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 …
Is rosemary oil a natural, science-backed treatment for hair growth? According to a lot of doctors, scientists and trichologists across the internet, yes – there’s “scientific proof” that it works as well as minoxidil. But unfortunately, that isn’t true. It all seems to be a misunderstanding of a single study: Rosemary oil vs minoxidil 2% for the treatment of androgenetic …
I recently talked about how I don’t think tranexamic acid works in most skincare products I’ve come across, in both a YouTube video and an Instagram post. Perry Romanowski and Valerie George of The Beauty Brains podcast commented on my opinions in Episode 369, “Can Tranexamic Acid Really Reduce Hyperpigmentation?”, published 14 July 2024. Unfortunately I don’t think they looked …
It’s now Round 5 of “benzene in your products is giving you cancer” – over the last three years, this “known human carcinogen” been found in hand sanitiser, sunscreen, deodorant, dry shampoo, and now benzoyl peroxide acne products. I previously talked about benzene in sunscreen and dry shampoo, but it’s time for a deeper dive into these findings, and the …
One of the biggest sources of myths in beauty is misunderstanding how scientific research works, and how to interpret scientific evidence. A huge problem I’ve seen is people relying on abstracts – the short summary of the paper – instead of reading the full text. Here’s why this isn’t a good idea. This article is based on part of this …
There’s a troubling pattern with a lot of “science-based” cosmetic products. Many of them make claims solely based on mechanistic reasoning, rather than any actual measured effects on humans. This is a big problem because mechanistic reasoning often doesn’t predict what happens on actual humans – and it’s especially the case with the ways these claims are often used for …
There are a lot of myths in beauty, and over the years, I’ve noticed that a lot of them come from misunderstanding how science and scientific evidence works. Here’s one big misconception: the idea that if a source is “peer reviewed”, it’s automatically higher quality than a source that isn’t. Unfortunately, it isn’t any sort of guarantee, especially for a …
Batiste is one of the most popular dry shampoos, but there are lots of posts on social media warning people not to use it. Is it actually bad for your hair? Here’s the lowdown. What are the claims? Here’s an example of one of these videos, which I debunked recently as part of a YouTube video on haircare myths: Video: …