Hi, I'm Valerie and you're listening to The Beauty Brains. (upbeat music) 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 372. I'm your host, Valerie George, and with me today is Perry Romanovsky. Hi Perry. Hey, Valerie, how are you? So good to see you. I'll tell you how I'm doing in just a minute, but first on today's show, we're gonna cover a lot of questions, including does topical collagen really work? How good is the What's In My Jar website? What is the best product or ingredient for long-lasting hydration? How good is the trophy line, mainly long hair polisher as a daily leave-in? Is a scoreable tetra isopomate and tetrahexidosis scurvy the same ingredient and wow, what a big show. What is the isoelectric and isoeionic point for hair and hair care products and should anyone care? This sounds like an exciting show. (laughing) I'm excited. Or at least we can make it exciting. I've got my long drink. Have you ever heard the finished long drink citrus thing? I have not. Zero sugar, so you know, it must use like that sucriloce or something like that. But it still has 99 calories. How is it to have that? I guess it's the alcohol. Yeah, it must be the alcohol. Well, it's very citrusy and it's fine enough if you don't have a, you know, a Dr. Pepper to drink. Well, I think Dr. Pepper sounds better, but. I know, I do too. I just don't have one. Do you remember that song from the 70s of the Dr. Pepper theme song? We are of a different generation pair. We are. We do not remember. All right, wait, it goes. I drink Dr. Pepper in a proud part of an original crowd. The taste is making peppers everywhere. I go, I'm a pepper. He's, you know, none of this, no. No, I, I think there's a reason Dr. Pepper discontinued this theme song. Are you kidding me? It's still in my brain. These, you know, 40 years later. So that was a darn effective ad campaign. I have to say. Well, we'll have to let the folks of Dr. Pepper know so that we can get some free Dr. Pepper, because I love it so much. I love Dr. Pepper. Speaking of love, it's so much. What's with your leg? Oh, Perry, I have a torn meniscus. Torn. Now, wait, you were out doing a triathlon or you're biking with some, looks big accident or something? What happened? Nope. I was replicating the Australian break dancer Rachel Gunn. No, it was Ray Gunn who was the Australian representative for break dancing at the Olympics. And I tore my meniscus and ligaments in my ankle. And then the next day I broke my toe on my other foot. Wait. I'm just kidding. First of all, she scored like a zero, right? She scored zero points. But alas, I was not imitating her. I was doing something much more ordinary. It's called walking. Oh, my God. Next thing I know, I rolled my ankle. I was at my favorite coffee shop in Albuquerque, New Mexico on my way to Los Angeles for work. And it was seven in the morning. I was the second person in the shop. I went to head back down to my car with a hot coffee and a cold coffee because I had seven hours to my next favorite coffee shop and flag stuff. And I went to step down the steps. And my ankle gave out. It rolled. I heard and felt a popping sensation. What? In my leg. And I thought, this'll go away in a couple hours. And it turns out I couldn't move my ankle in a couple hours. So that is what happened. And I currently have a bionic leg. I am in a boot. I am in a new mobilizer. And I'm awaiting directions from the surgeon. And the next day-- or I should say a couple days later-- I dropped my laptop and broke a toe on my other foot. You dropped your laptop on your toe? Oh my god. I am a train wreck, Perry. You do seem to attract more than your fair share of bad luck. I was once told I was not born a lucky person by a roommate of mine who was an astrologist. And for fun, she read my chart. And she's like, you're not the most unlucky person on the planet, but I wouldn't say you're lucky. And she didn't know I was a clots. We had just met. Sure, sure. But I will say, from a different perspective, you might say you are a lucky person. It's just bad luck. Wow, I really like that perspective. I have a lot of luck. It's freaking terrible. All right. What's not terrible is the rest of the show. You need news. Yeah. [MUSIC PLAYING] Well, Valerie, I was reading through Ureca Alert, which is like a nerdy, sciency thing. And I'm always looking for stuff that's cosmetic related. Well, here's a story that said, researchers had found that women use more makeup for parties, but less makeup if they feel threatened. So here's what there's that research at the SWPS University wanted to know if women change how much makeup they wear depending on the situation. This is really a study. It was. It's kind of interesting. So the study involved over 900 women, and doing a survey, I guess, didn't actually put makeup on people, but it was a survey. And they revealed that women often apply more intense makeup in social settings, like parties, especially when aiming to enhance