I want to thank all of you who responded to my request to help me figure out exactly how to describe my skin care and makeup company, Paula’s Choice, to other people who don’t know my products, books, or bulletins.

All of your comments were thoughtful, insightful, flattering, humbling, and truthful. Most of all they stimulated a meaningful contemplation of what my business is all about.

My marketing team and I have spent quite a bit of time discussing what you have contributed. It has brought a keen understanding of how those of you who shop Paula’s Choice, read my books, or use Beautypedia.com experience what we have created.

After reading all of your absorbing and fascinating comments, I think I can sum up my company and life’s work like this:

Paula’s Choice is a specialized range of skin care and makeup products I formulated after 32 years of research and writing 18 books analyzing the facts about skin care and makeup products.

Because my only mission is to help you find the best products to take care of your skin I am the only cosmetics company in the world that recommends products other than my own.

Come visit us at PaulasChoice.com and find out what you are missing!

Call in & talk to Paula about your skin-care questions during her live Internet talk radio show,
Be Beautifully Informed with Paula Begoun,
The Cosmetics Cop.

Every Thursday beginning
6pm PST, 8pm CST, 9pm EST

• Best & worst products for the week.
• Behind-the-scenes look at cosmetic tips, advertising, & procedures.
• Call in & get personalized advice from Paula.
• Select callers can win free products on every show! 

To tune in…
Call (347) 426-3783 to listen live & ask questions at show time, or listen to live & archived segments online .

Right around this time of year, reporters start asking me what is the “next big thing” launching in the cosmetics world or what the upcoming trends are. The question in and of itself is frustrating because by now you would think reporters, of all people, would know that the cosmetics industry creates lots of “next big things” to provide press releases to the media so they will write about their products. It all sounds exciting and new (especially if the product contains a rare plant from some remote part of the world) but almost always the information is contrived or without any validity. Of course, after a few months the “next big thing” eventually fades into oblivion making room for the newer “next big thing”, and the cycle goes on and on.

There can only be so many big things, but we seem to have an insatiable appetite for something new when it comes to beauty products. Overblown claims and faux science is almost always what the next big thing ends up being; a big deal over nothing.

So in the spirit of warning you about the next big things you will start hearing about in the media here are few of the things you may encounter:

More and more organic products will be launched—especially ones designed to feel like you are mixing the product up in your own kitchen. There will be kits you put together like a fresh salad every day.

Because of some minor research showing that aroma not only effects mood, sexuality, and even eating behavior, you will see products with a variety of new products both skin care and “perfume” making claims about enhancing and influencing behavior.

Makeup is a spontaneous purchase most women find fun so products that duplicate that expectation (like the vibrating mascaras, eyebrow makeover kits, false eyelashes studded with rhinestones) and similar impulse buy items will be on the shelves. Look for products that have interesting layers of sparkles that cling better to skin without flaking on clothes and mascaras that do the same.

The economy is still suffering so the “Beauty on a Budget” concept will continue. Companies will be launching more products at lower price points but with the same exaggerated claims as the more expensive products they sell. Makeup kits that put together an entire outfit for the face in convenient packaging will also be available at really good price points.

Organic and natural products with heart-tugging stories will pour onto the market. Mother’s making products for their daughters, daughters making products for their mother, survivors of cancer making products for others with their health concern, etc. Don’t count on those lines providing anything new in terms of formulary, this is all about marketing a really good story and making healthy consumers afraid of benign ingredients while promoting questionable natural ones.

In terms of ingredients, because of the research showing that diet (antioxidants, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids) can improve skin texture, collagen production, and encourage more normal cell development, products claiming to mimic a healthy diet will be launched (and if they are well formulated will be good for skin, but regrettably claims in the cosmetics industry rarely match claims).

You’ll see all of this and more as you venture out to shop for cosmetics in 2010. What you can count on as always is there will still be plenty of poor products, plenty of fantasy claims to endure and overcome, and plenty of opportunities become an even savvier cosmetics consumer—one who can separate hype from fact and is all the more beautiful because of it!

