How to Protect Your Skin Against Blue Light: an Update

Blue light protection products

I’ve talked about visible light and blue light, and their effects on pigmentation in lots of detail before. There’s been more studies done since then – fortunately my conclusions are still correct! In short, the vast majority of us don’t have to worry about visible light or blue light coming from our screens. There just isn’t enough light coming from …

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Best and Worst of The Ordinary Part 1

Best and Worst of The Ordinary

I’m finally doing a big overview of some of The Ordinary’s products. They have a LOT of products, and I wanted to try as many as I could, and I only have one face so it’s taken a while! I could only get through a few categories though, so I’ll probably go through the rest at some later date. I’m going …

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Do We Need to Worry About Heat From Sunscreens?

Video - IR camera

One of the big misconceptions about sunscreens is how they work, in particular chemical and physical sunscreens. All sunscreens work mostly by absorbing UV and converting it to heat. I’ve talked about this a whole bunch of times before, and I recently did a deep dive about the mechanisms behind how chemical and physical sunscreens work. Related post: How Do Sunscreens …

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How Do Sunscreens Work? The Science

Sunscreen mechanism thumbnail

I’ve had a lot of people ask me to explain the nitty gritty behind how sunscreen ingredients work. I warned everyone it would be super nerdy and really quite complicated, but a lot of people said it was fine… so here it is: the deep dive into how sunscreen ingredients work! A warning: this goes into physical chemistry, at upper …

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Do They Work? Colorescience SPF Powder, Skinnies “Pea-Sized Amount”

Colorescience and Skinnies: Do They Work?

I’ve had a lot of questions about certain sunscreen products with unusual claims, and what I think of them. I’ll be talking about what I personally think of the claims for 2 products in this post, but there are a lot more products that I’ll talk about later – let me know if there are more products you’re wondering about …

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Low Maintenance Pastel Hair Routine (video)

Low-maintenance pastel hair routine

I recently dyed my hair pastel again, and I’ve been asked about my haircare routine – I’ve actually managed to make it even lower maintenance than last time, with all the colouring happening in the shower! Here it is on YouTube. Products mentioned: IGK Mixed Feelings Leave-In Blonde Toning Drops Garnier Fructis Sleek & Shine Leave-In Conditioning Cream Toni & …

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Purito Sunscreen and All About SPF Testing

SPF testing Purito

Recently you might have heard that one of my former favorite sunscreens Purito Centella Unscented Sun tested at SPF 19, which is much lower than its labeled protection of SPF 50+. There were rumours that it didn’t match the label claim before, but until INCI Decoder published the two in-vivo SPF tests on their blog, a lot of scientists were …

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The Myths of “Medical-Grade” Skincare

Medical Grade Skincare

There’s a lot of misinformation about how “medical grade”, “clinical” or “professional” skincare products are guaranteed to be better than drugstore or “over-the-counter” (OTC) products you can buy at the supermarket. Like a lot of other myths, this myth has mostly been promoted by some well-intentioned people who have unfortunately been fed the wrong information by brands who know better (or …

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