There’s been a few viral posts about how harmful chemical sunscreens are. The latest one is a post about “Sunscreen Swaps” from @a.glimpse.of.amelia (an Australian “low-tox” consultant) and @jordiepieface (a nutritionist from New Zealand), claiming that “some conventional sunscreens can do more harm than good”. Unfortunately, most of the post is inaccurate, and it’s likely scaring people away from using …
There’s been a lot of stories about benzene contamination in personal care products over the last 4 years. This year, benzene was discovered in benzoyl peroxide, a staple acne treatment. How concerned should we be? Petition and original paper I’ve written about the background behind Valisure’s benzene analyses before, as well as questions about the accuracy of their data and …
There’s been increasing talk about how blue light from phones and computer screens could be a potential cause of skin damage. Is it worth worrying about, or is it just marketing? This topic is going to be a two-parter. In this installment we’re going to talk about visible light damage, and how you can protect your skin; in part 2, …
There’s been a lot of hype around Cyperus oil for hair removal, largely based on a study where it supposedly worked as well as laser. Unfortunately I don’t think it works, and if it did work, it would be a risky product to be using. For context, my PhD is in medicinal chemistry. Part of this involves looking at the …
If you’ve ever tried gel nails, you’ll know you have to bake your fingers under a UV lamp. And if you’re like me, you might’ve thought: I know UV from the sun is bad and causes skin cancer, tanning beds are extra bad, they cause extra skin cancer… is this thing that looks like a tanning bed (for ants) actually …
Here’s Part 2 of our deep dive into benzene contamination in your products. In Part 1, we talked about whether the experiments were “realistic” (no), and whether the cancer risk was described accurately (also no). This time, we’ll be discussing the wider issues around the private lab behind these findings, Valisure. This is adapted from the video version (which works …
Here’s Part 3 of my updated sunscreen recommendations – these are the new Korean sunscreens I’m adding to my list. Part 1: Japanese sunscreens Part 2: European sunscreens Part 3 (this one): Korean sunscreens Part 4: Australian sunscreens The video is here – keep scrolling for the text version. See Part 1 for the full background information – here’s a …
Part 2 of my 2024 top sunscreen recommendations update! This part covers the new European sunscreens on my list. Part 1: Japanese sunscreens Part 2 (this one): European sunscreens Part 3: Korean sunscreens Part 4: Australian sunscreens The video is here – keep scrolling for the text version. See Part 1 for the full background information – here’s a very …