Stem cells in cosmetics – Beauty Brains rewind episode 166

Valerie George (0:00)

Well, it's Thanksgiving week in the United States, and that means Perry and I are actually going to take this week off to spend time with our respective families. We are so thankful for all of our listeners every week listening to us, answer your beauty questions, and helping you be brainy about your beauty.

This week, we're going to kick it back to episode 166, the very first episode Perry and I did together. We'll be back next week answering all your beauty questions. Have a happy Thanksgiving, and we'll see you then.

Perry Romanowski (0:29)

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.

On today's episode, we're going to be answering questions about dying gray hair, whether silicone is bad for curly hair, if stem cells are good anti-aging ingredients, and we'll ponder why some people think all natural is better. We'll also cover a couple of beauty science stories in the news. But first, we should start with an update of what's been going on with this show. So it's been a little time since we've done an episode of The Beauty Brains. Now, Randy has gone off to other endeavors, and I've been busy with my formulation website, Chemist's Corner. However, I really miss doing the Beauty Brains podcast, plus the amount of beauty product nonsense and marketing hype really seems to have multiplied since the start of this year, when we had stopped doing regular broadcasts. That's why we decided to bring back the show. We'll follow generally the same format, but we may experiment with some new things like interviews or maybe other segments. But before we get to the main show, I should introduce our newest beauty brain, Valerie George. Hello, Valerie.

Valerie George (1:56)

Hi, Perry.

Perry Romanowski (1:57)

Valerie, you're new to the show, new voice. Why don't you tell us a little bit about you and maybe how you got started in the beauty business?

Valerie George (2:06)

Sure, Perry. As he said, my name is Valerie, and I run research and development for the world's largest privately owned salon brand. And I consider myself somewhat of a hair and hair color expert. I first started in the industry about eight years ago, and started in makeup, liked it, but didn't love it, and soon found my way into hair care, where I started working in hair color, and I haven't looked back since.

I love cosmetic science, and I love communicating about the industry.

Perry Romanowski (2:35)

Yeah, and we've met through the Society of Cosmetic Chemists, I guess. We are both cosmetic chemists.

Valerie George (2:41)

Yes.

Perry Romanowski (2:42)

This is usually where I do some sort of obscure chit chat about myself, but since it's a new show, we'll save that for a later time. Why don't we get started with some beauty science news?

First up, Valerie, why don't you talk to us about that CoverGirl story and their move to become cruelty-free?

Valerie George (3:07)

So I saw CoverGirl posting a press release a couple weeks ago about their desire to help end testing cosmetic products on animals, and they've now certified their brand as cruelty-free. There's been a lot of buzz and excitement over such a large company taking a stand for making cosmetics cruelty-free, and I found it very interesting because a lot of brands are already doing this, but no one's really talking about it.

Perry Romanowski (3:39)

Yeah, it really seemed like all the big guys were getting into it. I saw Unilever did something, L'Oreal was doing something, now Kody. It's really the hot thing.

This is kind of like a smaller brand kind of thing, but now the big guys seem to be doing it too.

Valerie George (3:55)

Well, CoverGirl definitely isn't alone in the industry, whether it's big brands or small brands. A lot of people are doing this, because I think being vegan is one thing, but being cruelty-free and making sure your products and the ingredients in the products aren't tested on animals is just beyond a consumer preference.

Perry Romanowski (4:16)

That seems like a big challenge for these companies, though. How do you verify that your ingredients aren't tested?

I mean, it's easy to say that my products are not tested on animals. You know, just don't test them on animals. But all the ingredients that they get...

Cosmetic companies generally don't make their own raw materials, so they don't really have a good way of knowing whether their suppliers have tested on animals, or maybe the suppliers, if they get ingredients from distributors, if they can prove that their ingredients are safe without having been tested on animals. I just don't know how they do that.