Does Olaplex repair disulfide bonds? Analysing the Cosmetics study

olaplex study ellman test method

I’ve talked about how Olaplex and other bond builders probably don’t work by repairing broken disulfide bonds before – they do work to make hair feel and behave like it has more bonds, but they likely do this via other mechanisms, such as adding more hydrogen and ionic bonds. But there’s an independent study titled “Bleached Hair as Standard Template …

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Amodimethicone: The Science of My Favourite Hair Ingredient

Amodimethicone: My New Favourite Hair Ingredient

Since I bleached my hair and dyed it purple (and am now slowly shifting to pink), my hair care needs have changed massively. Related Post: My Asian Hair Bleaching Experience (Video) Related Post: What to Expect After You Bleach Your Asian Hair Typical straight, black, East Asian hair naturally has the outside cuticle lying very flat. This means it’s less prone to …

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Sulfate-Free Shampoo? The Science

Sulfate free shampoo science thumbnail

Lots of people say you have to use sulfate-free shampoo to avoid damaging or stripping your hair. There also people who say you have to use shampoo with sulfates to get your hair clean. They are both wrong. I’ve been paying more attention to hair science info on the internet lately. There are a lot of completely wrong explanations, and strong …

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Skincare Oils and Free Fatty Acids: The Science

Video: Skincare Oils and Free Fatty Acids: The Science

If you’re a skincare nerd, you may know that different skincare oils have different fatty acid profiles – that is, they differ in terms of which fatty acids they contain e.g. linoleic, linolenic, oleic and lauric acid. The fatty acids have interesting properties. For example, lauric acid is strongly antibacterial, and works better than benzoyl peroxide against Cutibacterium acnes bacteria. …

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How much UV does a REAL mineral sunscreen absorb and scatter?

sunscreen center mount

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 …

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Clean Beauty Is Wrong and Won’t Give Us Safer Products

Think Dirty App

If you use beauty products, it’s impossible to not have heard of clean beauty. It’s a revolution. You want your products to be clean – you don’t want to use dirty products! You want your products to be good for your health and good for the environment. There are beautiful celebrities telling you about how they detoxed and cleaned out …

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Sunscreens in your blood??! That FDA study

sunscreen-jama-study

You’ve probably seen the recent influx of articles about the new FDA sunscreen study, usually titled something like “sunscreens can make it to your bloodstream!” The study itself is fine and good and necessary as a first step in the FDA’s new zeal for sunscreen regulation. But the more I read the coverage around it, the more annoyed I get, …

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