Does Red Hair Need Different Care? Your Beauty Questions Answered - episode 436

0:00Hi, I'm Perry and you're listening to The Beauty Brains.

0:13Welcome 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 436. I'm your host Perry Romanowski and with me today is Valerie George. Hello Valerie. Hi, Perry. Valerie, we have a ton of questions today, including, is it a good thing to use eye masks? What is a replacement for a discontinued wipe or any other beauty product that you might get discontinued? Can a moisture spray replace a moisturizer? How can you find a replacement for a great conditioner that smells bad? What topical treatments can support hair growth?

0:55And finally, does ginger hair and skin need different products? But first, some of that chit-chat. Valerie, how's it going today? I'm doing great. I have some busy travel coming up. You know, I always consider the end of October to basically be the end of the year because you're just a few weeks away from Thanksgiving in the United States. Sure. And no one's working the week of Thanksgiving. And then after Thanksgiving, you're just one month from Christmas. and people are so checked out that time of year. No one's getting anything done. And so I basically feel like the work year is kind of over.

1:36Even though I have a ton of projects and a ton of stuff going on, I'm going to get less emails. People are going to want to have less meetings because no one wants to be working. They're checked out. It is kind of amazing how much people don't really do much in December. you know but yeah it's holiday season and you know what I do notice in holiday season I don't know if this is true or not where you're living though but here in Chicago Halloween has become the new Christmas in terms of decorating in the front of your house like people will make these elaborate decorations these creepy ghouls and monsters and pumpkins and skeletons it's just crazy how much people are decorating these days it's also that way here and of course in texas everything is bigger so they're huge and the other day i just saw this skeleton that was like two stories tall i'm like what is going on this is a lot of work and i'm just not into investing that much into decorations yeah i mean you got to take it down you have to store it where do you restore something like that i don't know i saw a two-story blow up uh who's that guy from friday the 13th jason or michael myers michael michael i think you know that guy with the mask yeah yeah it's hard to keep all the horror movies straight i think it's i think it's michael but anyway it's a blow up one of this he's like the size of the person's house but it's always fun i guess the kids like it but obviously the adults like it too I think maybe more so than the kids.

3:18Indeed. Well, some other stuff has been happening. My LinkedIn has been ping, ping, pinging because a press release went out. Oh, that's right. The press release about us being on the board of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists. Essentially, the beauty brains are going to be running the Society of Cosmetic Chemists next year because Perry is president and I'll be vice president. Yeah, that'll be fun. So if you're a part of, you know, cosmetic chemists in the United States, you should be part of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists. Exactly. I think we're going to have fun. I don't know if other people will have as much fun.

3:55I'll have fun. This is the last time I could do it. So I'm going to have all the fun I can have. I think we're funny. Well, it'll be a good one. And there's a meeting at the end of November, start of December out in L.A., our annual year-end meeting. So if you're going there, please feel free to say hello. Exactly. And if you're not sure about going, we are going to have a couple really great keynote speakers. First being Dr. Muneeb Shah. I think he goes by, I forget what his Instagram handle is, but he owns Remedy Skin Care. And so he's a big popular face on Instagram. he's going to be talking about what it's like as a derm to develop a skincare brand.

4:41And then we also have Dr. Andrea Love, who is a big science communicator online. She'll be the other keynote speaker. So I think that's a really great program. And I'm looking forward to going. I'm looking forward to going too. But I'm also looking forward to continuing with the show. So let's move on to beauty news.

5:08Perry, I think at the beginning of the year, we did our predictions and you had a celebrity prediction. And if it wasn't this year, it was the year prior. Sure. You predicted Jennifer Lawrence, also known as J-Law in the tabloids, would be launching a beauty brand. And I think your prediction has come true. Oh, really? Look at that. How did you know? Well, I don't know. just a dumb luck or or i have superpowers of esp predicted prognosticating the future well you were correct because she is part of a hair care brand called mess with a little degree symbol in the upper right corner and it's messbeauty.com not a lot of information is out yet designed by jennifer lawrence engineered by archaea which is a biotech raw material company okay in the u.s come on what does that mean designed by jennifer lawrence like maybe she picked out the colors i don't know in a lab picking surfactants or anything but she's like give me give me a product that i don't know what even a celebrity do to design a product Maybe she'll pick out the fragrance.

