Should you wash your hair every day? Episode 167

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 scientists answer your beauty questions and give you an insider's look at the beauty product industry. I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and this is episode 167 And with me today is the other half of The Beauty Brains, Valerie. How's it going, Valerie?

Valerie (0:29)

Buongiorno, Perry. I'm in Italy, how are you?

Perry Romanowski (0:34)

Oh, I thought we were changing the language of the show.

I'm good. So, Italy, that's a big country. What part of Italy are you in there?

Valerie (0:44)

I'm in Northern Italy, just one of the many places I go as a cosmetic chemist.

Perry Romanowski (0:50)

Who knew that being a cosmetic chemist involves so much travel, huh?

Valerie (0:54)

It can, depending on what you do. I happen to have a role where I have to visit different manufacturing facilities we have periodically, so I come to Italy quite often.

Perry Romanowski (1:05)

All right, on today's episode, we got a big one today. We're gonna be answering questions about whether dermatologists recommended products are better, whether people should wash their hair every day, how some of these home skin analyzing devices and whether they're worth it, and the difference between normal hair color and those all-natural hair colors.

Plus, we've got some beauty science stories, so should we get right into the beauty science?

Valerie (1:32)

Yeah, let's do it.

Perry Romanowski (1:37)

Valerie, you want to start off with the story that you picked first?

Valerie (1:41)

Yeah, so I subscribed to Cosmetic Business News, and one of the articles they just came out with today, I think today in Europe at any rate, it's a European publication, they revealed from Mintel that Mintel thinks Sub-Zero Waste is set to be the next big global beauty trend in 2019

So for those of you who don't know, Mintel is an organization that puts together trend analysis in the marketplace for a variety of industries, and one of them that they do is beauty. So you may see them predicting ingredient trends or consumer trends, but they're trends nonetheless.

Perry Romanowski (2:19)

So Sub-Zero Waste, that's like putting all our shampoo bottles in submarines and putting it under the ocean?

Valerie (2:29)

Oh, Barry, you rascal.

No, basically, they're saying in this article that many consumers have concern about the environment and beauty brands need to have some sort of stance on sustainable packaging, which can mean a variety of things, which we'll get into. But they did speak to where a couple of brands are featuring these quote unquote naked products, not for you when you're naked, but where the product doesn't have any packaging. So for example, Lush, we all know that really stinky soap shop in the mall.

Perry Romanowski (3:04)

You know, I can't even walk past a Lush because the odor is so stronger.

Valerie (3:09)

Oh, it's too much. It's way too much. But they do have over 240 packaging-free products. So Mintel is basically saying that a lot of small brands are doing it, and big beauty players must adopt new practices in order to catch up.

Perry Romanowski (3:23)

It is an interesting development in the cosmetic industry. Things really haven't changed much since the, I don't know, when I get involved in the early 1990s. Wow, way back then.

But the packaging is, I mean, it gets, the designs are kind of cooler, but as far as recycling things, there hasn't been much movement on that in a couple decades. It's good to hear they're doing something.

Valerie (3:47)

Yeah, well, at least that consumers are demanding something. And I think their packaging will never go away. I mean, if you have a runny shampoo, you need something to put it in, and there are alternatives that don't have packaging, like these shampoos and pods. I think those are niche products. I don't know if any of our fans would ever use anything like that, but I just don't think that type of stuff will catch on. So brands really will have to think of other ways to try to either minimize their waste, designing packaging, not intended for the landfill, but intended for somewhere else. So we'll see.

Perry Romanowski (4:22)

Progress in the beauty industry, that's very cool. Alright, I got a story here.

I was poking around the latest issue of cosmetics and toiletries. You know, this is one of the premier scientific trade journals for the cosmetic industry. But there is an article written by this Ph.D. Bart Heldreth, who also just happens to be the executive director of the Cosmetic Ingredient Review Board, or CIR.