NAD Hype, Dry Hair, and Color Fade - episode 423

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 cosmetic industry. This is episode 423 I'm your host, Valerie George, and with me today is Perry Romanowski. Hi, Perry.

Perry Romanowski (0:28)

Hello, Valerie, great to see you.

Valerie George (0:30)

Great to see you, birthday boy. On today's show, we're gonna cover lots of questions, including does NAD skincare actually have real efficacy data? Do hair masks give better results if they're left on longer? Does shampooing after depositing hair color weaken or degrade it? And last but not least is glycerin drying skin at high altitudes. But first, that inane chit chat.

Perry Romanowski (0:53)

Whoa, Valerie, didn't you just come back from California or something?

Valerie George (0:57)

I did. I had a production in Los Angeles two days off site at a facility. It was a project I completed a while ago, but they're cashed in their chips, as I like to say, and said, guess what? You are coming now and we're going to scale up. And that's what I did.

Perry Romanowski (1:14)

Oh, that's fun. I guess that's a job that a lot of people don't know that the cosmetic formulator will do. You know, you make the formulas in a lab at small levels, maybe, I don't know, what's the most, two kilograms? Is the mat mox you're going to make of something?

Valerie George (1:30)

3.5 is kind of my max reliable quantity, less for hair color.

Perry Romanowski (1:35)

Right. But normally you're making batches of like 500 grams. So just over a soda can worth of product. And that's great for the lab and for testing as such. But when you have to actually make it thousands of bottles, well, then they're doing it in a tank. I don't know what size the tanks were. Our tanks were like 3000 gallon tanks, like huge tanks with center stirrers and stuff.

Valerie George (1:59)

Oh yeah. Well, in full production, yes. This was just the pilot scale up. So we were just making a few hundred pounds, or I think 35 working gallons is what we were doing. But it is interesting. A lot of formulators think, oh, I can make it in a beaker and don't think about the production side. But as I have my own R&D facility, I have to guarantee it can be scaled up. And so essentially I'm on site at production, especially if there's no process engineer working at the facility, or even if there is a process engineer, actually I'm on site for all those types of scale ups. And you modify the process. Viscosity sometimes come out a little different. So you want to understand what's happening in production. Okay, oh, we need to re-circulate, take the product out of the bottom of the tank and put it into the top on this step. All those types of things. And it was, I enjoy doing it. I always complain like, ugh, I gotta go to manufacturing and put on my steel toe boots and all that. But I really enjoy being there.

Perry Romanowski (3:02)

We always had a rule that the formula belongs to the lab, so if it screws up, it's the lab's fault right until the first production run. So if, so every time there was a new production run of a product, somebody from the lab who has helped develop the formula had to sit there and watch the compounders make the batch and make any notes. And if it came out within spec, then it's handed off to manufacturing. And so if it screws up in the future, it's manufacturing fault. But if that first batch screws up and you can't make it, they're going to blame the R&D people for not giving them a good formula.

Valerie George (3:37)

Yeah, that's true. Well, everything went really well.

Perry Romanowski (3:40)

All right.

Valerie George (3:40)

Can't complain. I came back home. I'm pretty tired still. And it's always hard keeping up with work, especially because I'm headed out of town again for work. But this time it's a fun trip. Me, Mr. Cosmetic Chemist and Baby Sea are headed to InCosmetics Global in Paris.

Perry Romanowski (3:57)

Ah, yes, InCosmetics. Well, that'll be fun. I'm not attending this year, but I have in the past. And that's like the biggest chemical supplier show in the world, I guess.

Valerie George (4:08)

And they always show new launches there before they come to the US and get shown at Suppliers Day, New York. So I'm excited. You know, my family's coming with me. We're going to meet some more family there and have a great time. I'm going to Germany beforehand to spend time with extended family that I have in Germany like I do every year. So I'm pretty excited.