I know I’m about to piss a lot of people off with this blog entry but let me just preface what I want to get off my chest by saying I am an environmentalist and have been for years. I live in the Pacific Northwest and as a community and personally we have been ecologically aware for decades. I know polluting our world is a serious problem and we all need to do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint, but I have had enough with the fear mongering, propaganda, and outright brainwashing the organic and natural skin care product lines throw at consumers. Even mainstream companies have gotten in on the act (L’Oreal actually advertises their Everpure hair-care line claiming it is better because it doesn’t contain sulfates, which is a bunch of crap because all of their other products from Garnier to Kerastase contain sulfates. Why didn’t they stop selling those if sulfate-free is so much better?).

Let me just say this up front: skin care products are not killing us, causing cancer, or any other dire condition. Women have no more higher incidence of cancer then men (breast cancer doesn’t count as men don’t have estrogen in the first place and women don’t get prostate cancer for obvious reasons as well). The insane, misleading information about mineral oil, petrolatum, parabens, and even toluene in nail polishes is just bizarre. The research doesn’t exist to prove any harm is being done, not even remotely. Not to mention natural and organic products contain problematic ingredients that effect the environment and our health as well.

I’m not sure how this all got started but the natural organic fanatics want you to be very afraid and, of course, only buy their products because they are pure and won’t harm you (forget the fact that there isn’t any research showing their products are effective and that many aren’t all that natural in the first place). Even more obnoxious is their blatant hypocrisy. I am fairly certain almost every single owner, employee, or lobbyist for any organic/natural cosmetic company in the world uses computers, talks on cell phones, drives cars, flies in airplanes, mostly lives in cities, and myriad other things that are far more problematic for the environment and health then any cosmetic could ever be. Breathing auto exhaust fumes and adding to landfills with outdated cell phones and computers (and all manner of outdated electronics) are where the concern should be, not the cleanser or moisturizer you are using.

But back to skin care. I want to remind all of you that I have a ton of research on my web site about all this, including these links:

http://www.cosmeticscop.com/skin-care-facts-preservative-problems-risks-benefits-of-parabens.aspx?filter=itemtype%3acontent

http://www.cosmeticscop.com/skin-care-facts-sodium-lauryl-sulfate-sodium-laureth-sulfate.aspx

http://www.cosmeticscop.com/skin-care-facts-mineral-oil-safety-nonirritating-moisturizer.aspx

If you want to send this rational, documented information to your friends and family that would go a long way to helping them make better decisions about what skin care and makeup products to buy. Right now I am just overwhelmed and the voice of reason is drowned out by the endless garbage (brain pollution) the natural/organic cosmetic industry can’t help spilling into the minds of women like an oil slick that can’t be cleaned up. Just in case you’re still not willing to believe that cosmetics aren’t killing us, below are some rational, voice-of-reason quotes from respected sources.

“FDA believes that at the present time there is no reason for consumers to be concerned about the use of cosmetics containing parabens.”

— Food and Drug Administration

“[The 2004 Darbre Study] did not prove that parabens cause breast tumors. The authors of this study did not analyze healthy breast tissue or tissues from other areas of the body and did not demonstrate that parabens are found only in cancerous tissue.”

— National Cancer Institute

“There is no sound scientific evidence that cosmetics as they are typically used cause cancer.”

“Parabens have a long history of safe use and have been specifically recognized as safe by the FDA.”

— American Council on Science and Health

“… The technical accuracy of the initial reports [linking parabens to cancer] have come under challenge,” noted Sandra Porter, Clariant. “Recent reports published and available in the public domain indicate that there is no conclusive evidence of harmful effects from parabens in cosmetics at typical usage levels.”