attractiveness. However, in context where they might perceive a threat, women tend to apply less makeup or less diligently. And they choose not to enhance their appearance using the makeup as some sort of form of camouflage so they don't stand out. So makeup isn't just for looking pretty. It's helped people blend in so they don't want too much attention, I guess. And researchers think it's important to learn how and when women put on makeup in different situations, and not just based on what they say. Is this surprising to anyone? I actually was surprised, I'm going to be honest, because I used to work at a place in college. I graded coin collections. It was a coin store. I'll just tell you. OK, so I graded coin collections. Wait, was this after your foray into studying coffee or something? No, this was way before. This is what I did when I worked. I had multiple jobs in college, but this was my full time job. That's right, your coin collection days ruined my plan to save those 1976 quarters, and they'll be worth millions in 2076, and you're like, no, they won't be. They are worthless. Hundreds of millions were produced. And the workery died special. So anyway, I worked with this woman to other women. And we were always getting in trouble with the other woman. Me and one woman were always getting in trouble with the other woman. And our boss would have to have these like, cum bia sessions to make the other woman happy. And we were just like, ugh. Just like it was the boss. Another woman or a man? A man. OK. OK, gone. Yeah, yeah. So to make peace, he would always be like, come on. We have to go do a cum bia session and make the other lady happy. And so I would be like, OK, well, the woman who-- my equal who was always getting in trouble with the other lady-- she would take forever to show up to these cum bia sessions. And he would be like, can you go get her? Like, where is she? Hello, we're waiting. She would walk into the cum bia session with a face full of makeup. So I would be like, you made us wait 10 minutes for you to put makeup on. And she would say, somebody has to look like the-- The bee in the room. Yeah, the fierce person in the room, but she had an accent she was from Eastern Europe. So it was much more impactful. Yeah. So she used the makeup to be more fierce. I mean, I guess you would use-- but if you wanted to sort of just blend in, you might use less makeup. That kind of-- Maybe you would use different makeup. Yeah. What would you do in this situation? I don't know. I might wear a different shirt. [LAUGHS] Maybe I wouldn't wear a hat. So maybe it speaks more to like personalities, right? Like how many people have a power personality or alphas? I feel like they would put on more makeup, maybe wear red walking into something. Whereas maybe people who want to avoid confrontation, which I think is probably a majority of people, would follow the more blending in approach. See, you know what's interesting? For me personally, if I'm going to a party, my focus isn't really on what am I looking like. It's like, what kind of bits have I practiced enough to entertain people? So my gosh. So maybe I'll pull out a practice a little magic trick or some card trick or I'll have my ukulele-- you know, it's-- or some amusing anecdote or something. Those are the things that I think about. So you want to stand out. The female Perry would put more makeup on. The female Perry-- it depends. If she had my personality, she would just still do the bit. Oh gosh. Well, I saw an article about how makeup can impact you, but it was a little bit different. Can your beauty products and shower really make you more creative? Yeah, I found it. So interesting, like, Lush found this researcher. And he was doing some research about showers and affecting people's creativity. And Lush was like, hey, we want to team up with you and develop this shower routine that's going to make people more creative. Well, the researcher was cognitive scientist Zachary Irving. And according to their collaboration, the answer might be, yes. They've developed a shower routine that uses specific sensory experiences to encourage mind wandering, which they explained as if this needed explanation is a mental-- [LAUGHTER] --is a mental state link to creativity. By combining carefully selected products and a mindful approach, this routine aims to turn a daily habit into an opportunity for boosting your creativity, showing that beauty routines can influence your appearance and your mental state. So you take a shower. You're going to be more creative. You're going to solve better problems. You'll be a better employee. Do you see that happening? I don't think we needed this study to know that your best idea has always come in the shower. Oh, do that. You never heard that? No, no. I have heard that. I personally think my best ideas come while I'm running. Like when I'm in a shower, I'm listening to a podcast or an audiobook. And so-- See, I would think