Colin's Beauty Pages

The cosmetics and personal care industry is a huge behemoth which takes in and spends billions and billions every year. A lot of its activity is focused on sales and marketing with the ultimate objective of getting money out of your pocket and into theirs. Sometimes this involves providing you with a good product that meets a genuine need or gives you a real benefit – but profit is the motive.

But sometimes a product becomes successful for no other reason than that people like it, tell their friends about it and create a word of mouth reputation. One example of this is the product Bio-Oil made by a relatively small Swiss company. The company makes a range of claims for their product, but the one that seems to have struck a chord is that it works for stretch marks.

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I was enjoying myself on Twitter the other day when I came across a company saying that propylene glycol was a bad thing because it modified the skin allowing toxins to penetrate it.  This sounded a bit scary so I decided to look into it. My first step was to ask them what research their claim was based on.  They didn’t answer — so I have investigated it myself
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I went to the very wonderful Science Online London 2009 meeting yesterday at the Royal Institution. I couldn’t have enjoyed myself more.

second life interaction

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I used to assess new idea proposals for a big pharmaceutical company.  Smaller companies with novel ideas, products and technologies would pitch them to me and some clever but non-technical colleagues.  A lot of the ideas were very involved and needed a lot of explanation.  One of the things I learned from that was that any scientific idea or concept can be explained in plain English by someone who themselves understands it.  Jargon is useful shorthand among people in the know, but you should be able to say what you mean without resorting to it if you need it.

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One of the perks of being an a-list celebrity beauty blogger is that you get invited to the launches of exciting new products.  For instance this week I was in Soho for the launch of  a pair of new perfumes from Arrogant Cat. (Not that I am likely to get invited to anything by the people behind Huge Lips Skinny Hips mind you)
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I will be at the Science Online conference again this year.  Last year’s was great fun.  I not only got a t-shirt I was also introduced to Twitter and got to meet some interesting people.

You can see me in this picture if you look carefully (and know what I look like).

The only question I have is whether I wear last year’s t-shirt or go for a more stylish fedora and cravat?

http://www.scienceonlinelondon.org/index.php

This blog is about science and beauty, but it is surprising where the research I do for it leads me.  I have just read the abstract of a paper published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research.  (No, I had never heard of it either).  It is called the Anthropometry of Love:Height and Gender Asymmetries in Interethnic Marriages.

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I am a slightly gawky individual. I am bit more interested in my computer than my personal appearance and I am not good at relating to other human beings. I am also well aware that the profile of my face does not conform to the ideals of Classical Greek beauty.

Despite all this, I have been reasonably successful in passing my genes on to the next generation. I have the good luck to be relatively tall, and I think that this positive has overcome all my other negatives. I am in the upper quartile for height, very nearly in the upper decile. I am taller than about 80% of other men in other words. In more ordinary language, I am tall but not outstandingly so.
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I have been looking for a while for decient photographs of the top section of the skin.   It is something I often want to use to illustrate a point.  I am pretty sure I looked at Wikipedia ages ago, but I have just come across this stunning photo.  And best of all, it is in the public domain so I can use it freely with a clear conscience, as indeed can you if you so desire. (The original Wikipedia article has it at a higher resolution, so get if from there if you have any serious use for it. Original Reference)  Thanks to Kilbad for sharing it and congratulations on a superb bit of histology.

Epidermis and Dermis

You can see very clearly the top layer of the skin, the stratum corneum, the epidermis populated with corneocytes sitting on top of the dermis.

Labelled version