— Household and Personal Products Industry Magazine

I also want to share this letter I received from a physician on this issue; it succinctly sums up the manipulation we suck up like water in the desert without any benefit:

Paula,

First of all thank you for speaking up about a topic that has been very important to me for a long time. In fact I created a blog simply to address this issue: http://parabenmyth.lexli.com/
My frustration with philosophies such as this stem from the fact that I treat patients with breast cancer on a daily basis, and am very cognizant of what is good or not for them. I have spent a long time researching the paraben issue and found the same conclusions as you have. Such negative, panic provoking tactics against ingredients has almost become a norm for a number of “big beauty” marketers. Unfortunately, it works on consumers who may be unaware of the whole picture, and in many cases do not have access to in-depth scientific facts. To condemn an ingredient just because it might, possibly, might, remotely mimic, seem like, maybe etc. is incredibly unjustified. The evidence linking paraben absorption via skin care products, mimicking estrogen and in turn affecting breast cancer rates is extremely farfetched at best. I suspect your chances of taking in estrogen like substances is higher from food intake of animal and plant products, such as cow’s milk! But, obviously certain negative marketing, using scant scientific findings and manipulating it is much more potent at molding the human mind than presenting the facts. I applaud you on your ability to go against the flow and try to reach the truth.

By the time I returned to the office, I was all fired up. Even though I had a considerable amount of work on my desk, all I could think about was writing that letter. The more I stewed over what had happened, the more I wanted to make sure I wrote it down before the details slipped away. And so I wrote and wrote.

1000 words later, I’d gotten it all down and begun to feel better to boot (ah, the therapeutic virtues of writing). My only concern with the letter was that I knew I had an obligation to not disclose that I worked for Paula, but at the same time, it absolutely shouldn’t matter who I am or what I do, since I was shade-shopping and taking down information in no different manner than any other customer would. So in my letter I stretched the truth by saying I worked for a local makeup artist (which isn’t much of a stretch, actually; both Paula and Bryan are makeup artists).

In hindsight, I should’ve asked for permission to just disclose that I worked for Paula and Beautypedia, because there is really no reason that this should be objectionable to Ulta; we highly recommend hundreds of the products they sell, and spend hundreds of dollars (if not more) in their store. In fact, the work that we do ultimately drives business to Ulta! Any cosmetic retailer with business savvy should welcome us warmly.

In order to send the letter to Ulta corporate, I trolled Ulta’s “Contact Us” page, and to my delight, there was a phone number through which I could log my complaint with Guest Services (rather than sending my letter into the abyss). After a series of prompts, I found myself talking to a real-live person to whom I began recounting my story. She listened, and I could hear her typing away as I spoke.

“The manager on duty said that it’s against store policy to write anything down. Is that true?”

The representative replied, “You are not allowed to take photographs of any kind in Ulta stores.”

“I wasn’t taking photos; I was taking notes. Is there a policy against note-taking?”

“Our policy is that no photos are allowed to be taken in our stores or of our storefront”

“I didn’t have a camera. I had print-outs from Ulta.com and a black pen.”

This inane exchange continued, and it was as though I had encountered a glitch in the matrix: I kept telling her that I didn’t have a camera, and she kept telling me that there were no photos allowed. Finally, after taking down my contact information, she said that she’d forward my complaint to the store’s District Manager and that person would contact me by phone within 48 hours. Sensing that perhaps she’d misunderstood what had happened, I decided to cover my bets.

“Can you give me the District Manager’s name so that I’m prepared when they call?”

“I can assure you that she will announce herself when she calls.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like her name.”

She sighed — she actually sighed! And then I could hear typing.

“Ma’am, I cannot find her name at this time.”

This should have been the final straw. Still, I tried to keep cool.

“Look, I don’t want to seem combative here, but how can you possibly forward my complaint if you don’t know who you are forwarding it to?”

Another sigh.

“If it’s that important to you, I can go look it up.”

“Of course it’s important to me! I’ve taken the time to call you, but at this point I don’t have a lot of confidence that you’ve understood what happened or that the right person will hear about this, since you can’t be bothered to look up their name.”

“Please hold.”

