Since it looked like my post was the only one that used the term “ingredients” recently (I think), I hope my point wasn’t misunderstood. I fully support what you and others like you do. There’s no way most of us could do the research you do. And when you lay out so clearly for me that I should be looking for certain things–like retinol or hyaluronic acid–I do exactly that and try to avoid those ingredients you warn might be irritating or inflaming, like peppermint oil. And I think too many women don’t do that. They hear a meaningless catch-phrase (like CQ-10 or something similar) and think “ooh, gotta have it. Must be a miracle product.” I may still buy something pricier than I need but your assessments and explanations have improved my decision making tremendously and made it easier to make my own assessments on products that you haven’t reviewed yet.

The Beauty Brains give a big shout out to Paula, Byran and the rest of the team responsible for the new blog. Congrats! We’re thrilled that there’s another science-oriented beauty blog that women can chose from.

And just for the record, we couldn’t agree with you more doubting the validity of press releases and supplier data. The world needs more beauty skeptics!

Paula,

I enjoy reading your blog. I was browsing through some older blog posts and came across this post in which a phrase struck me as odd, namely: “these people are chemists, not researchers.” At face value, the phrase sounds ignorant, if not offensive to those chemists who are researchers, just not in the field of how specific ingredients may impact skin. I hope that this phrase was simply an honest mistake.