Stop It says: The beauty brains you sound so sceptical of everything and I dont want to be mean but your acting as if everything needs scientific proof which it doesnt. Just like you said castor oil doesnt make eyelashes long eh yea they do I’ve been usingit for a week and my eyelashes are already more full/longer. I suggest highly that you stop acting so above everything .. you sound so I dunno omg we need evidence look sweets if it works it works and some of the shit you spew isnt even true .. like seriously scientifically benzoyl peroxide is amazing with acne yet its done zilch for me . scientifically neem oil hasnt proved shit yet its done wonders for me.. I think you cant state anything as facts and stop acting like you think you know everything GEEZ. 
The Right Brain responds:
Thanks for your comment, “Stop It,” but you’re kind of missing the point of our blog. We’re not pompous scientific zealots (well, ok, maybe the Left Brain is a little bit…) but we do strongly believe in scientific proof. There are a lot of bogus products out there that are trying to take advantage of your lack of knowledge and so we started this blog to help women understand that you don’t HAVE to blindly believe everything that you’re told about cosmetics: You don’t have to believe all the hype from the advertisers. You don’t have to believe the fear-mongering from the Environmental Working Group. You don’t even have to believe everything you read here on the Beauty Brains.
But you SHOULD be asking for proof, seeking multiple sources of information, and objectively evaluating what you see and hear. Then you can make up your own mind. If you do that, then you’ll be a lot smarter about the stuff you’re putting in and on your body. And you might even save a few bucks in the process. That’s what being a Beauty Brain is all about.
PS If you go back and read our post on Neem Oil you’ll see that we said it does provide some scientifically valid benefits. It’s just not proven to help acne.
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Juliet Says:
Hear, hear.
Also: sounds to me like Stop It is being perfectly scientific in empirically experimenting on herself!!!
I see the point, though - there’s the “scientifically proven” of big lab, independent, double-blind testing, open published results, etc.
And then there’s the just as “scientifically” proven of ingredients or products that have been used, tried, and tested practically-speaking for generations, but never in a lab.
Maybe never produced conclusive results one way or the other - to an over 30% difference, for ex. - but do work on some individuals but not on others.
And things that work on one individual, contrary to known experimental results (or, indeed, popular belief).
It’s laudable to help women out of falling for advertisng and marketing: so often *by men* but *for women* - and playing on feminine insecurities while profiting from their new-found income from growing equality in the workplace and thus growing economic parity and power. Every time a besuited businesswoman hovers at the La Mer counter, feminism goes back a step.
But there’s another side to take into account, that Stop It highlights well (if erring well over into passion): the fact that testing by women, on other women, for generations and centuries, doesn’t count. It wasn’t done in a university or a laboratory - as these didn’t exist or were not accessible to women - so it doesn’t count. It wasn’t written up and published - for similar reasons of lack of access to literacy - so it doesn’t count.
So Francis Bacon turns up in History of Science courses, but it takes delving into Vatican archives on 13th c. heresy trials to show that there were women doing similar stuff (alas, many burned as “witches” and much knowledge passed down in secret from mother to daughter and friend to friend).
The same is true of ingredients and products developed outside western Europe and the colonised North America. So Chinese medicine and philosophy are sidelined. Ayurvedic remedies are condemned as witch-doctery and thus fall prey to being marketed and sold by New Age quacks to New Age suckers. And the more this happens, the more there’s a perceived distance between Western = scientific and non-Western = unscientific.
And ingredients known to work for generations, and well tested by them, get to be “discovered” and patented as soon as they get tested in a modern lab. And it’s *then* and *only then* that they get to count. This does sound remarkably like the “discovery” of the “New World,” now, doesn’t it? Similar cultural bias, and an additional gender one?
Left Brain Says:
I’d agree with some of what you say. Lab validated, statistically significant results aren’t always necessary. And women have been unfairly dismissed for centuries.
However, I disagree that there should be a lower standard set for truth just because of who did the research. Speaking specifically for the cosmetic industry, we are willing to look at ANY ingredient that is claimed to work. We don’t care where it comes from or who says it works. We are just trying to create the best formulas for everyone. Patents play a very minor role in our industry and are not a compelling enough reason for directing research. You’ll notice that most cosmetic products are not patented (exceptions being P&G, L’Oreal, & Unilever produced products). The thing that formulators focus on is what provides the most benefit to the most people. Whether it’s synthetic, natural, non-western or whatever, we don’t care.
And as far as Western vs Non-western medicine goes, I have to disagree with you here too. What specific non-western remedies that work are ignored by the western health care systems?
The truth is most of the Non-Western remedies have been studied. They have just been proven not to be superior to placebos. The reason the results aren’t published is because of publication bias. Medical journals don’t typically publish titles like “Ingredient X proven not to have any effect” or “Second hand smoke shown not to have any effect”. Negative results are rarely published.