While the muzak played, I turned to Brooke, my office mate, and told her everything, and I even posed the possibility that this was all an elaborate prank and that hidden cameras might emerge any moment. She shared my disbelief, but added, “I guess that would explain why their in-store service was so lousy. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” She’s a wise lady.

After a few minutes, the representative returned and gave me the District Manager’s name. I thanked her, and our call ended.

A few minutes later, a well-connected colleague who had heard my ranting all the way from her office, gave me the direct email address of that same Ulta District Manager. (Ironic that the staff here was more helpful than Ulta’s own Guest Services!) Using that email address, I sent the District Manager my epic letter directly. To my surprise, within 3 minutes (incidentally, probably not long enough for her to have actually read my letter), I received the following reply:

Dear Ms. Burnett,

Sincerely,
XXXXXXX
District Manager

Of course, it didn’t undo what had happened, but her professionalism and the promptness of her reply did make me feel better. I didn’t bother telling her about the petulant Guest Service Representative’s incompetency on the phone. At that point, I just needed closure! In my response to her, I simply said, “Once this is sorted out with your team, I would be happy to continue shopping at Ulta, as long as I can be assured that no member of the staff will publicly embarrass me or anyone else again for taking notes.”

The whole experience reminded me that this is an industry that overall doesn’t appreciate customers who want to make careful, informed decisions about what they buy, and prefers instead to keep itself cloaked under a shroud of secrecy and marketing nonsense.

It’s worth mentioning that I needed to go back to Ulta the next day on business (though I opted for a different location), and as a precautionary measure, I printed out that email from the District Manager, should anyone have given me any trouble for taking notes. I’m happy to report that my subsequent Ulta experience was hassle-free, if not actually enjoyable! Ultimately, I hope my “showdown” at Ulta will keep other consumers from going through a similar experience.

Just when I thought I’ve heard it all something else comes along that reinforces how absolutely insane and moronic the cosmetics industry is. Actually, let me take that back, something else comes along that reinforces how utterly insane and moronic the cosmetics industry thinks consumers are.

Laboratoires Serobiologiques, owned by Cognis, is a cosmetic ingredient manufacturer. In order to supply cosmetic companies with their insatiable appetite for new ingredients with interesting stories to dazzle consumers with, these “labs” manipulate scientifically ludicrous associations to turn anti-aging fantasy into fact.

According to their press release they have created a dopamine-stimulating ingredient called Euphoryl Omega-3 LS 9846. Their logic is that by stimulating dopamine synthesis, you increase blood circulation in the skin and that enhances the complexion. Forget the fact that lots of things can stimulate blood circulation and that blood circulation is hardly the key to any skin care issue, but then they aren’t really talking about facts, they are selling an ingredient.

But that’s only the beginning. Here’s the real story they want you to swallow (well they want the cosmetics company’s marketing department to swallow so they concoct a formula with their ingredient you will swallow, I mean, buy).

Because dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with sensations of pleasure and exhilaration it will make your face happy. I’m not exaggerating. They said it themselves: “Based on a combination of natural ingredients which help generate positive emotions, Euphoryl Omega 3 is a pure happiness concentrate that lights up the skin’s complexion and enhances skin feeling of comfort and wellbeing.”

Forget kissing or touching, all you have to do is apply a skin care product and start smiling.

“It aims at revealing the resplendent skin of a woman in full bloom and is therefore ideal for the formulation of ‘happy cosmetic’ ranges.”

What’s next, Prozac eye creams? And what the hell is a woman in full bloom? A nice way to say an old broad? Or a woman who’s fertile?

Of course the ingredient isn’t really Euphoryl Omega-3 LS 9846, that’s the marketing name, it is just a mix of sacha inchi oil (Plukenetia volubilis) “native to the Amazon rainforest” (it couldn’t possibly come from Kansas or Illinois) and pink pepper (Schinus terebinthifolius) extract. The latter is what stimulates the skin, but pepper is irritating and not in a good (or should I say happy?) way.

