Cosmetic chemists answer your beauty product questions! We are a group of cosmetic scientists who understand what the chemicals used in cosmetics really do, how products are tested, and what all the advertising means.
While we here at the Beauty Brains answer your questions, we also hope to help you become smarter consumers. If you’re seriously interested in learning about beauty care products, here’s a great source of solid scientific information: the Personal Care Products Council (PCPC) website.
The PCPC (formerly known as the CTFA) is one of the oldest, and most respected, sources of information on cosmetic science. Much of this site is designed for those in the industry who are members and who can access ingredient dictionaries, Cosmetic Ingredient Reviews that show the regulatory status of ingredients, and other legal functions. But there are other sections open to the general public that our readers should find interesting. You might want to check out the following:
Cosmetic Ingredient Safety: here’s your inside scoop on the TRUTH behind cosmetic ingredients. Don’t believe the crap you get in emails and press releases, click here for the real science behind ingredient’s safety and efficacy.
Look Good Feel Better – a site that deals with using make up to counter act some of the effects of cancer treatments.
Work Your Image: a site that deals with how to use your beauty skills to get and hang on to , the job you want. Includes links to 25 Free Business Clothing Programs!
Site for Teens with Cancer:
We hope you never find yourself in need of this kind of information. But if you do, here’s where to go.
There’s much more, but you get the picture. PCPC online is one of our favorite resources. Check it out if you’re interested in learning about the products that you put on your body every day.
Scientists think they’ve figured out the cause of gray hair. In the June 12 issue of Cell, researchers describe ‘genotoxic stress’ that damages DNA and reduces the amount of melanin-producing cells (melanocytes) in hair follicles.
What kind of stress?
While emotional stress may be one factor, the kind of stress that these researchers are talking about are more molecular in nature. These include exposure to UV light, ionizing radiation and mutagenic chemicals. It’s estimated that cells get exposed to over 100,000 stressors each day.
Can you stop gray hair?
According to researchers, the cell damage is unavoidable which suggests there is little that can be done to stop the gradual onset of gray hair. Sun protection and anti-oxidants may help slow things down but eventually exposure to environmental stress will catch up to everyone. Fortunately, cosmetic chemists have come up with hair color. So everyone can look like they’ve got the hair of a 20-year-old.
When did you start to go gray? And do you cover it up with hair color? Leave a comment below because inquiring Beauty Brains need to know.
In our modern world, life expectancies have dramatically increased. Now we’re not satisfied with just living longer, we want to live better – we expect to maintain a high quality of life as we grow old gracefully. And a new study shows that makeup can keep us happy as we age by actually improving the function of our brains!
Makeup secret
This amazing makeup secret is revealed in a research paper by Pola Chemical Industries and the Brain Functions Lab in Yokohama Japan which was published in the February 2009 issue of Cosmetics & Toiletries. According to the researchers, they have scientific measurements that confirm what some people have long suspected – that wearing the right kind of makeup can lead to better activation of your brain.
They studied the effects of a new makeup on a population of elderly women with a mild cognitive impairment that could signal the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. (Women in this condition are sensitive to improvements in brain function.) They hooked the women up to an electroencephalograph (EEG) and measured brain activity before, during, and after makeup application. The women were treated with eyebrow pencil, lip rouge, and a new kind of foundation that contained a powder made from the same kind of light reflecting PET polymers used to make privacy curtains. The result is a highly transparent, light dispersing powder that is ideal for aged skin.
After the makeup application it wasn’t surprisingly that the women subjectively reported that they felt more beautiful and happy. But it was surprising that the brain scan showed that their electrical scalp potential was stabilized. Essentially their brains were “activated” in a way that improved local neuronal impairments. I’m certainly not a neurologist but it sounds like this is the first time anyone’s measured the impact of cosmetics on brain waves. How exciting!
The Beauty Brains bottom line
This single study doesn’t really prove much but hopefully it will lead to further work that could help us understand the neurological benefits of using beauty products. That could make us all happier in old age. And nothing makes me happier than a new sale on makeup. Time to go shopping!
There are so many misleading, crappy beauty websites out there it’s hard to cut through the bull. That’s why The Beauty Brains spend a lot of time scouring the web looking for interesting websites so you don’t have to. In addition to science-oriented sites sometimes we find things that are just plain fun to try out.