you would be doing that while you were running. I do that too, yeah. But my mind can wander with a podcast, and that sparks ideas. So anyway, but you personally see the showering part making you more creative. It's good thinking time. I do agree there. I do think though, you wake up. You're barely awake. You hop in the shower. And there's not a lot of thinking going on there. Oh, I'm a night shower. But also, I am a morning person. So I'm super alert. Right when I wake up, I don't need coffee or caffeine, which you might be surprised about because like, oh, valix coffee because she's a caffeine addict. Not the truth. I can drink decaf, and I do drink a lot of decaf. But I just-- I wake up a muller in the shower. I'm getting organized. My mind is organizing itself. You know, speaking of shower, I got this conditioner bar. What did you think? It was terrible. Yeah. I mean, I appreciate that a conditioner bar that they're trying to reduce water and such. And for me, like, I could rub it in my hands, and then so I can distribute it on my hands, and then so it goes through my hair. But I have short hair. And I could barely get it through my hair. If somebody with long hair tried to do these conditioner bars, it would be terrible. Is that-- I've made a pretty good conditioner bar. I like it. But they are difficult compared to get customer satisfaction compared to conventional conditioners. Because having a conditioning agent is only one aspect of conditioning. You just can't put a quatt in a conditioner bar and say boom, it's conditioning, right? There's a lot more nuance to it. It's in my talk about formulation strategies for condition hair, which you can't listen to anywhere, because I've already done it. And it's not recorded. But at any rate, just one aspect. Hey, John Bonus. Yeah, I could do it for them. Sure. Sure. Well, that wasn't a side. All that is to say that good luck to lush. And your shower can make you more creative, I guess. I think we saw one more article this week, "Beauty's Augmented Reality Future," and I was highly uncomfortable. Yeah, I always am looking at stories of the future of beauty. And they talked about this story published in GCI, Global Cosmetics Industry. And they talked about the last seven years, augmented reality tools have gone mainstream in the beauty industry. Now, have you used any of these augmented reality tools? Well, I have at the Consumer Electronic Show in years past. And virtual trions. And it's pretty neat, but I still don't think it reflects real life. Yeah. And I guess people are using them for Instagram or something and you're doing filters. So you see a picture and somebody's face just looks as good as it can look, I guess, or weird as it can look. The only time I find it enjoyable on the social media filters is not to make myself look good, but I call it like Completing Bell. And I do the little emo filter with a nose ring and a red beanie and my hair's black with eyeliner. Yeah, I used to do it all the time. But as far as a real tool for trying on products, I actually a long time ago, cover girl had a compact disk software. This was in 2002, guys. Nobody would think that cover girl was leading the way with this. Sure. But you could put the software on your computer. You would upload a picture of yourself. And the software would put cover girl. You could select some of the products and say, oh, let me try the peach blush. Let me try the pink blush. Let me try the slip stick. Guys, that was 22 years ago. Pretty cool. I'm sure if we looked at it today, we would be like, wow, this is really archaic. And it was really cool. I actually went out. I did it because I was into technology at the time. And I went and bought some of the products. And in real life, they looked terrible on me. Yeah. So the pictures look interesting or the virtual reality looks interesting. It doesn't reflect reality. So that could be one issue. It just seems like this-- actually, all of this augmented reality or virtual reality stuff. I don't know. It doesn't seem to be going anywhere, right? I don't know. No, it's not going anywhere. And I thought maybe it would have gone away into after cover girl, disbanded their software way back when. But it's going to keep coming. And I think the technology will get better. I think it will lead to consumer purchases. It probably already is. But I'm just an in real life person. I want to touch, feel, see it, check it inside and outside, because there's different lightings. Yeah. And I think that's an issue, too. The lighting plays a huge role in what something looks like. Also, the feel of putting the product on and the experience that piece, this augmented reality is not going to give you any sense of that. I don't know. I'm a little skeptical of this augmented reality and AI helping with your beauty purchases. I don't know. Maybe the next generation won't be there. I'm surprised you're skeptical. But you won't be skeptical about this. Dolly