My hairstylist and I got into a long discussion (okay, argument) again when I was in last week. It’s okay, I didn’t really want to read another fashion magazine and she is a wonderful, compassionate, sweet woman who likes challenging me. She earnestly wanted to let me know what she learned from the Kerastase training class she recently attended. I know I couldn’t convince her that most of what she learned was rubbish. As expected, she did what she always does when we have these discussions: smile at me with warmth and utter skepticism all at the same time while I explain what the Kerastase trainer said didn’t make sense because it was so far from the facts about hair physiology. Over the years, despite my showing her studies and research she still doesn’t want to believe me. Sigh. Although I didn’t get anywhere with my stylist, I’d like to go over the facts with you one more time just to get it off my chest:

Expensive absolutely doesn’t mean better in the world of hair care. There is no reason to ever spend more then $10 on a hair care product. (The only exception would be for an unusual special needs product like one for psoriasis or an exceptionally gentle formula that’s fragrance-free), If you do spend more than $10, I’m talking about only doing so for really huge containers.

Drugstore products are not watered down or used for cleaning floors. I’m so tired of this one! Salon products are not better formulated, they don’t use better grade of ingredients, or have fewer surfactants (cleansing agents) or wax-type ingredients than drugstore lines. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, just the opposite can be true. It takes only a quick review of the ingredient list to determine the truth about this one. Surfactants are uniform throughout the industry. The same is true for conditioning and thickening agents. In the long run, what a product contains depends on the individual product not the price. I have yet to find an ingredient manufacturer or cosmetic chemist to show me research or evidence proving otherwise. In the case of Kerastase, they’re owned by L’Oreal. L’Oreal offers some outstanding hair-care products at the drugstore, including many whose ingredient lists are nearly identical to those in the Kerastase line. Do you really think they’re using inferior, cheap ingredients in their namesake line and only saving the good stuff for their salon brands? And if that was the case, as a consumer, why would you respect them?

Other than formulations what hair care products have in common regardless of price is that the claims on the label are almost always utter nonsense. Don’t take them seriously.

You can’t repair hair. There are no hair-care products that can repair, fix, correct, restructure, reform, change, reconstruct, restore, rebuild, or alter damaged hair. Hair is dead (I will remind you of that fact frequently), so it cannot be repaired or permanently reverted back to normal in any way. You can no more mend a hair strand than you can regenerate a dead leaf, soften a rock, or repair a fallen tree.

(Try to) Stop damaging your hair! Repeated blow drying, brushing (especially wet hair, which is more easily damaged then dry hair), styling, chemical processing (okay that you don’t have to stop but reconsider radical hair color-change, I’ll talk more about that in a minute), and sun exposure degrades hair, and the damage cannot be mended or undone. High heat is particularly damaging, but it is also happens to be the best way to get unruly, frizzy, thick hair under control.

Unfortunately, there are no hair-care products that can truly protect hair from heat damage. Hairstyling tools can get as hot as 350 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, transferring about 200 degrees Fahrenheit to the hair (the boiling point of water is 212 degrees Fahrenheit). You cannot prevent that kind of heat from causing some harm to hair. Could you imagine protecting skin from that kind of heat with a hair-care product? If you can’t do it for skin, you can’t do it for hair. Silicone in hair care products can help a little, but mostly they just make hair feel healthy and silky.

Speaking of silicone, it is not bad or dangerous for hair, quite the contrary, it’s brilliant for hair and different forms show up in over 80% of all hair care products in all price ranges!
I cannot tell you how many times I run into the silicones-are-evil claim from hair-care brands and when my team and I check the ingredient lists, sure enough, there’s one or more forma of silicone in the products. It’s a classic example of hair-care double talk and trying to sell products based on what they don’t contain even when they do, in fact, contain the very ingredients the company alleges are terrible for your hair.