Face shape
Hairstyler.com has an interesting way to classify the shape of your face. I don’t know if it really helps you pick your hairstyle, but it is interesting to find out if you’re a heart face, diamond face or Triangular face type. You simply fill out a questionnaire and they email you pictures of recommended hairstyles based on your personal preference. Check it out, it’s kind of cool. Face it here!
I wonder why the Beauty Brains never do studies like this. Here are a few reports that demonstrate some interesting findings about our sense of smell.
Women smell better
Women are better at smelling things than men. Researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia conducted a study to see how well fragrances hid or covered body odor. They took smelly scents and combined them with different perfumes. Out of the 32 fragrances tested, women were only fooled by 2 of them. For men, 19 of the fragrances worked.
This explains why your boyfriend thinks his deodorant shower works but you don’t.
Scent will tell
Researchers also found that women can tell when a man is interested in her from his body odor. You can read the article for the study details but essentially they found women’s brains activated differently when they smelled aroused male sweat versus non-aroused male sweat.
The Power of the Pill
One final story finding about scent is that women who are on the pill do a worse job of picking a suitable mate than women who are not. Evidently, the pill sets the body’s hormones to a pregnant-like state, significantly inhibiting the ability to sense a suitable mate.
If you keep picking the wrong guy, it might be your birth control
-Mid Brain
Do you have more examples of things you think women can do better than men? Leave a comment. They might be worth studying scientifically.
A company called Basisnote is exploring ways to capture and profile the body odor of potential partners and then upload them to online dating sites. So before you even meet Mr. Right you can tell if he needs to use Right Guard. The trick to this technology is a saliva test that let’s you classify your own body odor and enter it as a code in a database. You can then search for potential partners who have complimentary body scent profiles.
According to a researcher for Basisnote, the technology works based on genes that determine the Major Histocompatibility Complex. These protein receptors are part of our immune system and they also determine the compounds that are transmitted to our skin to create our own unique body odor. The Basisnote researcher says “the stronger the difference in immune system between the potential partner and yourself, the more pleasant you will find their smell.”
The Beauty Brains bottom line
Based on the information in the article, the science didn’t fully make sense to us. For example, there’s no real mechanism to explain how MHC is related to body odor. So we’d need additional background information before we could comment on the validity of this body odor coding technique. But the idea of matching the scent of someone digitally is certainly an intriguing notion!
What do YOU think? Have you ever used an online dating service? Would you want to know what a potential date smells like? Leave a comment for the rest of the Beauty Brains community.
The latest issue of of the Flavour and Fragrance Journal reveals that women are better than men when it comes to sniffing out body odor. According to researchers at the Monell institute, it’s tougher to block a woman’s sensitivity to body odor than it is for men. How do scientists know this? By sniffing vials of underarm sweat collected in the laboratory from volunteers, of course!
Sweaty sniffing
The researchers had both men and women rate the strength of underarm orders to get a Body Odor baseline. BO was rated equally strong by both sexes. Then they added different fragrances to the underarm extractions to mimic the effect of deodorants. For men, 19 of the 32 scents did a good job of covering up the body odor. In other words, it was pretty easy to fool men’s sense of smell. The women, on the other hand, were only fooled by 2 of the 32 fragrances. You go girl!
Also intriguing was the fact that women reacted differently to male and female body odors. Males scents were harder to block than female odors. Less then 20% of the fragrances could block male odors while over 50% decreased intensity of female underarm odor. So not only are women better able to detect quantitative differences in body odor, but they’re able to detect qualitative differences as well. (Hmmm, I wonder if they tested the odor of boob sweat.)
What does this mean?
The researchers theorize that women’s sense of smell has evolved to help us pick a mate by extracting biologically relevant information from sweat. According to the head researcher, “Taken together, our studies indicate that human sweat conveys information that is of particular importance to females. This may explain why it is so difficult to block women’s perception of sweat odors.” Does this means that Axe Body Spray is wasting their money on those silly ad campaigns?
The Beauty Brains bottom line
Forget what all those online dating services tell you, when it comes to choosing a mate, the nose knows!
