Q: Why does nail polish stain your nails yellow? A: As you might’ve guessed, it’s the coloured pigments in the nail polish! Generally, the pattern is that the staining is darker at the tip and fades towards the cuticle. It’s a bigger problem when the dyes are dissolved rather than suspended in the polish (e.g. with stearalkonium hectorite). If …
Alpha and beta hydroxy acids are chemical exfoliants which are in many of our cosmetic products… what’s the difference between them, and which one should you use for what? First off, “alpha hydroxy acid” and “beta hydroxy acid” are proper organic chemistry terms! “Hydroxy” means an OH group (also known as an alcohol group). “Acid” means a carboxylic acid: “Alpha” …
First off, the best and worst thing about working in a chemistry “wet lab”: We wash our glassware with acetone. On a productive day, I can go through a litre of the stuff! This means:* I always have acetone on hand for nail art – yay!* My polish is almost always messed up by the second day. Onto 8 interesting …
(Roger McLassus) We all know what a moisturiser does (it moisturises, duh!) – but what exactly goes in one, and how does it work? Skin dryness is, quite simply, when your skin loses too much water (the technical term is transepidermal water loss, or TEWL). Moisturisers are used to slow water evaporating, and restore the original soft texture and look …
Yesterday, big name cosmetic science blog The Beauty Brains answered my question on which hair products actually repair (rather than just protect) your damaged hair! Check it out here.
(André Karwath/Aka) There are a lot of things that are supposed to be good for your skin. Today I’m looking at one that is in a lot of anti-ageing products, and has rave reviews on Makeupalley – vitamin C. Vitamin C (aka L-ascorbic acid) is essential in your diet – it has a lot of roles in the functioning …
One thing that a lot of cosmetic companies have recently been incorporating into their marketing talk is the concept of pH and pH balance. Yay science! But what does it all mean? Here’s a quick rundown on the science of pH, acids and bases, and what that means for your skincare products. What is pH? pH is a measure of …
10 facts about hair you mightn’t have known:1. Hair and nails are both mainly made of a type of protein called keratin, which contains a lot of an amino acid called cysteine. All this cysteine is one of the main reasons why keratin is so strong. There is also a lot of keratin in skin.2. Cysteine is also why you …