Sun is damaging for hair causing hair to degrade and hair color to fade. Unfortunately there are no hair-care products that can protect hair from sun damage. The FDA does not allow hair-care products to have a Sun Protection Factor (SPF) rating because there is no reliable or consistent way to keep the necessary protective ingredients (which can be kept on and do protect skin) attached to the hair shaft (Source: www.fda.gov). Rinsing, styling, and brushing hair removes or degrades sunscreen ingredients so the protection is either nonexistent or short-lived. The only sure-fire way to protect your hair from sun damage is to wear a hat! Until there is a way to keep these ingredients on the hair and assign an SPF rating for hair-care products, the claims about sun protection are fraudulent and completely unreliable.

Pricy specialty treatment conditioners in salons are a complete waste of money. There are no special or unique ingredients in these products! They are just conditioners; compare the ingredients and you’ll see! Stop getting sucked into adding to your salon bill by getting one of these “treatments”.

When a model’s hair looks beautiful in an ad or on television, it is never simply because of the products being advertised! And notice that products in all price ranges are advertised the exact same way! And when you leave the salon your hair looks beautiful because of your stylist, not the products you decided to buy while you were there.

There is no such thing as an all-natural hair-care product. Even ingredients derived from natural sources such as coconut, palm trees, silk, wheat, milk, or soy do not retain their “natural” composition once they are processed and altered to be a cleansing or conditioning agent. Natural ingredients, particularly vitamins, minerals, and plant extracts, cannot clean hair, cling to hair, or perform any function of conditioning or styling. Plus, because hair is not alive these ingredients can’t function the same as they can on skin. The ingredients that hold hair in place or make hair so you can get a comb through it or make it feel repaired, and on and on are anything but natural. And beyond that, plenty of natural ingredients turn out to be problematic for the hair and scalp, while there are lots of synthetic ingredients you do not want to go without.

Changing hair color from dark to light is always damaging and no matter what you do it will always end up feeling like straw and looking frizzy. It takes a lot of effort and styling to make it look healthy, but once you wash it, it’s right back where it was.

Salon hair dyes are not better formulated then drugstore versions. What it takes to dye hair, the chemistry and ingredients are the same regardless of the name on the product or the claims. One is not better for hair then the other. There are horror stories from both the salon and the drugstore sides of the color world (I’ve experienced a few myself). What a great hairstylist can do is custom-blend a color for you, but it still doesn’t mean your hair will end up being the exact color you want.

Perms or hair dyes claiming they don’t contain ammonia are NOT gentler on the hair. Ingredients that work the same way (meaning damaging) are used instead they just don’t have the same odor ammonia does!

Hair-care advertisements may be alluring and interesting, but they are ads, not documentaries. Just because the ads are sensual doesn’t mean the products featured in the ads are, and it doesn’t mean they’ll make you more sensual. Accept seductive ads for what they are—seductive ads, not reliable sources of facts.

There are many reasons why women can suffer through hair loss but anywhere between 20% and 50% of women are affected by “male pattern baldness” they just lose their hair differently (diffuse lost versus front to back or from the center out). The only proven way to deal with this is minoxidil (aka Rogaine, but available generically for less money). The other products claiming they stop loss are NOT telling the truth and many of these “systems” actually contain minoxidil!

Never use a curling iron on wet or damp hair. The heat from a curling iron can easily exceed the boiling point of water. The water content inside the hair shaft can actually boil if you apply a hot curling iron to it, and cause serious breakage and damage in that spot.

Wet or damp hair is more vulnerable to losing its shape. It is best to blow your hair all the way dry and not leave any wetness, not even a little. Unless partial natural movement is what you are after, blow the entire head completely dry in order to keep the style in for as long as possible.

Avoid backcombing or teasing hair. It is damaging, plain and simple, and there is no way around this one.