6:24I'm not sure, but I was surprised by the images of the hair on the website because, first of all, they're very far away. And the hair looks, it doesn't look good. And usually, this was my critique with Brooke Shields' hair care brand. Yeah. When you are selling a hair care product, you need to actually show the hair. And the hair needs to look good. It shouldn't look frizzy, puffy, messy to me. You mean like my hair right now? Well, worse, if you go to messbeauty.com and, you know, it's beautifully creatively done in an editorial fashion, but the hair has to look really great. And if she's launching this biotechnology hair care brand, I hope the imagery changes when it launches in just a few days.

7:12We'll see. We'll keep an eye out for that. And maybe I'll look for it in my local Sephora or Ulta or is it just online? I'm not sure. I mean, I'll check it out because I have to check out all the things. Sure. Yeah. That's good for her. She probably needs the money.

7:33What did you see this week? Well, there's an article in Fashionista talking about the hot new ingredient NAD Skin Care. So NAD Plus is appearing in the longevity. That's what we call anti-aging products now, I guess. Longevity. Okay. They're promising better cellular energy, skin repair, and barrier function. NAD Plus has an important biological role inside cells, of course, but its size and delivery make topical applications considerably less straightforward than the marketing here is going to imply, right? So have you used NAD Plus? I haven't. I know that it is quite a valuable antioxidant and it's part of the nicotinamide pathway in skin.

8:27I think it converts between NADH and NAD. It continues to exchange electrons and recycles itself as part of our metabolic pathway. Is that correct? Am I remembering it correctly? Yeah. It's an important co-factor in the Krebs cycle. Oh, but the ATP cycle and all of that stuff, yeah. Yeah, now I haven't used it in skincare because, one, no one's asked for it, but I have seen it around, but it's very unstable and a bit difficult to formulate with. And the only places I've seen it are in encapsulations. well you know they're they're talking about how it's supposed to supply cellular energy it boosts functions like dna repair skin barrier strengthening but uh i guess you know this this is one of those things in the industry where we'll discover some ingredient that hasn't been talked about before and it's important in all your cell stuff and someone will just throw it into a product and say, hey, let's use this.

9:38But there's no real good evidence that if you use your skin product that has this in it, it's going to work any better than just some old regular moisturizer. Not that I've seen anyway. But it makes, I guess, a good science washing story, I guess. Yeah. I mean, it's, as I mentioned, a highly unstable molecule and the topical penetration isn't very good. Now, of course, you get it in liposomes and other encapsulations to help improve the stability, but also to help deliver it into skin. So I'd be interested to see how far it actually really goes. But what I would rather just use is niacinamide because niacinamide gets converted and releases NAD plus or it's part of those pathways as it decomposes in the skin and there's actually data on niacinamide.

10:32So I would just probably rather go there. It's been studied a bit more. So if you're going to see any benefits there, it's more likely niacinamide than NAD plus, but NAD plus, it has a plus in it. That must be good, right? Yeah, that's positive. That is positive. I'm surprised you didn't say that. I beat you to it you did well you know what i just discovered uh my my wife had uh she went to the hospital and she discovered for the first time in her life that her blood type is b positive which is what i always wish mine was yeah her blood type is b positive she thought she was an o blood type but she's b how did she get more than halfway through life not knowing her blood type I don't know.

11:19She thought she was O. So she had misinformation that wasn't corrected. So there you go. Wow. Yeah. But now I'm jealous because I'd love to be B positive blood type because that's my sunny disposition. B positive. Well, what is your blood type? O positive. Well, that's your positive. I'm a negative and I think that's very apt. You're a negative. No, you got to be positive. Yeah, I know. I'm a negative. Speaking of positive, let's positively or negatively answer some of these questions.

12:01Our first question comes to us from Carol. Carol says, good morning. My name is Carol, and I absolutely love your show. I wanted to know if using eye masks was a good thing. I use eye drops every morning because I'm in a dry climate. I also use Epionance eye mask and castor oil. Just wondering if this is good for my eyes. Thanks so much. Eye masks. Have you used eye masks, Valerie? Well, the way Carol asked the question, I hope she's not putting Epionce eye mask and castor oil in her eyes. Yeah, I hope not. I'm thinking like below, right? Hopefully. well yeah hopefully it's on the skin and and i actually am an eye mask fan and i'll tell you why and by eye mask i think this really is eye cream because i actually tried to find epion's eye mask and i couldn't find a specific eye mask product i found they had a mask and i found they had an eye cream but either way i think if this is the eye cream version i'm a fan because usually eye creams And this is not because of the old myth of the fact that, oh, regular face creams are heavy and they tug at the eye area.