What do YOU think? Are you sensitive to body odors? Does it bug you when a guy (or gal) skimps on the deodorant? Leave a comment for the rest of the Beauty Brains community.
The article summarizes a study done at universities of Birmingham and Warwick that suggests a link between pollution from sewage sludge, animal disinfectants and fabric softeners, and the rise in bacteria resistance to antibiotics.
Personal care pollution
While the title implicates beauty care products, the article does not link to the original study so it’s difficult to determine exactly what ingredients were discovered. But here’s a quote from the article:
The sludge and slurry contains a cocktail of antibiotic and chemical traces, many of which can be traced back to household products, including a variety of commonly used personal care products, Dr. Glaze stated in his study report.
During the research, the scientific team was able to hone in on the quarternary ammonium compounds (QAC) – collectively known as biocides, which a variety of industries use in large quantities.
Quaternary ammonium compounds are commonly used in products like hair conditioners but these are long chain fatty QACs which have little biocidal acitvity. I’d like to understand the details of this study better before setting off alarms about cosmetic ingredients but at the very least this study suggests that further research is warranted.
The Beauty Brains bottom line
While no single study should be taken as confirmation, we do need to remain alert to the possibility that the ingredients used in cosmetics may have a negative effect on the environment. Contrary to what many people think, scientists are doing research to ensure the products we use are safe for our world.
I like the abbreviation of QAC for quaternium ammonium compounds much better “quats” which is the term cosmetic scientists typically use. I say that we pronounce it “quacks” and try to get it to catch on.
Something smells fishy here…oh wait, it’s just my new lotion.
According to Cosmeticsdesign.com, researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology have discovered that a specific fish enzyme, known as zonase, can be good for your skin because of the way they can break down dead skin cells without harming live ones. This is a clever discovery although not entirely surprising since other natural extracts (papaya comes to mind) have similar properties.
The heartbreak of psoriasis
The researchers say zonase could be a breakthrough for treating eczema and psoriasis, the latter being a skin condition that many people have heard of but few understand. What’s surprising, and a little bit scary, is that while psoriasis can turn very nasty it has a relatively common set of symptoms including:
Red patches of skin covered with silvery scales
Small scaling spots (commonly seen in children)
Dry, cracked skin that may bleed
Itching, burning or soreness
Thickened, pitted or ridged nails
Swollen and stiff joints
If you think you have any of these symptoms you might want to check with a dermatologist to make sure you don’t need treatment.
The Beauty Brains bottom line
Several years ago a product called Tegrin was featured in an ad campaign that coined the phrase “the heartbreak of psoriasis.” This phrase was turned into a bit of a joke in popular culture, but psoriasis itself is no joking matter. It’s a real condition that you should pay attention to. And you can take some comfort in the fact that scientists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology are squeezing fish in search of a cure!
I found an interesting article on CosmeticsDesign.com that talks about the future of edible cosmetics. Apparently, there’s a new ingestible ingredient called SkinGestPSOR that helps control psoriasis by supporting immune functions.
SkinGestPSOR, a tasty psoriasis treatment
The ingredient is a protein isolated from sweet whey and is marketed as an an oral treatment mild-to-moderate skin irritations. Is it a drug? Not yet! According to the article, the company has conducted clinical studies that demonstrate the effect of this supplement on psoriasis but they’re not planning on seeking new drug status. That stats look impressive, though – a 25 percent improvement in the Psoriasis Area Severity Score in 38 percent of patients.
They’re looking for a company to partner with to market a line edible beauty products. The founder’s motto is: “cosmetics so natural you can eat them.” Hmmm, this is an interesting notion but, as CosmeticsDesign points out, the trend of beauty supplements suffered a set back earlier in 2009 when Danone’s beauty yoghurt “Essensis” was removed from store shelves in France. So this is far from a done deal.
The Beauty Brains bottom line
We’re always skeptical about nutritonal supplements that make beauty claims like Imedeen or even the ever popular fish oil. But if SkinGestPSOR is backed by data it just might be the real thing, at least for treating psoriasis. If you see any other edible beauty products, leave us a comments below and we’ll blog about them.
is wasting their money on those silly ad campaigns?
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