Barton launching a makeup line. She had a fragrance. And now she has a lipstick collection. Did any of us have her in our picture? We did. We didn't. But we should have, because she is always fully glammed up. And the packaging-- I don't know if the formulas are unique, but the packaging is very dolly. It's really over the top. It is fully encrusted in rhinestones, these lipstick containers. And Dolly Barton loves an opportunity. She doesn't leave stones on turn. She never leaves a rhinestone on turn. I guess the right one is okay. That's what she said. Yeah. But let's be fair. These are just standard lipstick products. Lipstick hasn't changed in decades. So you pretty much have lipsticks. How they're going to be, right? Exactly. But I like Dolly. I like her packaging. It's pretty fun. I mean, what-- Dolly is a national treasure. Come on. Would I ever pull one out of my purse? I think people would be surprised if they saw rhinestones coming out of my bag. But nonetheless, she did it. She did. And good for her. Kudas are her. I mean, she has a whole literacy thing where she buys books for her people. And you know, I say Kudas to her. And go buy her lipstick. Well, let's head over to our questions. We have a lot to go through. [MUSIC PLAYING] We do. And a couple of them are from our patrons. The first one is from Alice. Alice from Patreon. She says, "Hello, Beauty Brains. I've been a listener for many years. And as a Patreon member, love the community and the appreciation of scientific-based beauty care information." Thanks, Alice. I am 68 years old. Normal to dry skin. I have been gifted with several boxes of barber, collagen, firming, ampule concentrates. And, "Following in love with the soft texture of my skin after using one for a week. Am I just imagining this? Would I receive the same benefits from a more economical topical collagen? Please share your opinions as this would be an expensive addition if the evidence is just a gimmick." Well, there we go. Collagen ampules. Interesting. Ampules are a little-- Oh, well, it's a little-- they're not plastic. They're like gelatin-squeezed containers, right? They could be glass. You could break them. They could be plastic. They could be gelatin-basically-- Wait, wait. If they're glass, I don't think glass would be a good idea, right? You're going to get shards of glass in that. They're used in the pharmaceutical industry all the time. They have-- they're specially scored. So the top breaks off. It's a clean break. And then the product kind of pours out of it. But I don't think Alice is imagining how soft her skin is feeling after the product. She could be imagining that it's due to the collagen, though. I'm not ungrating collagen for topical use. Sure. Well, you know what I have interesting to say about collagen is when I was at Alberta, we worked on a St. Ives acquisition. So we bought the company St. Ives. And St. Ives, their best-selling skin moisturizer, was a one called-- the Collagen Alestin moisturizer. It was their best. Best seller. And you know, collagen had nothing to do with why that worked. That was just a total claims ingredient. The Alastin was a total claims ingredient. It was a standard glycerin petrolotum, and then mineral oil or some other oil emollient. And then you just throw in collagen and Alastin to tell the story. But those ingredients had absolutely no impact on it. And so most of the time, collagen, Alastin, these molecules are put in there because they might have a humectant effect, but you've got glycerin there. So that's not going to help any. And they might have a film-forming effect that has just some non-descript thing. But if you have petrolotum in there, your film-former is going to get overwhelmed. So that's not going to have much impact. It's really just put in there for the claims piece. Now, I haven't looked at these barber collagen films, but what do you think there? I think, topically, when you apply collagen, collagen can be a great humectant. My mentor in hair care, he would always lament over the days where they could use beef collagen in hair products because it made the hair so soft. But it's not able to penetrate in the skin and rebuild collagen like you think it is. So using it is harmless, probably not doing what you think it's going to do. However, the rest of the formula that it has is wonderful for skin hydration and skin softening. The first two ingredients after water are butyl and glycol-englycerin, which are great at skin softening, humectantcy. Yeah. Methylcyl and all man urinate. I think I said that right. Are you familiar with it? Well, I hope it's not urinate. But I think it's a silicone, right? Yeah. So it has some skin moisturization benefits. And then we have the emulsifier will skip past that. But then we have pantherol, which is like over 1% or at the 1% line. So great for skin softening as well. We also have caroginins, bioseccharide gum one. So again, great skin humectant skin softener. I miss it in the collagen in this list. Where is the collagen piece? Yeah. I don't know. I don't see collagen at all. Yeah. Maybe it may-- it's collagen stimulating. Oh, it says-- the title is the collagen firming ampule concentrate. So you're not putting collagen on. We miss that. It's fra-- okay. Well, the Pometoil Tripeptide 5 does have some data behind that. But-- and it's a really nice material. I've actually used it in some projects. But I would say it's all these heavy lifters up top doing the heavy lifting. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the first two ingredients-- glycerin and butylin glycol. Those are the big humectants. So if you-- Classics. If you don't want to spend the money on this, I'm sure there are lower priced products that have butylin and glycerin as the first-- oh, of course, water first. But after that, those are the ingredients. And that's pretty much going to get you 90% of the way there. I say if you love it, blow your wallet on it. That is another possible way to go, too. But if you really are looking to save money, I would look into some sheet masks and having those as you routine pretty frequently. Yeah, it is true, though. If you use a product and you like it, it doesn't really matter how it works or whether it works the way that the marketing people are saying. You know, it works for you. So keep using it. All right, our next question comes to us from Rachel, also a patron on Patreon. Hi, Beauty Brains. I have two completely unrelated questions. The first one. Have you heard of what's in my jar.com? And if so, what are your thoughts? I check my skincare in there now before purchasing to see if the product will actually do what it claims. Well, let's get to that one first. Are you familiar with this website, Valerie? I have played around with it. And it seems like a pretty cool community website. I'm not going to lie. It's like really well laid out. It's super clean. You can find doops, which is a new aspect. There's an ingredient to code or sunscreen, finder, skincare, routine, builder. It's really, really, really neat. However-- I have to agree. There's a ton of information here. And if you bought a product and you want to check out and say, oh, what does this ingredient do? They're pretty good for that. It kind of reminds me of that Inky Decoder website. I NCI Decoder. It's similar. Let's get to the however piece. However, I typed in some products I have formulated myself. Or I know the formulas of because I worked where they were formulated and produced. And it has a feature up top called works for moisturizing. OK, I can agree with that. It has a section, can it cause trouble? I typed in a product that says the irritation risk is high. And I find that interesting because this product actually underwent rigorous safety testing, including a 100 plus panel RAPT on sensitive skin. And it came back totally great. And so I disagree with the irritation risk assessment. I've seen that on a couple products where I know the formulas. The other section I disagree with is key actives. I don't mind this website providing key actives, but it provides percentages for them. And first of all, they're wrong. Right, it's just guessing. And they're not even good guesses. No, like saying a land to ends at 0.3 to 0.75% have you ever tried to put 0.75% a land to end in something? Yeah, you get it does not dissolve. And glycerin 4.3 to 6.4%. I'm literally recalling the formula in my head. Where are they getting that from? Well, I do find it very funny that they go to 6.3%. What was it? 6.4? How did they get so accurate? It's literally wrong. And so twofold it's wrong. So you're providing wrong information to people. So clearly, your algorithm or whoever you're getting this information doesn't work. The second thing is providing a percentage to a consumer does nothing for them. Because if I told you it was 2% glycerin or 8% glycerin, what are you going to do with that information? Having no other information about the product, the delivery systems, how it feels on skin, its safety profile, that information isn't going to help you make a better decision for yourself. But the consumers are usually confused by numbers. And so they do the heuristic, well, bigger number must mean it's better. And that is just not correct. Because it depends on a lot of things. Maybe more is often worse that can happen. Also can happen is if it's formulated differently, more doesn't really help you. If it's all tied up, if you have 10%, but it's all 8%, it's tied up. It's really 2%. And it's going to work less than something that has 4% in it. And I've even reviewed the rest of this formula. It's literally all wrong. It's all wrong. The irritation risks are wrong, based on how I know the ingredients were used. I mean, this is saying really crazy numbers that I just don't believe they have a basis for. And so therefore, I personally would just say grain of salt for using this website and