I hate to get in a pissing match. That isn’t what I wanted this blog to be about in the least. Fun, upbeat, iconoclastic, ironic, challenging, pushing the envelope, and open minded but not rude or insulting. Please, let’s keep it that way.

The post that I’m not the only one “asking” about ingredients isn’t the point I was making. We don’t just ask about ingredients or ask what the chemist thinks. We ask to discuss the properties of the ingredients, compare research (which they usually don’t have because these people are chemists, not researchers), and look at the ingredient manufacturers’ data with a skeptical eye because that is rarely published research. Of course I’m not the only one but my team and I are among the few who come in with research and facts, not press releases or articles from fashion magazines. As someone who’s been in this industry for 30 years and has worked with hundreds of cosmetic chemists, what each and every one has told me (and I even belong to he Society of Cosmetic Chemists not to mention all the other work I do) the people they meet with have no idea about cosmetic formulations and ingredients. Of course, people are curious about ingredients. The fact is marketing people are not researchers either, they don’t know how to read scientific data or studies, and they are at the forefront of getting a product on the shelf, for makeup that’s fine, but for skin care, it is really unnerving.

Ihave been doing speaking and book-signing appearances at bookstores around the country over the past several months. It has been wonderful meeting women who have known me for a long time as well as women who are just getting to know my work. The feedback and questions I get range from the basic fundamentals of skin care to the challenging scientific queries about formulations. That’s what I love about the up close and personal interactions. That’s the upside, but there is a downside.

What I can live without are the women who want to tell me what they know about skin care and makeup that is as far removed from the facts as you can get.

A perfect example of this happened recently. I won’t tell you the city, but this woman came up to me and said that she just used olive oil because Cleopatra used it and ancient information is the best source of tried and true skin care. She was so certain she was right. Her emphatic tone made me hesitate responding. It isn’t my goal to get into arguments (I know that’s hard to believe given how opinionated and critical I can be, but all I really want to do is present information based on research and then let women decide for themselves what they want to use).

This time I couldn’t resist. Her comment was so wrong and silly. I just let it fly and said you’ve got to be kidding, you don’t really believe that do you? Cleopatra? Do you really know anything about her? No one has ever seen a picture of her. What did she wash her hair or face with, brush her teeth with (or if she lost a tooth what replaced it?), use for toilet paper, tampons, sunscreen, or acne?

Cleopatra died young so maybe her beauty was fleeting. Maybe she wasn’t beautiful at all and she was just politically advantageous for the men involved? If she was beautiful it certainly wasn’t about olive oil any more then it would be for Beyonce or Angelina Jolie today.

Bottom line: I wouldn’t use “ancient” information that was even a decade or two old more or less a few thousand years old. Research, technology, science, knowledge, capacity, and on and on are light years ahead of where we have come from and still have yet to go. (Had she never heard of the genome project?)

Relying on ancient information, whatever that means would suggest the world is flat, the gods are appeased by human sacrifice, body sweat and mud makes a great skin care product (really, that’s what the Greeks used), and lead in powder was a great makeup base (which caused necrotic skin and that was only from the 1700s).

Facts are so much better then bromides and myth. I hate the term ‘old wives tales’, but when the phrase fits, it fits.