I promised an update on my exercise regime inspired by the Horizon programme The Truth About Exercise. My original plan had been to adopt the radical bit of the proposal, which is exercising at high intensity for just 1 minute three times a week. I was then going to use how quickly I completed my regular jog as a rough measure of my general level of fitness. That way, I hoped to be able to say whether or not it had any advantages. Read the rest of this entry »
Deb asks whether natural preservatives are safer than synthetic ones.
Hi Colin, stumbled across your site somehow and so now have a question – I personally prefer to use “natural” preservatives (well actually prefer to make natural products with essential oils etc) over synthetic preservatives – the thought being that the synthetic preservatives may be more likely to cause skin irritation due to their synthetic make up – so what is your view in the whole dilemma? Is my thought process correct or is it flawed? Would love to know your professional cosmetic scientist view and the chief instigators of skin sensitivity synthetic or natural.
Regards
Deb
I don’t think there is any particular reason other than prejudice to believe that one is safer than the other. There isn’t even a particularly hard and fast dermarcation between what is synthetic and what is natural. In my personal experience the preservatives that generate the most skin reactions are the organic acids like benzoic acid and sorbic acid. These are often described as natural, and they are in the sense that they can be found in nature. But the material used in cosmetics, including most natural cosmetics, is actually made from petrochemical sources. The parabens are about the safest when it comes to skin reactions, and almost nobody describes them as natural.
The enzyme approach to preservation is the one that can best be described as natural and also gives rise to very few skin reactions. But it is both expensive and requires quite a lot of skill in formulating and handling so wouldn’t be suitable for people making their own cosmetics.
Talking a bit more widely, natural products in theory ought to give rise to more skin reactions. There are more different chemical entities in natural products than synthetic ones, so there are more triggers for an allergic reaction. But I can’t say that I have ever noticed this in real life. Products that contain a high natural content don’t seem to generate more reports of skin reactions.
The only thing I think we can be confident about is that prejudice is the enemy of good judgment.
This may not come as a huge surprise, but when it comes to profiles on dating sites, people tend to lie a lot. Read the rest of this entry »
Lush really are the enfant terrible of the British cosmetic industry. Their latest attention seeking wheeze is to put on a display in one of their shop windows in London where an actress is supposedly put through the same kinds of things that animals in research labs have to endure. An attractive young actress as it happens. Oh and she is wearing a body suit that makes it look like she is wearing no clothes. Right. I suppose they wanted to use a balding, slightly overweight middle aged man but none was available. Read the rest of this entry »
Regular readers will know that I am scathing about scaremongers like the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and the Environmental Working Group who combine a despicable lack of sincerity with an astonishing lack of knowledge. The problem is basically that these people are businessmen selling fear while posing as consumer advocates. But there are genuine environmentalists out there who I respect greatly. They don’t really have much to do with cosmetic products because they tend to be very well informed and so are interested in real problems. But there is a category of blogger who makes me pull my hair out. These are the green tree hugger types who are obviously sincere and trying to do the right thing, but who seem to get all the facts wrong. Read the rest of this entry »
The area of skin around the eyes, specifically the area just under and beside the eyes themselves is one that a lot of people are troubled by. It seems to have more propensity to form wrinkles and is also the place where wrinkles are most obvious. It is a particularly thin area of the skin but is very well supplied with blood vessels. Any interuption to those blood vessels can cause them to clot very visibly creating what are known as spider veins. This area of the skin is also pretty continuously exposed to light as well, so if there is any photodamage going this is one of the places it is likely to appear. Read the rest of this entry »
Today’s problem comes from Jessica, author of the mischievously named blog Out in a Pout
As a makeup artist and skincare buff, I’ve been around the block a time or 20 when it comes to new products. I’m not easily taken in by marketing and here say; it’s my analytic nature that lead me to your blog. I’m a fan of cold, hard, peer-reviewed facts, and when it comes to my skin, I don’t care if it grows in the ground or in a Petri dish- I want products that I know work. While I consider myself an old-hand at decoding ingredient labels, when it comes to understanding certain mechanisms and chemical interactions, it’s great to be able to turn to experts like yourself. Read the rest of this entry »
I’d like to spend more time following the problem with the decline in bee numbers. It is a knotty one, with a lot of confusing and contradictory information. The problem has been encountered around the world, but a bit unevenly. Even within countries the effect has been mixed. For instance beekeepers in the London area have not reported too many problems while ones in more agricultural areas have seen the loss of quite a lot of hives. Read the rest of this entry »
Chemistry can be a wonderful thing sometimes. A lot of men don’t have natural good looks, lots of money or appealing personalities. Obviously we, er I mean they, could pay a bit of attention to their appearance, earn some cash and work on the charm a bit. But luckily a new development from Provital offers hope to avoid such drastic measures. Read the rest of this entry »
I was misintroduced as a food chemist at a social gathering once. The person to whom I was talking asked if I was the one who put the polysorbate 80 in the yoghurts. What I should have said was ‘no, that was Brian’. I didn’t think quickly enough. (Next time I tell that story I will have changed it to make me sound clever enough to come up with the comeback straight away.) Polysorbate 80 is widely enough used in food products for many people to recognise the name. It is much less widely used in cosmetics, but is nonetheless something you will see on ingredient lists from time to time. You’ll also see polysorbates with other numbers, like polysorbate 20 for example. Read the rest of this entry »
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