Sunscreen scandals, Busted celebrity brands & beauty questions answered - episode 407

Perry Romanowski (0:00)

Hi, I'm Perry, and you're listening to The Beauty Brains. Hello and welcome to The Beauty Brains, the show where real cosmetic chemists answer your beauty product questions and give you an insider's look at the cosmetic industry. This is episode 407 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)

Hey, Valerie, we got lots of questions since we were off for like three weeks because I was traveling and we just couldn't connect. And the questions have been building up. So today, we are going to cover some ones that were sent in recently, including is the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology a reliable source for peptide information? How do you know if a product with an active ingredient has enough to be effective? Does topical estrogen improve the skin? Do at-home micro-needling devices work? And do you need to use hypoclarus spray for skin care? And finally, is a salon detangler different than the ones you can buy at regular stores? But first, Valerie, it's been a while.

Valerie George (1:18)

Where have you been, Perry? I know you went to France. I was supposed to go on that trip, and baby cosmetic chemists totally ruined everything. In a good way.

SPEAKER_2 (1:28)

But you were gone forever.

Perry Romanowski (1:30)

You know, I was gone for 20-something days. Actually, when I go on trips, I always do a thing called trip notes, where I write down exactly what I do all day. So, like, what time I wake up, what, you know, so... My wife hates these trip notes, because sometimes I'll put, wife got annoyed with me, because of whatever thing.

Valerie George (1:52)

I already hate them myself, yeah.

Perry Romanowski (1:55)

Overall, the trip was awesome. We were in Nice, then we were in Cannes, which I used to call Cannes or Cannes, but it's Cannes, France.

Valerie George (2:05)

Okay.

Perry Romanowski (2:07)

Then, we headed to all parts of Switzerland, from Lauterbrunnen to Lucerne, ended up in Zurich, so went to a bunch of the mountain places. So, it was very cool. I was out there for the IFSCC Congress, which was three days of scientific education about cosmetic products. And boy, there was a lot of it. You couldn't even keep up with it. There were so many presentations.

Valerie George (2:33)

You couldn't even keep up with my request list, because I had you running all over the place, taking pictures of posters, and making sure I could get what I needed, even though I couldn't attend.

Perry Romanowski (2:44)

That is so true.

There were like, you know, 800 posters. It was hard to see them all. And then there was like 60-something presentations. It was very interesting stuff. And it's good to see that there is some science going on in the cosmetic industry.

Valerie George (3:00)

We were also, speaking of the industry, we were also recently on the radio.

Perry Romanowski (3:05)

Yeah, we did this interview in early September, and it ended up at howonearthradio.org.

And so I'll include a link to it. I did not listen to the replay. Did you get a chance to listen?

Valerie George (3:20)

I listened to part of it. Mr. Kuzmin at Chemist got really annoyed with me, so I had to turn it off. But essentially, it's a radio station that's part of the Denver Public Radio Network or what not. It's public radio, essentially. And it's a scientist who interviews other scientists, and it was fun to talk a little bit about what we do.

Perry Romanowski (3:40)

Yeah, and I didn't actually come out and say that if I had only one product, it would be toothpaste that I carry around all the time, like on that other show we did. But yeah, it's fun. I always appreciate doing interviews with you and some other show, so that's fun.

Valerie George (3:58)

I forgot about that interview. That was with JVN, Jonathan Van Ness.

Perry Romanowski (4:02)

Yes, that's right.

Valerie George (4:03)

That was, I think, one of the most fun interviews I ever did. Oh, goodness.

Perry Romanowski (4:07)

It was a blast.

Valerie George (4:08)

Yeah, I really didn't do much. Pretty Kitty's missing. We haven't seen her for a while. Yeah, it's not looking good. Patches came over. Patches only comes over when she wants to tell me like something crazy happened. And she came over right when I was like, hey, wait a second. I haven't seen Pretty Kitty for a while. But the kittens are alive and well. One of them almost came up to me. We'll see what happens.

Perry Romanowski (4:32)