13:16Usually an eye cream has actives in it that are designed for use in the eye area. Maybe peptides that have some good data about improving the appearance of the under eye, or maybe it's the right balance of humectants that help, you know, get rid of that crepey skin that can happen around the eye. And I also do like if she's using castor oil because it helps occlude all the water in the skin, which reduces water loss and makes you look dry. So I don't mind the technique here that she's using. Now, whether the Epionce Eye Cream is a good product or not, hard to say. But if they have any eye active materials in there at meaningful levels and they've done some clinical studies, go for it.

14:01yeah just keep your expectations low um i i've never really been terribly convinced that an eye cream specific has much impact on things like i don't know you know circles under the eyes or puffiness but if it makes you feel better just rubbing something on there that then it's it's doing its job there but i think these products generally over promise what they can actually deliver. And things like, you know, adding caffeine to a product to, you know, constrict the blood vessels or something like that. This stuff theoretically could help, but I don't think in practice it makes much difference.

14:43Well, I think there's some data on caffeine, but where I think you're right is would a consumer notice a difference between a regular cream and an eye cream. Yeah, I think that would be hard to tell. You'd have to, I don't know, do a really good study on that. Yeah, and I'm just thinking this in terms of if I was given this job as a formulator to make this product, I would throw in the stuff like the, you know, the caffeine, the niacinamide, the vitamin C's. I just wouldn't expect it to really do much. To me, this would just be things I would throw in the formula so my marketing people have something to talk about.

15:26You know, that's not being very positive, Perry. Do you think if you formulate it with the belief that what you're doing could do something that would make a difference? It's hard for me to... I believe there are formulators out there who do have that belief. In fact, I worked with a guy who was, he was always convinced that his next formula was just like, oh, the perfect formula. And I'm like, this isn't that different than your last one. But there are formulators who just like, they sort of don't approach it the way a scientist would, but they approach it more like how an artist would. And so they can't step back, you know.

16:10And I'm not one of those approach it like an artist formulators. or is that more of an approach it like a scientist type? I got a D in art in eighth grade, and it's a traumatizing experience for me. I just don't think the art teacher liked me because I actually did complete all the assignments. It's just not the side of my brain that lights up. And so, yeah, I approach formulation from a minimalist perspective as well. All right, well, I hope that works and keep up with the eyes. Hey, Valerie, look at this. we've got an audio question from Katie. Let me play that now. Hey, beauty brains. My name is Katie.

16:53I am not much of a cosmetic user, but I appreciate your podcast and like to listen just to hear the science versus the trends. I'm hoping you can help me out with a product problem I'm having. For years, I have used Equate exfoliating cleansing towelette as part of my morning routine. and let me tell you nothing makes my face feel as fresh and energized as that product does unfortunately it's looking like they've been discontinued and i am spiraling i don't like washing my face if it stink in the morning so i usually prefer white to a soap that i would have to rinse off and i'm assuming that since the wipes are made with micellar water most other micellar waters are going to be similar but i'm hung up on the exfoliation see i love the feeling of those wipes in the morning.

17:41It makes me feel more alert, ready to wake up, but I haven't had any luck finding other exfoliating wipes that aren't too much. I've had some that scratch my face or just feel a little bit too harsh. And even washing my face with a regular washcloth, it feels like it doesn't quite clean as well, like it's not exfoliating enough. And my face feels a little bit stretched and dry after even using a moisturizer. Do you guys have any advice for products I could try or what to look for in similar products or other micellar waters that might help me out. Thanks in advance. All right. Equates exfoliating towelettes.

18:19You know, I remember we were working on a project when I was at Alberto that this is when wipes were just kind of coming out and they wanted to make like a body wash wipe, but we had no wipe making ability in our lab. But what they would do is go out and, I don't know, buy some generic towelette wipes and then try to make a formula and dry it, like dry it on there and see if the formula just said like a prototype or something like that. And that project just never went anywhere. It never made sense to me. Like, why would you make a body wash infused into a wipe? That just seems very wasteful to me.

19:00Well, wipe formulation is very interesting because the towelette does make a difference. And I think when you're formulating them, it's important to work with the towelette you intend to use because they absorb liquid differently. They feel different on the skin. They have different textures to them. And when you formulate a wipe product, you're generally working with a wipes facility. And there's not a million different wipe substrates in the world. There's actually a limited, they're called non-woven materials because they're non-wovens. Kimberly Clark is like a big one in the Midwest that makes them.

