In the beauty world, hydrogen peroxide is the bleaching agent par excellence. It whitens hair, nails and teeth as well as having a host of household uses. I’ll expand more on the chemistry behind how it works in a later post, but it’s the practical use of hydrogen peroxide in teeth whitening that will be the focus of this post. …
One of the most common things I’m asked is, “Does it matter what order I apply my moisturisers in?” Another is, “Why do you say mineral oil is a good moisturiser when it doesn’t contain anything that’s good for your skin?” The answer to both these questions lies in the concept of layering. The best type of layering. (Picture credit: Elin …
As a scientist whose PhD involved natural product synthesis and pharmacology (that’s where you get chemicals out of nature (plants, bacteria, marine sponges etc.) in the hopes that they’ll become, or lead to the development, of a useful drug one day), I find alternative medicine very interesting. While a LOT of it is hokum, designed to trap innocent people into …
After Part 1, where I stained my nails (For Science!) to work out how best to prevent staining, the obvious next step was to figure out stain removal! I worked out in Part 1 that the teal colour is CI 77288, which is chromium(III) oxide. Here are my nails again – argh! I had to live with this for two …
I’ve always heard that teal polishes stain nails really bad, but I never really appreciated it until I wore the gorgeous Orly Teal Unreal and ended up with weird patchy stains on my nails, which you may have seen me post on Instagram: Naturally this weird observation made me want to investigate further! First up, here’s the breakdown of what …
Hair is very important – it’s an easy body part to change, and can dramatically alter your appearance, but if you wake up with bad hair, your day is automatically terrible. Luckily, it’s also very interesting, scientifically speaking, since we throw a lot of chemicals at it every day. Today’s post will be on electrostatic forces though – tiny changes …
Two tutorials in a row? What on earth is happening?? Thanks to a reader email, I’ve been looking at matte top coats and DIY-ing them recently. Before we get to the DIY part, here’s how matte top coats work – it’s pretty simple! Much like linear vs scattered holo finishes, it’s all about how smooth the surface is – in …
I hope you enjoyed my guest week! I’m back today with some hardcore beauty science, looking at the fascinatingly confusing world of perfumery. Do you love the smell of roses? It may reveal more about you than you think! People have been using perfumes for over 5000 years. But what makes one person like a scent and another hate it, …