Above all else, we at the Beauty Brains encourage people to have an open mind. We accept the possibility that anything we say could be shown wrong in the future with more study. But real evidence rules the day, not anecdotal or theoretical stories.
Unfortunately, purveyors of pseudoscience and junk cosmetics/remedies are closed minded. There is no test or study they would ever accept that would disprove what they want to believe. This kind of dogmatic thinking is bad for humanity and it is our goal to change it.
Andrea Says:
I also think that the placebo effect should not be forgotten in this entire discussion. Even if a product appears to work on one individual it’s impossible without blind testing to know whether the product really has the effect it appears to. Simply our belief in the effect of a product can influence our perception of whether or not it seems to be working. Using the observations of generations on what works is helpful as a starting point, but it really needs to be followed up by blind testing to know if it really works.
Thanks for this great website!
Juliet Says:
I agree to some extent - I was simply providing some arguments for the other side (and some of which are not necessarily incompatible). To some extent, as devil’s advocate. Because this has to be as much about reasoning as it is about science. Brain activity being about both.
Above all, excellent response from the Left Brain on testing any ingredients no matter where they come from, applying the same standards for truth, encouraging open-mindedness, and being aware of - and doing a first-class job of knocking - pseudoscience and junk / what I called quackery.
And certainly, in this day and age, there’s no scientific reason not to test everything and anything - and indeed, from what I know of this, such testing is taking place.
I think the Beauty Brains is doing a splendid job in educating people (particularly susceptible women) and moving them towards a more scientific and fact-based approach.
I do think that this should be combined with reasoning, rational argument, and indeed something that was slated here recently, logic. Education about scientific methodology is one thing: but it needs to be complemented by education in reading and interpreting results. In analysis, and argument, and the kinds of rational thinking that lead to applicable conclusions.
A lack of properly interpreting results is one of the biggest flaws of the Cosmetics Cop; and it is a major flaw of empiricism divorced from rationalism. You need both. I see no reason why reasoning and argument (”theory,” if ou will) shouldn’t be perfectly compatible with the Brains’ ideas of educating consumers and encouraging healthy scepticism.
So that an individual doesn’t fall into the *logical* fallacy of thinking that something that has been *known* to work *will necessarily work* on them. Not distinguishing between a fixed and predetermined fact, and a question of contingency and probability. With other factors to take into account - individual skin, diet, other products used, environment, etc.
Hence why I made the point about pre-modern and non-Western use of empirical methodology. Of course these centuries’ and other cultures’ findings and results can’t be called “scientific” in the sense which the word has now. But this leads to interesting questions worth considering: are the results worthless and should they be thrown away - after all, the “researchers” concerned didn’t know any better?
The situation is analogous to that of otherwise virtuous thinkers (Aristotle and Plato and co.) condemned to the First Circle of Hell due to the historical problem of being pre-, and therefore non-Christian.
This is also why it was very good - O praiseworthy Left Brain - to emphasize testing anything and everything, including non-Western remedies: here’s how not to lose earlier knowledge - test it out again, by our current standards of proof. It passes and is rehabilitated - or it fails. This has been done for chamomile and its assorted extracts and derivatives, and chamomile and bisabolol compounds have won out: they passed the test.
And anyone not accepting a negative result as such must also accept that their attitude is non-scientific and anti-scientific; and indeed pseudo-scientific, following the classic Popperian criteria, dependent on a closed circle based on belief. Quack quack quackery.
This should certainly not be about *belief* in products working - whether that belief coincides with actual fact, or is due to buying into marketing claims - doesn’t matter: it’s still belief. And so has no place here…
Miss Laura Mars Says:
Why does “Stop It” read the Beauty Brains if it bugs her/him so much?
Firechik Says:
Beauty Brains
I appreciate your ’show me the science’
attitude, and that’s why I’m here. Keep it up, if you want maybe works products go search Vogue.
Sage Says:
Is Stop It an actual person? Seems ridiculous enough in every way for you Brains to have made her up!
thebeautybrains Says:
Yes, Stop It is real.
Juliet Says:
Poor Brains with such brainlessness to contend with - and well done for doing so in such an elegant and polite way! Best I could do was give her/him the benefit of the doubt - perhaps naively assuming she/he was not a complete nutter…
Yours etc. in continuing admiration and fan-dom.
A Real Informed Consumer Says:
How about the fact that The Beauty Brains would even put a letter like that in their blog? Ever see anything like that on the EWG website? The Beauty Brains promotes eductaion and at least evalaution if not skeptism of the claims being used on us. Suggesting we question, not just to beleive or be afraid.