19:39Exactly. And so a wipes manufacturer, they only have a handful of different non-wovens to choose from. And some of them have dots on them. Some of them don't have dots. Some of them are double-sided. Some of them have a smoother portion on one side and a rougher portion on the other side, like these Equate exfoliating wipes. So the good news is, Katie, is that Equate wasn't using anything unique or proprietary to them. They're using a wipe substrate that's already available on the market. And I think if you went to Sephora, they actually have a soothing cleansing wipe that says cleanse and exfoliate.

20:20It is not available in cucumber, but it appears they have it in either coconut or watermelon or aloe. And I think this could be a really nice choice for you to start. It's$7 for a pack of 20 wipes, I think. So or 10 wipes. It's kind of hard to tell because they have different sizes on the website. But I think that's a pretty good start from the Equate product, maybe not as inexpensive. Also on Amazon, we have McCoh Beauty, M-C-O Beauty, one word. They have double-sided facial wipes. You get 25 cleansing and exfoliating wipes for just$7.99. So again, this is not about necessarily the formula with the Equate Wipes, which Equate is a Walmart brand, but it has to do with the substrate.

21:11And the other thing that you should know is most wipes formulas are very similar because they're mostly water and they have a tiny bit of surfactant in them so inherently almost all wipe formulations are these micellar waters that help right dissolve things on the skin and the wipe wipes it away they were micellar waters before micellar waters were micellar waters exactly yeah that's it so katie i would check those out and you can get one at Sephora and the other on Amazon. Yeah. Now, but from a environmental perspective, this kind of product seems a little bit wasteful to me. You know, like you have more wipes in the world.

21:57I mean, I suppose they're made from trees ultimately and trees is a renewable resource, but it's a lot of effort. Or cellulose, but you know, it never really breaks down. You actually really aren't supposed to flush them and in fact there are certain countries and even certain states where you're not allowed to use uh the term flushable uh with wipes because they really should not be flushed yeah so i could see that for sure but i don't think it's any different than buying maybe like a box of tissues or yeah yeah you know you're right yeah i guess so good point oh wipe away all right thanks for that let's move on to questions from allison uh yeah she's she actually is a patron and she has two questions so let's do those first first one is uh hi uh curell intensive moisture care deep moisture spray i've been using this spray moisturizer and I was wondering if I can replace my regular moisturizer and eye cream since it's sprayed all over the face is it moisturizing enough based on the ingredients I live in a cold climate and I like how easy the spray and to just spray and go all right curell spray product I always forget about I always forget about curell their products are fine and then when people bring them up I'm like oh man you know that that it's just not a brand that ever comes to the front of my mind but i do like their stuff and i spelled color with a u what's going on here i think we're actually looking at the canadian website because curell actually even though it has a french um an accent over the e like in the french language we're looking at pictures of this product that's an aerosol and it has a canadian labeling on it with the specific warnings that aerosols have to have so they put the little canada website yeah yeah so but they put the they put the little accent on there to make you think it's like french right you know we we used to do that different go ahead we used to do that with truce of may it's like yeah i'm like looking at the pot calling the kettle black i was just about to mention that well i will say there must have been some trend like in the late 80s because this is probably when curel was sort of came around right or or Trissomay came around then or something.

24:30It's like, that must have been like a thing, right? Curel actually was invented in the 80s by F.C. Johnson, and then Bausch & Lomb bought it, and then I think it's actually owned by Cal Corporation today. All right, well, fascinating about Curel. Congratulations, they're still around. But let's see about this product, a deep moisture spray. I'm looking at the ingredients. We got water, we got glycerin, another humectant, dipropylene glycol. uh ester cedal pg hydroxy ethyl palmitamide um which is what is that a ceramide exactly yeah a ceramide like material right so you know can this replace a moisturizer i i think how a moisturizer feels especially on your face and skin is such a personal uh preference that i i mean the ingredients work right I wouldn't say this is like a robust moisturizer because it's pretty much just humectant sprayed on your face.

25:35There's not really an occlusive kind of thing going on here, but it's probably going to feel nice immediately. I agree. I think it's a really great way to add water content to the skin. But you mentioned occlusive, and that's a really second important aspect of a moisturizer, because when you increase the water content of skin, you want to keep the water in the skin. You don't want it leaving to the atmosphere. And if you live in a cold climate, it might also have low water content in the air, especially in winter, just the water content of the air decreases. Our natural barrier function in the skin decreases in winter.

26:15And especially if you're in a colder climate, and so you're going to lose water content more easily. So I definitely would supplement this spray with something that's going to be occlusive to help in a longer period of time. All right. And she had another question. L 'Oreal Everpure sulfate-free bonding conditioner. I absolutely love this conditioner, but I can't stand the smell. It's too strong. It lasts a long time. Do you have any recommendations for a bond repair conditioner that is fragrance-free or any fragrance-free bond repair products? Thank you. And I love the show. I've been listening for years.

