There’s a sort of industry secret with mineral sunscreens: a lot of them contain unregulated chemical sunscreens. Which isn’t always a big problem… but it also kind of is. Today we’re talking about inactive ingredients in sunscreens that aren’t really inactive. The video is here, keep scrolling for the text version…. SPF boosters It’s not that easy to make a sunscreen. It …
This was a talk I gave on 15 September 2021 for Ventech’s panel on Scientific Literacy and the Price of Misinformation. I talked about my insights on debunking myths over the last 10 years of Lab Muffin (yeah I’m old), how there’s financial incentive for many brands to bust beauty myths and communicate science, and the larger public health implications …
The myth that “60% of what’s applied to your skin is absorbed into your bloodstream” is one of my pet peeves. It’s so far from the truth, and it’s cited with such an air of authority that it really ticks me off. It also tends to be cited by the sorts of people who push “non-toxic” products, which is very …
If you use beauty products, it’s impossible to not have heard of clean beauty. It’s a revolution. You want your products to be clean – you don’t want to use dirty products! You want your products to be good for your health and good for the environment. There are beautiful celebrities telling you about how they detoxed and cleaned out …
I haven’t had a good Cranky Old Lady rant in a while, so here’s one today, ranting about products I hate. Honestly, it isn’t even the product most of the time – it’s just the marketing around it that I hate. Video is here on YouTube, keep scrolling for the written version. Coffee Scrubs I’ve ranted about coffee scrubs before …
There are a lot of The Ordinary products I really like (the Squalane Cleanser, Natural Moisturising Factors and Glycolic Acid 7% Toning Solution are some of my favourites), and I really appreciate the fact that they (and Deciem in general) really emphasise understanding the ingredients in skincare. But their powders are something I’ve never really been on board with. There …
I’ve been mulling over this topic ever since Buzzfeed’s “Are You Unwittingly Buying Whitening Products?” and Vox’s “Why the Market for Skin Whitening Is Growing” videos came out in late 2017/early 2018, but didn’t really feel like I had a good enough grasp on the topic to write about it until recently. Hopefully this won’t be interpreted as hopping on …
Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic there’s a hand sanitizer shortage… and a ton of DIY hand sanitizer recipes. Will they actually work? (Spoiler: Most of them won’t.) I’ve made a video breaking down some of the good bad DIY hand sanitizer recipes out there. Check out the video on YouTube here. Key points: COVID-19 is caused by SARS-CoV-2 (novel coronavirus …