My partner and I recently organized a neighborhood block party. Although we know some of our neighbors quite well, there are proportionately more that tend to keep to themselves unless someone in the community plans an event. Of course, when adults meet for the first time in a social setting, a common question is what one does for a living. I often state that I’m a writer. Or that I manage a Web site. Sometimes that generic answer works, but sometimes follow-up questions occur, such as what type of writing do I do? That’s where things can get sticky…

I don’t mind being more descriptive, but sometimes I find myself reluctant to elaborate because, well, I’m not quite sure why. It may be because I feel the need to over-explain what I do and how Paula and I go about reviewing products, or that I immediately think the person I’m speaking to will question my credentials or think we’re running some rinky-dink operation. After 25 years, even Paula still gets the occasional “who do you think you are?” or “what gives you the right to review products this way?” emails. Would a 40-something female attorney I just met be convinced that her 30-something suburban neighbor (a male, no less) could offer her meaningful, potentially complexion-changing advice about her skin-care routine? And why didn’t I just state that I work in retail, something I can easily converse about?

As it turns out, the female attorney I was speaking with was fascinated by my job. I briefly explained my background and the set of criteria Paula and I have established that form the basis of our reviews. But I was feeling increasingly self-conscious, and begin to wish that either the wine I was drinking would kick in or that someone would ask me to, oh, I don’t know, grill something. I suppose it’s at this point where I felt the need to say something impressive, perhaps to further convince the person I’m speaking with that yes, I really do know what I’m talking about. My attorney neighbor asked what I thought of the Origins line, which she’s been using for a couple of weeks. She stated that she was drawn to the line because they use natural ingredients. I must’ve had a sour look on my face because she took a step back as I explained to her that Origins has more problematic products than helpful ones. Uh-oh…now she was really intrigued.

Adjusting her stance, she leaned forward and exclaimed something I’ve heard time and time again: “But I thought natural ingredients were better for our skin!” I replied that nothing could be further from the truth, though there are some very good natural ingredients in skin-care products. She said “But not in Origins products?”, to which I responded “Sadly, no.” She looked horrified as if I told her that clumps of her hair had just fallen onto the potato salad. I mentioned that Origins was a Lauder-owned line, and although their skin-care products are loaded with fragrant plant irritants, the Estee Lauder and Clinique brands happen to offer some of the most brilliantly-formulated moisturizers and serums anywhere, and neither of these lines make a huge deal about natural ingredients. That perked her up, but it launched us into a discussion about eye creams (she’s a fan of Lauder’s). 20 minutes later (the wine had kicked in now) we were still talking, though I was being a bit more candid. As it turns out, she left vowing to check out our book and subscribe to Beautypedia. And for the next hour or so I fielded a dozen or so “What do you think about this product? “questions.

My job may be unusual, but as it turns out, talking about it can be a great ice-breaker, not to mention an opportunity to educate more people about the staggering amount of false information perpetuated by the cosmetics industry.

I just got off the phone with a reporter. I could scream. It was a completely bizarre conversation that went something like this.

Reporter: What skin care products are worth splurging on?

Me: None. Save your money, there isn’t an expensive skin care product that can’t be replaced by an inexpensive option.

Reporter: But aren’t there advances in skin care that are worth spending your money on like Estee Lauder using situins.

Me: Sirtuins are a group of enzymes that protect cells. Lauder is using an ingredient they are calling resveratrate in their Re-Nutriv Ultimate Youth Crème. It is similar to resveratrol, an antioxidant from grapes. That’s nice but there are lots of great antioxidants, this isn’t the miracle one. And does that mean all the other Lauder anti-aging products (think Clinique, Aveda, Prescriptives, La Mer etc.) should be dumped? And by the way, did you notice the product comes in a jar and that antioxidants don’t stay stable in jar packaging?

Reporter: Oh right, jars. But I’ve talked to the President of Lauder and they are reformulating all their products.

Me: I don’t believe that for a second, but assuming that’s true shouldn’t they write a press release saying this is the best of our products forget the others? Or at least alert their loyal customers that, oops, they goofed but this time they’re really going to get it right and tell you the truth?

We had a few more back and forths that didn’t make any sense either but this was the kicker:

Reporter: Nothing really works right so it doesn’t matter?