determining whether a product is safe to purchase or not. Yeah. And that whole irritation risk and such, that rating is just a total made up thing. Because you can't tell just based on the ingredient list how irritating something is going to be. It just doesn't work that way. It doesn't at all. But let's see what works in her next question. All right. I live in Las Vegas. I have really dry skin, especially on the under eyes. What's the best product and ingredient for long lasting hydration? We cannot change our skin from dry to-- not dry overall. Can we just temporarily correct? Right. You're not going to be able to change your skin for the long time. I mean, unless you move, right? You change your environment. Yeah, it's a product of your environment. Vegas is so dry that it just sucks all the moisture out of your skin. And it's not a physiologically impaired function of your skin. It's the climate that you live in. And that happens everywhere. And so I would recommend to actually not just use one type of product or one type of ingredient. Like you would think, oh, Perry's going to recommend glycerin because it's a really powerful humectant and will hydrate the skin. Overhaul your own acacia. It could work, too. However, there's no moisture in the ambient atmosphere to attract to the skin. And you're only going to pull more moisture up to the top of your skin to go. So you really, in my opinion, should be doing two things. One, you should be adding humectants to the skin through a toner or a serum. And then you should be putting an occlusive over your skin to lock it all in. And anything that can help improve seramide production in your skin, or maybe even just topically adding seramides to your skin in that occlusive product will help keep everything in and keep your barrier intact. That's what I would recommend. I would agree. You definitely need some sort of occlusive ingredient petrolatum is the best. I know people are kind of afraid of that. But when you are in a climate like Las Vegas, where it's so dry, look, petrolatum is a thing you're going to need to use. Maybe shape butter or something like that could help a bit. But if you just the best bang for your buck, that's what's going to work. And you could even, if you don't want to wear outside and have shiny looking under eyes, you could do it while you sleep as well. And that's also really going to help. But you're right, nothing is a permanent fix. These are all temporary fixes until you wash it off or until you move to the coast. But Vegas has to really great restaurants. Oh, Vegas has a lot of great stuff. Red Rock Canyon, which is fabulous. I did the Maritown way. The Hoover Dam, there's some great wine bars out there, lots of activities to do. And in 2028, the IFSCC will be headed to Las Vegas. That's our international chemist convention. Oh, yeah, right with the Olympics. I got 20 way. You know, they also have in Vegas, they think a restaurant called the Heart Attack Cafe. And you walk in. Oh, I haven't been. You walk in and they weigh you on a scale. And if you weigh more than 300 pounds, you get your meal for free. Oh, that's terrible. It is terrible. They totally encourage overeating. It is just terrible. But it's so Las Vegas. So Las Vegas. Well, let's head to our next question from Kelly. Kelly says, what are your thoughts on using trophy line mainly long hair polisher as a daily leave-in? It's a very effective detangular for myself. My horses and my dogs. I'm not her catch. She doesn't have cats. I'm not worried about weighing my hair down. I can't see my hair, but I can feel it. And I want it to be soft and not tangled. I'm fussy about strong sense and that limits my options. But this one doesn't really bother me. I think this one might be one of those products that I care can be build up based on what it feels like after I use it a few consecutive days. But it really works. So I hope it's OK for occasional use. I don't care about weighing my hair down. I'm looking for soft, smooth, and as tangled free as possible. And then she gives us the product page at mainly longhair.com. And the ingredients, which are-- it looks like silicones, pretty much. Cycle pentosylaxane, cyclotetrosylaxane, die methecanol, phenyltrimethicone. Those are all silicones. And then panthenon, keratin amino acids, blah, blah, and fragrance. So Valerie, have you heard about this main product? I haven't. It appears to be for horses and other animals who have mains that need main. And I could see why Kelly thinks that it is really great for her hair in smoothing it, helping get her fingers through it. Because this product is going to perfectly lubricate the hair, add some shine, control frizz. With all those silicones, come on. Yeah, here. And the cyclow ones, the first two ingredients, they evaporate off eventually. So that's going to reduce the way down effect. Now, ordinarily, I would not recommend to use a product intended for animals on a human for a couple