Why is cocoa in your conditioner and more hair care questions - episode 253

Valerie George (0:00)

Hi, I'm Valerie 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 cosmetics industry. This is episode 253 I'm your host, Valerie George, and with me today is Perry Romanowski. Hi Perry.

Perry Romanowski (0:27)

Hello Valerie, so good to see you.

Valerie George (0:29)

Good to see you. On today's show, we are going to answer questions about should I stop using henna? What's the deal with products sold through doctor's offices? Can you improve the quality of hair extensions yourself?

Does cocoa powder benefit hair? And what should you use for dry, itchy scalp? Wow, sounds like we are covering hair today.

Perry Romanowski (0:52)

You know, whenever people talk about itchy scalps, I start scratching my head.

Valerie George (0:56)

I literally just scratched my head too. I don't know if you saw that.

Perry Romanowski (1:01)

I don't know why that is.

Valerie George (1:02)

Yeah.

Perry Romanowski (1:03)

It's almost like talking about dry, scratchy heads is like yawning. So, you see someone yawn, you go, there, you just made you yawn.

Valerie George (1:11)

Yeah, I know. I know. I'm horrible with that.

Oh, man. Well, yesterday, Perry, I posted something on Instagram, and I thought it was interesting, because you thought it was interesting.

Perry Romanowski (1:23)

Well, everything you post on Instagram is interesting, but what was this one that was particularly interesting?

Valerie George (1:28)

Well, I had received a complimentary tooth whitening kit from a company, and they...

Perry Romanowski (1:35)

Is that because you're like a skin fluencer on Instagram?

Valerie George (1:39)

Like, kind of, I guess. Yeah, they just said, hey, here, give this a try. And I was looking at it, and I noticed that they did not use hydrogen peroxide in tooth whitening in their system.

Perry Romanowski (1:51)

Interesting.

Valerie George (1:51)

I thought that was interesting, because almost all the kits work by using hydrogen peroxide or carbamide peroxide or some peroxide of sorts.

Again, I like peroxide because I do hair color chemistry and all that kind of stuff.

Anyway, the product got me thinking, or at least the post got me thinking, in tried and true or new tech. And a lot of people were like, oh, this looks really cool. Or other people were like, oh, well, what do the studies say about it? Because they weren't sure. And it got me wondering, what kind of person are you? Do you like to stick in to tried and true methods, or do you like to explore new things? Because I'm a little bit of tried and true myself.

Perry Romanowski (2:35)

Yeah, well, I think I would be more of a tried and true, only because I'm very skeptical of new tech, particularly in the beauty business. There is always some technology touted as the next great new thing.

And when I look at the technology of what's making things really work, it's almost always the tried and true. And true stuff is not the new technology. So maybe being in the beauty industry has made me a little bit cynical about new technologies.

Valerie George (3:07)

Yeah, well, what's interesting is something can't be tried and true if nothing new comes out and gets used and gets tried and then gets trued. That's the other piece, right?

Advancement requires new technology to come forth and then become a staple.

Perry Romanowski (3:26)

Absolutely, and usually the problem with new technologies, it's usually more expensive than the old technology because the old technology has efficiency of scale, so a lot of people use it, so it makes it cheaper.

But that's not to say new technologies are always bad. I mean, that whole vaccine for COVID came out in like, what, a really short timetable, and that's using new technology with the messenger RNA technology for vaccines. It's just ridiculously fast. So there is something to be said about new technology. I'm just skeptical of it in the beauty industry because most of the things that are touted as new and great, they're just marketing stories.

Valerie George (4:15)

Well, we'll leave this poll up to our Instagram followers. You can follow us on Instagram at TheBeautyBrains2018 and tell us if you like to use tried and true beauty products or if you're all about what's new and great.

Perry Romanowski (4:30)

You know, I saw your post on the teeth whitening thing, and it reminded me that I'm not really able to use teeth whitening stuff.

Yeah. And that is because of my dog Soxie back when I was a youth.

Valerie George (4:45)