I was listening to the perky pair of Randy and Perry over on the Beauty Brains the other day. They were answering a question about whether or not lanolin was a good moisturiser. They replied that it was indeed but that mineral oil was better. I knew straight away why they had said that and what they were was true enough in as far as it went, but nonetheless I think they were wrong to suggest that mineral oil is actually better. But it is going to be involved to explain why, so maybe get a sandwich. Continue reading
I think I can claim to be something of an expert about skincare, but the trouble with getting really immersed in a subject is that you begin to forget that not everybody knows what you know. I spend a lot of time talking to people in the beauty industry who know a great deal about cosmetic products. And when I am not talking to them I am often talking to beauty bloggers who know even more. So when I gave a talk the other day to some people with no particular connection to the business I was struck that the questions they asked were ones that I would have thought everybody already knew the answer to. Here’s one interesting one. 
Cosmetic Design Europe ran a piece plugging a new product launch a few weeks back. It was promoting a product and was paid for by the manufacturer, so I won’t trouble to make a free contribution to their marketing campaign. But one of the points made in the article was highlighting the drawbacks of showering. This seemed interesting. 
Despite what a lot of marketing suggests, there is no particular reason to suppose that natural ingredients are safer or superior to synthetic ones. It depends on what you are doing with them. It’s horses for courses. You pick the material that has the properties you need. But on the whole most of the time I prefer natural oils over