reasons. One, products for animals don't have any legal requirements to undergo the same safety testing as a product would for humans. And so somebody formulating a shampoo or a conditioner, it might not be appropriate for use on humans. And you want to think, oh, but what about the animal? It's just not regulated in the same way. There's not a lot of literature about how ingredients impact mammalian skin. I mean, there's some out there, but I just don't think there's a lot, a lot out there. And so ordinarily, I would never recommend it. However, this seems like an innocent silicone product. Hopefully they're using personal care grade silicones. But I will also say your product is probably going to go through a reformulation soon. Because cyclotetrousiloxane is now restricted in California as of 2025, I think it will be. And so at least in California, it will be a lot on the market. A lot of other states will follow. It is banned in Europe. And also soon going to be restricted in Canada and cyclopentousiloxane actually soon will be banned in Europe. So not that this product line is sold in Europe. But a lot of time brands just follow suit. I'm curious. I'm curious. Those regulations are for cosmetic products. But this being like an animal product, do you think it falls under the same regulations? I would think it would, because cosmetics are a small segment of any industry. And there's a lot of industries that you cycle a tetrasiloxane. And I would guess some of them are pumping it into the ground, just guessing. So I don't know why it wouldn't apply everywhere. And I would bet that some lawyer, probably in California, is going to say that this product should apply to those regulations. Yeah, it's-- if I was the manufacturer, I would certainly be working on a reformulation. Now, there are a couple products for humans that you could use, such as palm-itual super skinny serum, Moroccan oils serum, aloxy has a serum, redkin has a serum, every salon professional brand just about has a serum just like this. I can promise you that. So I would say give those a try and see how it feels. There is nothing terribly special about this one. Our next question comes to us, citizen from Patreon. Hey, Beauty Brains, there is some debate about the key ingredient of the ordinary oil, a scoreable tetraisopomotate solution, 20% in vitamin F. While the name of the product mentions a scoreable tetraisopomotate, the ingredient list indicates tetrahexyl desyloscore bait. The ordinary claims that these are the same ingredient. And I quote, the CASRN 183476-82-6 reference is linked to both in key names as outlined in the link here. As seen on the page provided, tetrahexyl desyloscore bait in a scoreable tetraisopomotate are synonyms for the same chemical compound. A scoreable tetraisopomotate in tetrahexyloscore bait referred to the same ingredient, tetrahexyloscore bait is the in key name our supplier has chosen to identify their material by. What's your view on this? Well, you know, I don't really have a view, but I know if ingredients have the same CASRN number, that's what we call it, they could be the same. But the problem is the CASRN number is more about the identifier for like the chemistry nerds. It's not the cosmetic industry does not use that. So while these things have different names, but they have the same CASRN number, I can see them being the same ingredient, but I could also see them being completely different ingredients just based on the way that they're made. According to the ordinary, they say it's the same ingredient, but I'm not so sure. What's your thought? Well, they actually have two different CASRN numbers. And for a while there they didn't, but this was an oversight by the personal care product council who designates in key names. They actually do have two different CASRN numbers. Well, tetrahexyloscore bait has the CASRN number 183476-82-6, which is the one that the ordinary uses. Sure. A scoreable tetra isopomate actually has a CASRN number of 327594-27-4. And they are not the same structures. They have two different chemical structures. They're similar, but different. And they actually are made by two different reaction pathways. So tetrahexyloscore bait, which is actually what's in the ordinary product, is made by a sterifying ascorbic acid with two hexaldeconoic acid. And the a scoreable tetra isopomate has a different pathway, because that's made from isopalmitic acid and therefore there are two different products. So two different molecules using two different ways. Now I will have to say, why is the ordinary trying to pass this off as the same stuff? I have a feeling they called it a scoreable tetra isopomate in the past, but the inky is clearly tetra hexaldeconoic acid score bait. And so instead of changing the product name, they are providing this distinction. There's also a big post to do about it online. I think there's a big kerfluffle in the online cosmetic chemist science community