HBO has a new 4 part documentary Not So Pretty which talks about supposedly dangerous beauty products. This kind of documentary comes out every 6 months or so, and everyone panics and throws out their products. Like pretty much everyone I think, I’m concerned about my health, but not so into people trying to exploit this concern for attention, or …
I’ve talked a ton about sunscreen over the years, but I’ve found that on every sunscreen post I get asked questions that I’ve answered before, and I think it’s because I’ve gotten a lot of new followers (hi, welcome and thank you!). So I thought I’d do a post where I try to cover every sunscreen question that’s relevant to …
Here’s a special event for all the sunscreen nerds! I’ve teamed up with Jen of The Eco Well to organise the Sunscreen E-Summit, which is happening 15 May! This is a FREE event featuring some incredible speakers that you’d normally have to pay expensive conference fees to learn from, including academic researchers, ingredient supplier representatives, sunscreen formulators and regulatory experts. …
If you’ve ever looked up sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) and sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) in a clean beauty app, like me, you might be surprised to find that SLES is dirtier than SLS. These apps are terrible and based on pseudoscience: SLS and SLES are both safe in your products. But if you’re a skincare nerd, you’ll know that SLS …
My name is Michelle, and I’m a Paula’s Choice tragic. I first got into skincare around 2009. Back then we didn’t have all the brands we have now – and more importantly, we didn’t have all the skincare information we have now. Paula Begoun was one of the few lone voices in the internet landscape talking about the science behind …
Vitamin C is an amazing skincare active, but ascorbic acid can be annoying in products. That’s why vitamin C derivatives were developed – these are slightly altered versions of ascorbic acid that can get around these issues (irritation, instability, stained fingers, fake tan smell). Two of the INCI names for derivatives that you might’ve seen on ingredient lists are ascorbyl …
Update (14/9/2022): Dr Julian Sass (@scamander14 on Instagram), a biostatistician and full-time employee of Matter of Fact (Director of R&D and Education) has publicly accused me of bullying him in a video on his Instagram and Twitter. My response is here: Response to accusations of bullying from Julian (@scamander14) Relevant to this post and Matter of Fact: Interestingly he didn’t …
A lot of my favourite sunscreens aren’t the most budget-friendly. Unfortunately sunscreen testing and development is pretty expensive, and if you want to formulate an SPF product that’s really pleasant to use as well as being effective, it can be a long expensive process of trial and error. Enter: economy of scale. We have two major supermarkets in Australia: Coles …