26:56Allison. First of all, can I just go two things on this L 'Oreal Everpure thing? Go ahead. First of all, sulfate-free conditioner. Come on. Who are you grapping? Nobody uses sulfates in conditioners. So why do you do this? why do this l 'oreal please uh trust me also does it they talk about a silicone free shampoo and a sulfate free conditioner at least 15 years ago or something like that sure i recall you know what now not when i was on the brand we didn't do we didn't do stuff like that but i guess this is a thing that companies i mean i you know i get it like salon brands or smaller brands you know you want to stand out a little bit or something you're gonna sort of lock into this sulfate free hysteria or something like this but l 'oreal is the biggest company in the business and they're propagating something which i would i mean it's not direct misinformation because it is sulfate free but it is kind of fear-mongering a bit don't you think i agree it creates this unnecessary fear because i bet you the shampoo has sulfates in it well at least some l 'oreal ones do maybe not this ever pure one but at least some of them do all right and then the other just the other wrinkle here is this citric acid bond building come on who who decided this is that citric acid has been in we used to use it in vo5 and we never said oh this is bond building it's citric acid isn't doing any extra bond building or something is it well listen this is a trickle down from their Redken bond building products.

28:41And it's not actually really their work. It's work published by TRI Princeton that large quantities of citric acid can change the mechanical properties of the hair and influence the way water goes into it, which mimics, essentially does the same function that maybe some other bond building products do on the market. And so when Redken and L 'Oreal were barred from using malayic acid technology based on the Olaplex lawsuit. I think they kind of latched on to this technology that other people came up with and started marketing that. And because Redken is a L 'Oreal brand, L 'Oreal is trickling this down into their mass market products.

29:23That's my take on it. And also I would like to say, Allison, I also am not a fan of l 'oreal or redkin scents i think they smell like what we call fragrance trap at my old job where you dump all these uh old fragrances that you're not going to use anymore into a barrel and then you sell it to like an automotive company to put in their car wash products or whatever it just smells like a bunch of trash fragrance mixed together and it is they're always too strong i think they use too much fragrance i'm sure the perfumers uh at l 'oreal love you guys now but Well, just my instinct. I actually only enjoyed using the Redken bonding products when I had COVID for the, I think, second or third time.

30:08I can't remember. And that's the time I lost my sense of smell and I couldn't smell it at all. And so I had no idea what it smelled like until afterwards. I was like, holy beep, this is gross. It smells like laundry detergent. but as far as an alternative i mean you know presumably l 'oreal does fragrance testing too so with i'm sure there's a large part of the audience that loves the way these l 'oreal products smell so but you know fragrance is not for everybody so do you do you have it's it's so it's hard to give us a suggestion to me that of you know because it depends like what would you like as far as there being fragrance free i don't think there are a lot of fragrance free hair care products i just not period because only a small portion of the market wants fragrance free believe it or not and the reality is shampoo and conditioners when you don't have fragrance in them they don't necessarily smell amazing they smell like uh crayola crayons if you ask me yeah so i got a sort of waxy kind of like it's it's not offensive but it's not pleasant not as pleasant as using some kind of fragrance and so just unfortunately there's not a ton of fragrance free products on the market i've worked on a couple brands of public information i'm a scientific advisor to the brand ochre o-c-h-r-e they have a fragrance free um line but it's not specific to bond repair so honestly as far as the bond repair goes the the results you'll get with this ever pure i don't think will be much different than any just good conditioner you know because i don't think the bond repair maybe they can show it with tensile strength in their laboratory or something like that but like regular people using products i don't think you get any noticeable benefit from bond repair certainly from citric acid i mean that's been in products forever it would have been interesting if they compared it against their regular conditioners that that would be interesting because i i don't think they'll be able to show a difference So, but what would somebody use as something else?

32:31I mean, look, when I was formulating and testing, Pantene always scored the best. They're conditioners. So, and people loved how that smells. Now, some people might hate how that smells too. But that would, you know, go find a fragrance of something that you might like. And that should work as well. But as far as Valerie mentioned, one of the few fragrance-free options out there, but there aren't a lot. I also think I like to look at it like how you treat your skin. Preventative measures for skin is the best thing you could do for anti-aging. It'll pay off in the long run. You might not notice it today, but think about it.