and some people have posted that indeed they are the same thing, but the actual producers of these materials worked with personal care product council and the chemical abstract service to say, actually know they aren't, and they actually have two different cast numbers. Yeah, so it seems like they are different ingredients, but as far as functionally, if a consumer is using this product, are they gonna notice any difference? Probably not. Yeah, oh. (laughs) But I would, I would add, they probably won't notice any difference even if they were just using a moisturizer, but. Oh my gosh, don't go there, period. I am a big fan of this material, but you probably aren't going to notice a difference. I mean, they're both esters, that they both have good skin penetration data. So tomato tomato semantics. Yeah, I imagine a unilever who now owns the ordinary, probably got a better break on the one version and pretty much, pretty much the cost of the formula, right? Probably. Well, we have time for one more question. And it does come from Valerie, it comes from Valerio. Valerio says, what is the important rule of isoelectric and isoeionic point for hair and hair care products? And why should I even care about this? Oh, thanks, Valerio. So isoelectric point, well, first of all, what are we talking about here, Valerie? The isoelectric point is the point in which there is no charge migration of a substance. The isoeionic point is the point, or I guess we should say like pH. Right, it's a pH, yeah. All charges are neutral. It's like the neutral point of hair. And so the isoelectric point of hair is 3.67. It's isoe, according to an online source. I always learned it was closer to like 3.6, but there's a lot of different data online. And it's isoeionic point is actually around the mid five range, so 5.4, 5.5, 5.6. I've seen different things over the years online. And so basically when hair is near the isoelectric point, it's neutral. Anything over the isoelectric point hair has a negative charge. Anything under hair would have a positive charge. Right, and now what does this all mean for consumers? Basically for a formulator, it means something. It's like when you are formulating a conditioner, you wanna get the pH lower, which gets you closer to that isoelectric point where you're getting more negative charges in the hair. So the positive charges on the conditioner stuff will stick better, right? That's why you have a lower conditioner. If you're looking to clean the hair, you can go higher pH because you don't want the detergent to stick to the hair. But as far as consumers needing to know any of this, should consumers even care about this? I don't see any good reason to care about any of this. No, and honestly as a formulator, it's like kind of nice to know information, but the reality is hair almost always has negative charges because the isoelectric point is so low. Hair is always going to have a pH higher than that. Right, right. It's inevitable. And so you use that as a formulator to your advantage to get the positively charged ingredients to stick to negatively charged hair. And choosing a pH where ingredients types where the products don't stick, but honestly like a formulator could never know this information and also get fine in their career. So I would say it's interesting scientific data and it's really helpful for research and understanding physiological properties and the mechanical properties of the hair fiber, but it's kind of doesn't help you in any other way. For consumers, all this does is give marketers something to talk about with their products so they can try to convince you that their competitor products aren't things you can use. I see lots of talk about pH balanced in hair care products. It's just, it doesn't mean anything. It's not going to help you. Every product is pH balanced. Nobody's pH balanced better than another one. You check the pH and you say, do I want to get it to where it should be? Or is it already where it should be? Boom, pH balanced. Well, I mean, the water you use in this pH of around seven, maybe it's a little lower or seven, but it's around there. You put your pH five shampoo on your head that delutes it out. It's going to be almost seven already. So it's, for consumers, this does not matter at all. It's just a marketing story. Exactly. Well, speaking of story, I hear the music. It's time for bedtime story for me. Yes, it is time for that. Well, thanks everybody for listening. If you get a chance, head over to Apple Podcast or Spotify and leave us a review. That's going to help other people find the show and ensure we have a full-docking of beauty questions. Valerie, I just read some comments on Spotify and I responded to them. So you won't put on there. Yeah, there you go. It's about to fall. And if you have a question and you want to get your voice on the show, just record it on your smartphone and email it to the
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