Why do companies use retinyl palmitate and other beauty questions answered - episode 291

Perry Romanowski (0:00)

Hi, I'm Perry, 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 cosmetic industry. This is episode 291 I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and with me today is raw material ingredient entrepreneur Valerie George. Hello, Valerie. Hi, Perry. Valerie, so good that you're here. Love getting a show together right before I leave off on vacation. And you know what we're gonna cover today on the show? We're gonna cover the following questions. Why do companies use retinol palmitate instead of retinol?

Do thickening shampoos work for people with hair loss concerns? How fast does vitamin C oxidize?

And what are your thoughts on mineral oil? And do hair minimizing products have an ingredient that actually slows hair growth? Fascinating stuff.

Valerie George (1:06)

What a great show.

Perry Romanowski (1:07)

But before we get to that, yeah, yeah, before we get to that, our general chit chat, nobody wants to hear about your vacation, Perry. So we'll skip that. But Valerie, it looks like you have a new ingredient you're excited about.

Valerie George (1:18)

Oh, my gosh. So I'm actually here at our warehouse slash lab slash everywhere that, you know, I work on, you know, my exciting ingredients. And I'm waiting for the delivery driver to drop off our new ingredient. It was actually supposed to be here last week.

And I'm just so excited. It's like a little kid on Christmas. I can't reveal what it is because that'll spoil the entire launch that I have planned.

Actually, it's here.

Perry Romanowski (1:46)

It's here.

Valerie George (1:46)

Oh, my gosh, Perry. It's here. Yeah. Should I leave it recording?

Perry Romanowski (1:51)

Yeah.

Valerie George (1:51)

All right. I'll be right back. Hang on.

Oh gosh, okay, I'm back. It's here.

Perry Romanowski (2:06)

All right, that's exciting. So you're gonna do like one of those YouTube unpacking?

Valerie George (2:11)

These boxes are trashed. They're awful. They were supposed to come last week, and I have a feeling they were bobbling around the FedEx location because they never came.

But they're here.

Perry Romanowski (2:22)

Well, I'm sure in a future episode, you'll tell us all about it.

Valerie George (2:25)

Yay, I will.

Perry Romanowski (2:27)

Actually, Valerie, I also saw that you are gonna be some panel speaker at what's this upcoming show, Beauty something or other?

Valerie George (2:35)

Makeup something or other? Makeup LA is a show geared towards makeup and estheticians and makeup artists. And I will be speaking on a panel on behalf of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists about the latest and greatest ingredients in color cosmetics and skincare.

Perry Romanowski (2:53)

Well, that sounds fascinating. I'll be sure to put a link in the show notes for anybody in the LA area. Maybe they get to go see Valerie.

Valerie George (3:00)

Yeah, and I will also hopefully live Instagram the show. So if you're not following our Instagram account, The Beauty Brains 2018, make sure you're following because I'll get to walk the show floor.

Perry Romanowski (3:13)

That is excellent. All right, are we ready to move into Beauty Science News?

Valerie George (3:24)

So for once, Perry, I actually saw something that I thought you'd be interested in.

Well, I mean, I think you're always interested in this stuff, but I immediately thought, Perry. So, Nutrafol, which is a supplement company for hair and hair health, has published a paper where they studied hair growth across differing populations. And I thought you would find it interesting because it's a journal that they've published in.

Perry Romanowski (3:58)

The Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology. That's like a real journal, right? Is it peer reviewed? Yeah.

Valerie George (4:06)

Yeah. Well, they somehow allowed this publication of a six month single blind Oh my. perspective clinical study, where people basically just said, Hey, I think this is girl, my hair back, this supplement I've been taking for six months, both men and women.

And I also, I'm not sure that they even had a control of this study. Did you get a chance to look at it?

Perry Romanowski (4:31)

I looked at the study and saw no control. They did crow about it being single blinded, which means the people giving the stuff knew, but the subjects didn't know what they were getting. So I guess it's blinded that way.

But as far as having a control, normally a study like this, you would give your supplement to one group of people, and then you would give some sugar pills or some things, some not your supplement to other people, because that couldn't help to figure out how much of the change is due to a placebo effect in things. From what I can tell, I see there was no placebo control here. So they just essentially gave people the supplements, had them assess what they thought their hair was before they started taking it, and then did some assessment of what they thought their hair was like 12 and 24 weeks later of taking this pill every day.