33:16We put on SPF or sunscreen to protect our skin from premature aging and cancer and all the other things as a measure to look younger. I think the same thing should be done for hair because hair actually it's worse than skin it's not biologically living material in fact it should be more treated like a textile and once you have a shirt that's been out in the sun it starts to fray you can't really repair that and so I actually just recommend doing things that don't excessively destroy bonds in the hair to begin with and then you won't necessarily feel the need to use these bond repair products that might do just the same as a conventional shampoo or conditioner yeah now i was looking at this there's this uh product over at ulta called scene s-e-e-n conditioner what do we got in the ingredients here that is also a fragrance-free collection i'm not a fan of the scene products Yeah, well, I'm looking at here, they have steromilpropyl dimethylamine and behin trimonium chloride.

34:26Which are great conditioning agents, but that's just one piece of the puzzle for formulating great conditioning products. Right. But if you're looking for something to try, that might be. So S-E-E-N, it is fragrance free. And it's using like reasonable ingredients, but, you know, honestly, I don't see a silicone in there. So I'm skeptical of conditioners that don't have silicones in them. Or some kind of lubricating agents. Yeah, yeah. All right, Allison, thanks for those questions. Let's move on to our next audio question. And that comes to us from Nikki. Hi, Perry and Valerie. This is Nikki from North Carolina.

35:09I'm a longtime listener and subscriber. Thank you for the educational and entertaining pod. I've noticed in recent months that you guys have talked a little about scalp serums, your thoughts, your skepticism. As a 41-year-old woman who's noticed that my hair never fully came back 100 % after my last pregnancy, I gave birth about nine years ago to my second child. So I've had a lot of time to recover. Recently, I've started using oral minoxidil about four months ago from my derm. and I have seen results, but I'd also like to use a topical scalp serum to support a healthier scalp and ensure that that hair growth environment is strong.

35:54I wanna put everything against this, but in a thoughtful way. So I'm putting this question to you. When it comes to topical scalp products to help create a healthy environment for hair growth and hopefully encourage better or faster growth, which of these four serums looks like the best option to you based on ingredients and any other means you have to evaluate them. Even if you're skeptical in general about scalp serums, if you were forced to go with using one of these, which would you choose? Or if you have a better option in mind, please share. The four are the Karativ Redensify Treatment Serum, which, side note, seems to have the most data and best clinicals, but I'd love to hear what you guys think.

36:38The Maylove Full Follicle Advanced Scalp Serum. the Vegamore Grow Plus Advanced Hair Serum, the Nutrafol Scalp Serum, and the Array Good Night Gray Overnight Hair Serum. Note that I did not include topical minoxidil foam here because I'm taking the oral version due to a number of things and you wouldn't want to use both of those together. I also put more details and links in an email to make it easy for you guys to evaluate. Thank you so much. I'm very excited to hear what your thoughts are. All right. Are we skeptical of scalp serums in general? Well, we know I am. Valor, how do you feel about scalp serums that are meant to help your hair regrow or, you know?

37:25I have a little presentation that I've done on scalp care and I think scalp care is really tough. First of all, there's just a really low rate of adoption of use with scalp care products because they are typically very wet and you need to use them once a day or twice a day to allegedly see any effect. And if you're not planning to shower or getting your hair wet once or twice a day, it's really hard to put this product on your scalp because it is going to get your hair wet. A lot of them leave a weird humectant layer on the hair and scalp which makes it look soiled. People often get busy and they forget to use it and after a little bit they kind of drop it because they either don't see a substantial difference or the reason their hair is thinning is not related to how the scalp serum is going to be efficacious.

38:18And so I'm always a little skeptical and also because I don't believe formulators understand the scalp skin. It's skin but it's very different from skin on the rest of the body and it has different needs. And so I think a lot of these scalp serums contain things that aren't going to add any value to the consumer and actually create a more negative environment for the scalp. So I'm not a believer for that reason. But I think there are a couple scalp serums on the market that actually are backed by science and do a pretty nice job. yeah well first i will mention she says she's taken oral minoxidil um and you know minoxidil you can also get um as a topical so there's some evidence of that but using oral minoxidil that's that's an off-label treatment for hair loss uh but dermatologists have been prescribing that so but that wasn't what it was originally tested for the one thing i think scalp serums can add value to is that when you have hair regrowing in, maybe it's a little bit finer because your follicle's starting to miniaturize or, you know, just with shorter hairs, they can be more prone to breakage, especially in the front.

