chemistry – Lab Muffin Beauty Science

Sulfate-Free Shampoo? The Science

Michelle Wong — Sat, 13 May 2023 16:02:41 +0000

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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New York 1,4-Dioxane Ban In Beauty Products?

Michelle Wong — Tue, 03 May 2022 13:33:00 +0000

If you’ve ever looked up sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) and sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) in a clean beauty app, like me, you might be surprised to find that SLES is dirtier than SLS. These apps are terrible and based on pseudoscience: SLS and SLES are both safe in your products. But if you’re a skincare nerd, you’ll know that SLS ...

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Skincare Oils and Free Fatty Acids: The Science

Michelle Wong — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 01:31:25 +0000

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?

Michelle Wong — Mon, 28 Jun 2021 12:30:48 +0000

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

Michelle Wong — Sat, 14 Nov 2020 12:45:30 +0000

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

Michelle Wong — Thu, 09 May 2019 11:30:48 +0000

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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Amodimethicone: The Science of My Favourite Hair Ingredient

Michelle Wong — Thu, 28 Feb 2019 14:05:36 +0000

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 low porosity, with the outside cuticle lying very flat. This means that ...

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Skincare Chemistry: How to pick out humectants

Michelle Wong — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 10:06:35 +0000

I recently posted an excerpt from The Lab Muffin Guide to Basic Skincare on my Instagram and Facebook (which is one of many useful tables in my eBook by the way, and it’s packed full of information on the super important fundamentals of science-based skincare – although I’m obviously biased since I wrote it and put all my best tips ...

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Is Sodium Hydroxide Safe in Beauty Products?

Michelle Wong — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 21:20:20 +0000

Sodium hydroxide is in a ton of beauty products. But as one of my favourite unreliable sources says (the “favourite” is sarcastic by the way, just to clarify): Sodium Hydroxide is, however, a known irritant… The National Institute for Occupation Safety and Health … recommends that consumers prevent skin and eye contact The CDC reports that “Skin contact with sodium ...

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Activated Charcoal in Skincare: The Science

Michelle Wong — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 21:30:01 +0000

Activated charcoal skincare products are pretty cool. They’re black, they’re sciencey-sounding and they’re said to suck dirt out of your pores like a magnet – what’s not to like? The reality is a little more complex than that… (If you’re after the video version of this post, check it out here! To make sure you don’t miss a video from ...

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