's plausible, right? Both with Donatella Versace and DM DM. Hadantuin, it seems plausible, which I guess is why it became so believable.

Perry Romanowski (4:29)

Yeah, I was interviewed recently for a news article about that DM DM. Hadantuin. And you know what? I thought that the reason that they're going after Unilever and not other brands is that Unilever, a couple of years ago, settled with Suave.

And so I think they just figured they can get them to settle, even though Unilever, I think, would pretty much win any kind of court case, but it'd just be quicker to just settle and get it over with.