Viruses Carnauba Wax and Argan oil on hair – Episode 215

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 cosmetic chemists answer your beauty product questions and give you a science-based inside look at the cosmetic industry. This is episode 215 I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and with me today, all the way from sunny California, is Valerie George. Hello, Valerie.

Well, we've got a few interesting questions to cover today, and actually, we're going to do a practically all-hair broadcast. What do you think of that, Valerie? All hair.

Valerie George (0:47)

Well, I love hair, so I'm incredibly excited to answer all of the questions we have going on today.

Perry Romanowski (0:55)

And we've got a question topically related to the pandemic. Can the coronavirus survive on your hair?

What does it mean when a permanent color says that it's not for gray hair? Can ingredient technology really justify an extra price point? A higher price point. Is carnauba wax bad for hair? And does argan oil penetrate the hair shaft or do anything useful on the hair?

And we do have one beauty science news to cover too. But first, Valerie, it's a pandemic. How are you? I haven't talked to you in like a week.

Valerie George (1:31)

Yeah, doing good. I survived the first full week of being home alone, locked up with Mr. Cosmetic Chemist. And I tell you what, in talking to some of the chemists at work, we're all working from home, our lab is closed. I feel like this should be a really good deterrent for crime because people are feeling so trapped and just even spending one week in their own apartment or their own home, and they have lots of stuff to entertain them, and they're bored and just over it. Imagine what it would be like to be in jail.

So I feel like this could be a good deterrent for crime, because if you don't like this, you're not going to like prison.

Perry Romanowski (2:14)

So you feel a little bit like you're in prison now, or like you imagine prison would be.

Valerie George (2:21)

Yeah, well, if you met Mr. Cosmetic Chemist, you figure it out. He's pretty strict.

Perry Romanowski (2:27)

Oh, I gotcha. Well, I'm doing all right here, and actually the missus is home, working from home here with me too. But you know, she and I have very similar work styles, where we just work and don't talk.

So it's like quiet as a mouse in the house.

Valerie George (2:48)

Oh, no, Mr. Cosmetic Chemist works in the music industry, so he's like the opposite of me. I have to work in complete silence.

Perry Romanowski (2:55)

Oh, my. Well, I see that you finished reading another book.

Valerie George (3:00)

My goal of 52 books, if you guys remember us talking about our goals on the show a few weeks ago, I have a goal to read 52 books this year. I actually have read quite a bit more books that I'm posting on my personal Instagram account, Cosmetic Underscore Chemist.

I'm not posting the trashy ones. Sometimes I read like really trashy detective novels. It's like quick reads, really good entertainment. So my goal is to read 52 kind of meaningful books in the nonfiction realm.

Perry Romanowski (3:28)

Nice.

Valerie George (3:28)

So yeah, this most recent one was The Library Book by Susan Orlean, and it was a fantastic read. It was about the 1987 library fire at the city of Los Angeles' Central Library.

And it was also about how the library system started in LA and just about library systems in general. And it could be kind of boring if you're like, oh, libraries are boring, but it actually was a really interesting look, just about books and human history in general. So it was pretty good.

Perry Romanowski (3:55)

Well, during this pandemic, I had some extra time to read too, and I was tackling Gone with the Wind, which is an interesting, it's a very interesting and entertaining book.

Valerie George (4:06)

That's great. What a classic.

Perry Romanowski (4:08)

It is. All right, shall we get to some beauty science news? Sure.

Well, in non-virus microbial news, I did find this one story about scientists who have discovered a new species of bacteria that can eat a certain type of plastic. Turns out, researchers in Germany have found a bacteria that can degrade some of the chemical building blocks of a plastic called polyurethane. Now, polyurethane has a few cosmetic applications but most notably, it's one of the plastics that can be used for making masks, and it also is purportedly used as a styling polymer in hair styling products.