Is vitamin C a Pro-oxidant - plus other beauty questions and news Episode 247

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

Valerie George (0:30)

Hi, Perry.

Perry Romanowski (0:32)

Valerie, on today's show, we are going to be answering questions and talking about beauty science stories. Some of the questions we're going to be answering are whether you're rubbing off your sunscreen when you apply blush, whether AHAs delay the aging process, whether or not vitamin C is a pro-oxidant or killing your skin, and how hairstyling products are able to create hold.

But first, let's get to some of that inane chit chat that we're so famous for. Valerie, what's going on?

Valerie George (1:04)

Not much, just gearing up for the holidays. I'm officially on staycation.

I'm not going anywhere, but I'm just staying at home, relaxing, all that kind of stuff.

Perry Romanowski (1:16)

It's really that time of year when not a lot of work gets done. Except here at Brains Publishing, where we're always putting out new shows. At least we try.

We had that Patreon event last week. That was a lot of fun.

Valerie George (1:31)

I thought it went really well. We had good questions, good feedback. It was so fun to interact with our patrons.

Perry Romanowski (1:38)

And we invented a new game, which I think we should bring on to the regular podcast. The, what was it again?

Overrated, underrated, yeah.

Valerie George (1:46)

Yeah, yeah. And what was cool is our patrons chimed in and also threw things out and played the game with us, which was fun. It was interactive. It wasn't just, you know, kind of like this, where we're chatting, throwing stuff out on air. It was really a cool way to communicate and get to hear from everyone.

Perry Romanowski (2:05)

Yeah, yeah, it was a good time. So if you want to get involved in our next Patreon-exclusive event, go to patreon.com/ The Beauty Brains and subscribe. If you subscribe at any level, you can get access to those events for patrons.

All right, Valerie, are we ready? We got a lot to cover on this show. Wow, so much beauty news.

Valerie George (2:28)

So much news happening in just the last 10 days of the year. Pretty cool.

Perry Romanowski (2:31)

Yeah, so let's get on to some beauty product news.

All right, Valerie, I'll start. I saw this article, I guess it's published by, well, lofficialusa.com. Anyway, it was...

Valerie George (2:50)

It's French.

Perry Romanowski (2:51)

All right.

It was about these five iconic beauty brands, and they went through and interviewed what experts have to say about the five holy grail skincare products. And I'm looking at these things, I just say to myself, how out of the loop am I that I've never heard of any of these products? How can they be the holy grail?

Valerie George (3:11)

You're pretty out of the loop, because I've at least heard of all of them.

Perry Romanowski (3:15)

Well, of course, the people who were the experts who were reviewing this had all glowing things to say about it. And I'm sure if you click on the links in the article, that there's some sort of kickback that the company gets. But that's just how it works on the Internet. But I thought it would be fun to go through and talk about some of these iconic or these essential beauty products and get your thoughts since you have actually used them.

First one, and I think we might have talked about this on the show previously, but the Bio Lushy...

Valerie George (3:47)

Episode 240

Perry Romanowski (3:49)

Oh, that's right. The Lotion P50. So apparently I have heard of some of these.

Valerie George (3:54)

Yeah.

I have not tried this one because I have Rosacea, and at least if you're using the USA version of this formula, there's an original version of it that relies on phenol for it to work, and phenol can be irritating, and I really can't use a lot of exfoliating agents, so I haven't used it although I want to. I just... I can't do that to my skin. So I've wanted to use it, I haven't used it.

Perry Romanowski (4:24)

I was looking at the ingredients that has water and gluconolactone, lactic acid, glycerin, niacinamide, blah, blah, blah, so...

Valerie George (4:36)

That's one of them, they have a lot of versions. Their European version does not have phenol because that's restricted in the EU.