Rant – Lab Muffin Beauty Science

Sunscreen myths in the media

Michelle Wong — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 22:30:52 +0000

It’s sunscreen season, and as you’d expect, there are lots of sunscreen articles coming out, full of common myths. I’ve debunked a lot of myths about sunscreens before – sunscreens are toxic, you can make your own sunscreen – but this time I’m going to focus on incorrect advice from trusted media sources. These myths tend to be a bit ...

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SPF Boosters: Hidden chemical sunscreens in “mineral sunscreens”

Michelle Wong — Sun, 18 Sep 2022 13:18:55 +0000

There’s a sort of industry secret with mineral sunscreens: a lot of them contain unregulated chemical sunscreens. Which isn’t always a big problem… but it also kind of is. Today we’re talking about inactive ingredients in sunscreens that aren’t really inactive. The video is here, keep scrolling for the text version…. SPF boosters It’s not that easy to make a sunscreen. It ...

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Matter of Fact Vitamin C and Bad Science Review

Michelle Wong — Sat, 26 Mar 2022 13:30:00 +0000

You might’ve seen Matter of Fact skincare all over social media lately. Their star product is a vitamin C serum, and they’ve been doing a lot of sponsorships with influencers, particularly the ones that come across as “sciencey” (with a science background and/or make scientific skincare content). You might’ve been surprised to see me in one of their influencer ads ...

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The Cost of Misinformation in the Beauty Space (Ventech Talk)

Michelle Wong — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 12:15:22 +0000

This was a talk I gave on 15 September 2021 for Ventech’s panel on Scientific Literacy and the Price of Misinformation. I talked about my insights on debunking myths over the last 10 years of Lab Muffin (yeah I’m old), how there’s financial incentive for many brands to bust beauty myths and communicate science, and the larger public health implications ...

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The “60% of products absorb into your bloodstream” myth

Michelle Wong — Sat, 19 Jun 2021 22:45:05 +0000

The myth that “60% of what’s applied to your skin is absorbed into your bloodstream” is one of my pet peeves. It’s so far from the truth, and it’s cited with such an air of authority that it really ticks me off. It also tends to be cited by the sorts of people who push “non-toxic” products, which is very ...

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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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I Hate These Skincare Products

Michelle Wong — Sat, 24 Oct 2020 12:45:32 +0000

I haven’t had a good Cranky Old Lady rant in a while, so here’s one today, ranting about products I hate. Honestly, it isn’t even the product most of the time – it’s just the marketing around it that I hate. Video is here on YouTube, keep scrolling for the written version. Coffee Scrubs I’ve ranted about coffee scrubs before ...

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Why do we still use whitening products?

Michelle Wong — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 11:37:19 +0000

I’ve been mulling over this topic ever since Buzzfeed’s “Are You Unwittingly Buying Whitening Products?” and Vox’s “Why the Market for Skin Whitening Is Growing” videos came out in late 2017/early 2018, but didn’t really feel like I had a good enough grasp on the topic to write about it until recently. Hopefully this won’t be interpreted as hopping on ...

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Bad DIY Hand Sanitizers (and a few good ones)

Michelle Wong — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 20:30:05 +0000

Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic there’s a hand sanitizer shortage… and a ton of DIY hand sanitizer recipes. Will they actually work? (Spoiler: Most of them won’t.) I’ve made a video breaking down some of the good bad DIY hand sanitizer recipes out there. Check out the video on YouTube here. Key points: COVID-19 is caused by SARS-CoV-2 (novel coronavirus ...

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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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