Me: That’s not true at all. There is a ton of research showing there are wonderful, potent, powerfully effective ingredients that can benefit skin. What’s true is that there just isn’t a magic bullet. There isn’t one ingredient that is the final miracle for skin.

Reporter: There is no research showing that to be true.

Me: Of course there is, just check the National Institute for Health’s database of over 5,000 science journals.

Reporter: I don’t believe research done by the cosmetic companies.

Me: There are mostly studies done outside of the cosmetic industry, but even if the studies are from the industry as long as the studies are published and you can evaluate how they were done and the results, you can make an informed decision.

Reporter: Those studies are always biased.

Me: Then ignore the studies from cosmetics companies and just focus on the ones that are from independent sources.

Reporter: They’re all biased except the ones from Universities.

Me: But cosmetic companies often pay institutions for their studies. But this is all off topic… you were asking about products that are worth splurging on and I’m saying there aren’t any so I’m probably not the best person for your story.

Reporter: But what about sirtuins and clock genes?

Me: Well I could quote you the research as it relates to the cosmetic industry but you just said you don’t believe any unbiased research exists, you don’t trust the research from cosmetic companies but you believe the press releases you get from cosmetics companies? I’m confused.

There was a bit more, but you get the gist of it. And these are the people writing stories about skin care “breakthroughs” that my readers find and then ask me about. Sigh. I really did try to help this reporter but somehow I think I only made matters worse by stating the facts!

I recently received an email from a woman who disagreed with our reviews on some Avalon Organics products. Having people disagree with our reviews isn’t unusual, but this email stood out as being more irksome then helpful (we love helpful criticism). She stated she’s in her mid-40s and her biggest skin-care concerns are wrinkles and dark circles (how unusual right, as if there is a woman over 40 anywhere in the world who doesn’t have those concerns?). She wrote she had purchased a scrub from Avalon Organics, professing that she “fell in love” with the lavender smell (which made me think ‘uh-oh, we’re off to a bad start here’). She also let me know, in one of those tones that you can just feel oozing through the email that there’s “nothing wrong with lavender, we Europeans have been using it for centuries.” Great. So not only is she choosing skin care based on scent, it seems that somehow being European means the research about lavender that we’ve cited repeatedly (from European sources by the way) is wrong.

The email went on to explain that shortly after experiencing amazing results with the lavender scrub (which ingredient-wise is like getting excited over white bread), she went ahead and purchased a lavender night cream from Avalon. She explained she had been using it for a year, and one day, as she was staring in the mirror, she observed that her wrinkles and dark circles had vanished. Imagine that! Not wanting to deal with signs of aging ever again, she ventured out and purchased several more products from Avalon Organics (lots of people believe “more is better” when it comes to skin care, but that’s usually a recipe for trouble). Given the Avalon lavender formulas, there is no way her experience comes from these products. They contain plenty of synthetic ingredients next to the natural ones, come in jar and clear packaging (so the natural ingredients wouldn’t stay stable for very long), and the sunscreen contains synthetic sunscreen agents without any of the critical UVA-protecting ingredients.

She also mentioned that whoever writes our reviews should stay home and cook because we obviously don’t know what we are talking about. Actually, I happen to be a very good cook and would love to stay home and cook all day but I work for Paula and love doing that too (plus it helps keep my weight in check). How do you reason with a person who is convinced that lavender and the host of other problem ingredients and packaging shortcoming in her skin-care routine eliminated wrinkles and dark circles? The only way this is even remotely possible is if her wrinkles and dark circles were caused by dryness rather than sun damage and the products she was using previously were somehow even worse than Avalon’s (any moisturizer can make superficial wrinkles from dry skin look better).

When emails like this arrive, I typically steer the person toward the research we used to support what we write about the product and its contents. But with this woman, I really didn’t know what to say, she wouldn’t believe me anyway. It definitely made me wonder why she reads Paula’s books and online reviews!