Peptides in skin care – episode 208

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 cosmetics industry. This is episode 208 I'm your host, Valerie George, and with me today is my co-host, Perry Romanowski.

Perry Romanowski (0:27)

Hey, Valerie.

Valerie George (0:29)

How's it going?

Perry Romanowski (0:30)

Oh, it's good. I'm drinking some tea that has tepid water. What I'm looking forward to the show.

Valerie George (0:35)

I'm drinking tea with hot water, and I'm also looking forward to the show. On today's program, we're going to talk about, of course, a couple of new stories that came up and answer your questions about, is there a bar shampoo or bar conditioner that works as well as the ones out of a bottle?

Why can't everyone use retinol? Is sugaring dangerous? And does it work as well as waxing? And finally, do peptides have an effect beyond moisturizing, and is there a best one to pick? Are you ready?

Perry Romanowski (1:06)

I am ready for that. Hey, you know, I like to do a little bit of inane chit chat before we start, but you know what I did last Friday?

Valerie George (1:13)

What'd you do?

Perry Romanowski (1:14)

I, my wife and I went to a spa for two hours.

Valerie George (1:18)

Oh, wow, how was it? Was it your first spa experience?

Perry Romanowski (1:21)

No, I've actually been to this place before. It's more of a bath house than a spa, I guess.

But essentially, you go in there, you know, you wear swim trunks or whatever, and they have a salt pool where you can float, and then they have music in the water so you can hear it.

And then there's whirlpools and steam rooms and cold ranges. But I bring this up because they had a big salt lick, although I don't think you're supposed to lick it, but it was this gigantic mound of salt. And then you're supposed to, I guess, exfoliate with it. So rub it all over your body and then rinse it off. And I did that, and boy, my skin felt very smooth.

Valerie George (2:06)

Oh, wow, very cool.

Perry Romanowski (2:08)

The big problem with it, though, was that all the salt kept getting stuck in my chest hair. So I think I still have some in there.

Valerie George (2:15)

Really?

Perry Romanowski (2:16)

Yeah, it's awful. When I was working at Alberto, we had bought the St. Ives brand, and so we had the St. Ives Apricot Scrub. And everybody was given, at the company, everybody was given a sample, and the president was out there, and she's like, hey, you all should use this product. This is a great product here. I want everybody to use it. I'm giving everybody a sample. And I used it, and the little walnut shells were stuck in my chest hair, and were there for weeks.

I can't exfoliate.

Valerie George (2:47)

Oh my gosh.

Perry Romanowski (2:49)

Hey, I'm looking forward to seeing you coming up this weekend.

Valerie George (2:52)

Yeah, I can't believe you're coming to LA.

For those of you who didn't listen to last week's episode, Perry is coming to Los Angeles for Green Beauty Night, which is an event put on by another podcast called The EcoWell, and he'll be on a panel. And I live in LA, so I'm super excited that Perry's coming to town.

Perry Romanowski (3:10)

Yeah, that'll be fun. I think that's on Saturday. I'll put a link to that event in the show notes.

Valerie George (3:16)

Yeah, we'll probably do an Instagram live or a little get together, maybe at a hotel bar or something like that. So stay tuned to our Instagram account where we will make that announcement if you're in the LA area.

Perry Romanowski (3:30)

Yeah, that'll be fun. Speaking of fun, how about some beauty science news?

Valerie George (3:35)

Let's do it.

Perry Romanowski (3:41)

Well, Valerie, I'll take this one.

I saw this story in Cosmetics Design where they were interviewing one of the regulatory people at the Cosmetics Europe. And he was saying that the cosmetic industry needs to take a holistic approach to explaining ingredient safety.

Valerie George (3:59)

Oh.

Perry Romanowski (4:00)

He makes some claims that while the cosmetics industry is extensively regulated, which I thought was kind of funny, but he does preface it by saying especially in Europe. He says that there continues to be consumer concern over certain ingredients that are actually perfectly safe.

So that's just for consumers. That is the view from people inside the industry and these ingredients that we use. I mean, if you're gonna be honest about the safety information, the ingredients we use, we use them at safe levels. And that's what the scientists and the regulators in the industry think. Now, the marketers don't always think that, right?