39:33I think that they can help condition the hair if they have the right stuff in it and help reduce breakage. Yeah. Well, I think what you're going to find in these scalp serums, you're going to go with, but there's going to be peptides. There's going to be caffeine, uh the the there's that neutrophil one they use a ashwagga exosomes i mean that sounds impressive is i don't know is there i suppose there's probably they have some evidence of stimulated hair growth but well i'll tell you why i i would trust neutrophil first of all we know the researcher behind a lot of the work. Yeah, yeah, that is true.

40:17Actually, you know, I ran into him when I was in Rome, just randomly. Very interesting. My wife and I were just sitting in a piazza, sipping away a beverage before a food tour, and I see this guy walk by. I mean, what are the odds of that? Some random person. How funny. It's like being in an airport and you run into someone and they're like, Valerie? And I'm like, what? What are you doing here? Anyway, yeah. So we know the guy, he is a pretty thorough scientist. And Nutrafol is a Unilever owned company. They have done a lot of work. And Unilever is very strict. They're not going to say things I don't think that they can't support.

40:58And so Nutrafol actually started as an ingestible supplement. And I would be interested to see if their studies from the serum are also supplemented with the oral supplement. But I definitely would be more inclined to believe them over some other brands which might be recommended on YouTube that aren't really focused and dedicated to hair and scalp research. now i will i mean for me though i will say there isn't a lot of evidence that adding nutrients or peptides or botanical stuff to your scalp is really going to have any measurable impact on hair growth but like you said if it's when it's backed by a bigger company i have a little bit more faith that at least the claims that they're making they found a way to support those claims Exactly.

41:57Now, the most important thing is, one, make sure that the scalp serum you're buying isn't a price point you can afford. Don't feel inclined to buy the more expensive ones just because you think, oh, it's more expensive, it's going to work better. Buy what you can afford, and even more importantly, buy what you're going to use with any kind of routine. And maybe you even keep the scalp serum in your shower right next to your shampoo and conditioner so that when you're done and you're ready to get out of the shower and you kind of remove a lot of the water from your hair you just zip that scalp serum right on and then step out but figure out what works for you the most important things are making sure you're going to use it and making sure that it's not going to break your bank because you might not see the results you're expecting well that you know hair loss is such a huge issue for a lot of people both men and women and we don't have a lot of great technology to address it the I think the marketing of these products is way ahead of what we can actually do but you know when people have a problem that they want solved telling them oh no we don't have anything is is not a good strategy because people want to try stuff and you know this may or may not work but it would be at least worth trying Well, we got time for one more question and it comes to us from Monica.

43:24Hi, Beauty Brains. Monica here from Oklahoma City, though I am currently on a layover in Chicago and thought of Perry. Oh, that's nice. I have been wondering about the differences in the hair and skin of our lovable gingers out there. My boyfriend is a ginger and he's mentioned how shampooing his hair can cause a lot of dryness and brittleness. so he conditions every day while only shampooing every three-ish days he also mentions that almost any moisturizer or serum causes breakouts this is very different than how my hair and skin behave and quite different than most of my friends too so i was wondering is perhaps ginger hair and skin in unique in some way and if so are there certain products that you recommend or steer clear of Thank you for all you do, both of you.

44:13P.S. Valerie, please give the pups a treat for me. Oh, I'll be sure to give Butch and Frank some treats. They do get a lot of treats and I'll give them extra treats. But I'll tell you one more thing, Perry. Oklahoma City, I think, is an underrated city. I've been a couple times and I actually really like it there. They have, you know, a lot of kind of cool places to go or eat. And it's really pretty and people are friendly. And I actually, the parts I've been to are pretty clean. It's not like, ew, it's, you know, it's all this grime in the city. So if anyone's looking for a weekend away, I recommend OKC.

44:54Well, I've been to Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma is the capital. So it's, you know, there's only three states in the United States where the name of the capital has the name of the state in it. And Oklahoma City is one of those. I'll let you guys figure out there are others. uh but uh yeah it's a wonderful city i thought was particularly powerful was the monument they have to the oklahoma city bombing uh victims oh that's beautiful yeah yeah it's very very moving so yeah it's a i would agree it's kind of an underrated city okay but i'll talk about underrated oh you know what else is interesting about oklahoma city all of the dirt is like red Yeah, I love that about Oklahoma.

45:35Which goes right along with this question about gingers or red-haired people. So, Valerie, have you heard that there are differences with red-haired people as far as skin and hair goes? Well, there are a couple genetic differences. And I would like to speak or let people know I'm a little bit of a position of authority on this. Because my family are redheads. My mom, my sister, aunts. It's just in the genes. Now, I got brown hair, unfortunately. I actually do have a lot of red in my hair, so I have certain chunks that are red, like I'm a little bit of a calico cat. But I'm not redheaded myself.

