It’s been a few weeks but I realised I forgot to announce this on my blog: I’m now a qualified cosmetic chemist! A lot of people assumed I was a cosmetic chemist and called me that in comments and interviews (understandable, since I’m a chemist and talk a lot about cosmetic chemistry), so instead of continuing my standard practice of feeling …
Social media has been a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, experts (scientists, doctors etc.) can become far more prominent – on the other hand, misinformation endorsed by an expert carries more weight and causes more harm than if there’s no authority behind it. Unfortunately, social media algorithms also reward churning out content quickly, regardless of accuracy. Hot …
I really hate washing my face over the sink – how it gets everything wet (sink, benchtop, sleeves, hair, front of my shirt), and how it takes a ton of effort to dump enough water on my face that I feel like I’ve thoroughly cleansed and rinsed away my cleanser. I generally end up washing my face in the shower, …
This video is sponsored by Stylevana. If you’re into skincare, you’ll know that there’s lots of hype around Asian skincare, particularly Korean and Japanese products. And it’s not hard to see why! Korean and Japanese skincare have lots of product types that you don’t really see with Western brands, and they tend to be really affordable. But there are so …
I recently asked on my Instagram stories about cleansing myths, and I got back tons of replies! So here’s some cleanser mythbusting – unfortunately I couldn’t fit them all in this one post, but there’ll be a follow-up soon. A word of warning before we begin: the answer to a lot of these is going to be “it depends”. I …
As a sunscreen connoisseur who tries out a lot of sunscreens, it always feel premature to make a list of my favourites. I try a lot of sunscreens but I feel like I can never get through as many as I’d like, because unfortunately I have just the one face. I did a list of my favourites at the end …
Warning: Very nerdy content ahead! If you’ve been following sunscreen discourse (apparently this is a thing now) you’ll know that mineral sunscreens mostly work by absorbing UV and only scattering a small amount, in the region of 4-5% across the range of UV. This was quantified in a pretty commonly cited 2016 paper by Curtis Cole, Thomas Shyr and Hao Ou-Yang, “Metal …
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 …