46:18But I wonder if I have some of the things that redheads have. It could be. Well, the red hair, genetically, there is a variation on what is called the MC1R gene. And what happens is your hair color is determined by two pigments in your hair. One is called pheomelanin and one is called eumelanin. Pheomelanin is kind of the red pigment and eumelanin is the darker pigment. pigment. And so if you have less of the dark pigment and more of the red pigment, the pheomelanin, then your hair is going to be lighter and redder. And that's kind of what's going on with people with red hair. And it also impacts their skin as well.

47:06And what's interesting is a few years ago, there was a paper that said, hey, you know what, we think this MC1R gene, which is melanocorticoreceptor, I think that's what it stands for, is linked to a predisposition of skin cancer. And so there's a higher rate of certain skin cancers in redheaded individuals who have this mutation for a multitude of reasons that they're still exploring. And so I would say from a skin perspective, definitely being sure to take care of preventative sun measures would go a long way. Now, I don't think that's going to help with the breakouts. That could be related to something else, but I don't think there's a lot of information or research on hair or skin related to redheads.

47:57Now, I can extrapolate one thing with hair. Hair that lacks eumelanin is prone to more UV damage because eumelanin acts as a buffering agent with UV light and visible light as well. And so hair that doesn't have as much eumelanin like a redheaded person would be is probably going to get more UV damage. And so I could imagine that's what this dryness and brittleness is actually coming from is just intermittent exposure to UV and visible light. And it's causing mechanical changes in their hair. Now, while we do have evidence of what's going on and that there are differences. I don't think those differences are what is causing your boyfriend's drier hair or being more prone to get acne breakouts.

48:52I mean, there's no evidence that links redheads being more likely to break out from moisturizers than the rest of the population. And as far as the hair goes, if it is more UV damage, that could make it feel drier and such. But as far as what products we use, there's not really a technology that we would use differently if we're making a product for somebody with redhead or a redhead or a ginger than we would for the general population. Not that I know of anyway. Yeah, I haven't seen anything formulated specifically for that subset. You're very right. But in thinking about my mom's hair, my sister's hair, we actually all have the same texture as well.

49:38If one hair fell from our heads, it's so big in fiber diameter, I feel like you could see it from outer space. You did actually just use strands of your hair for shoelaces, right? I mean, if I had all the hairs on my head together, maybe I could lift an elephant. But point being, we have a very thick textured hair. And my mom and sister are always complaining about their hair being dry and brittle. So yeah, maybe there is a connection. I don't know. Also probably coincidence. But I do think there's something to the lack of eumelanin in there. Something could be there. But maybe we need research on that.

50:20Sure, sure. But I also think it would be hard to tease out differences just based on being a ginger versus the general population. Because you could isolate any population in our general population and probably find differences that sort of hold up in that niche population versus the general. But that could just be random differences. differences should i start a gofundme and raise the money needed to run all the diastrons and the uv testings that i need on red hair you'd have to go around and like collect red hair from people like yeah maybe we get people to donate right i could do that that's i'm not worried about that but you know just it's expensive to run all these tests and you know the redheaded population is a small subset in the world, but maybe if we got all of them together and everyone just gave$1, we could fund the research necessary to see if red hair is different than non-red hair.

51:27We're going to start a GoFundMe. And you know what else? The AIs are not able to run diastrons and instrons just yet. That'd be cool. You still need a person involved. Speaking of person involved, you hear that music. Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, head over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify, leave us a review. That will help other people find the show and ensure we have a full docket of beauty questions to answer. And speaking of questions, you heard a couple of voices on the show today. If you have a question and you want to hear your voice on it, just record it on your smartphone and email it to thebeautybrains at gmail.com or you can use the show in the form in the show notes or send us an email or leave us a phone message at 1-872-215.

52:13216-1856. Hey, the Beauty Brains are also on Patreon. If you like what we do and the fact that we don't have any commercials interrupting and trying to sell you stuff, well, that's just how the show works. But the show is not free to produce, and so if you want to support the show, head on over to patreon.com slash the Beauty Brains and subscribe at any level. You will get your questions a higher priority to be answered, and you get a transcript of the show. also follow us on our various social media accounts on instagram worth of beauty brains 2018 on x worth of beauty brains on blue sky worth of beauty brains we have a facebook page a tiktok and a youtube yeah and there's stuff up there too well thanks again for listening everyone and remember be brainy about your beauty thanks everyone

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