#2: 2023 favourites, vitamin C and haircare myths

Updates for the second half of November.

Can you believe it’s December? Here’s the second Lab Muffin Update - the whole archive is here.

Shorter content

My latest posts on Instagram and TikTok - there’s been a bit more debunking this time!

• Do you need to shampoo twice? (No)

• Do silicones melt your hair? (No)

• Debunking a bunch of sulfates, silicones, Head & Shoulders, Tresemme and OGX fearmongering in shampoo

• How Bioderma’s two-phase makeup remover takes ages to separate

My Favourite Innovative Products of 2023

My latest long-form video on YouTube and Nebula - unfortunately no blog post yet, but I’m working on it!

This year I decided to take a slightly different approach to talking about my favourites - I only picked products that had interesting innovations behind them so I could nerd out! I talk about:

• an “everything” serum

• how to find transfer-proof makeup

• the patented makeup remover (it’s the Bioderma one from the reel!)

• an SPF lip product I actually use a lot, plus some other lip favourites

• shampoos that my irritation-prone scalp likes

I took out a few products because the video was too long, so there might be a follow-up soon!

Vitamin C doesn’t work?

There’s an extra blog post this time - on whether vitamin C actually works.

A lot of people have been asking me about other parts of the Science Vs podcast that inspired my earlier retinol post. The podcast essentially claims that most skincare is a scam, (which I don’t entirely disagree with), but also made some questionable claims about vitamin C:

• It can’t penetrate skin because it’s too water soluble

• Even L’Oreal scientists say it can’t penetrate skin

• Only very special formulations can work

• It’s too unstable to work

I think most skincare nerds know that the scientific evidence supports the use of vitamin C, but Science Vs presented a list of scientific references to back up their points, so I deconstructed them in a new blog post.

I also ruminated a bit on why they might’ve gotten it wrong, and complained a bit about citation padding (the popular idea that more peer-reviewed references = more scientifically correct, which is just… not how science works).

What I’m working on

I’m about 90% done on the drug retinoid guide - I decided to write the blog post first this time and it’s morphed into two blog posts, which I have to somehow condense into a semi-watchable video that isn’t just me ranting about receptors for an hour. Wish me luck!

Here’s a little preview of the med chem nerdery I have planned (it’s fun when I get to talk about my exact specialty area!):

Random recommendations

• OLD CONTENT: I have a huge archive of content thanks to being a dinosaur in content creation years, so I thought it would be nice to highlight some of my older content here sometimes!

  • Octocrylene causes cancer? There’s been more talk about banning octocrylene, a sunscreen ingredient, for environmental reasons. It is generally the one that’s brought up most by sunscreen scientists when discussing environmental impact (along with zinc oxide), but there’s been a lot of misinformation, some of which this post partly addresses. (Fun fact: the scientists who wrote this ridiculous paper have also tried to argue that pregnant women are at risk from sunscreen washing off in beachside showers. No, really.)

  • Are unsaturated oils bad for your skin? “Primal” influencers are edging into anti-sunscreen now, bringing with them a whole bunch of seed oil pseudoscience. I’ll probably do a video on it, but for now here’s an old article I wrote on the evidence around unsaturated oils and skin. (Dr Gil Carvhalo was also recently on The Proof debunking every myth about canola oil being toxic!)

• VIDEO: Plagiarism and You(Tube) by hbomberguy - I know, it’s a 4 hour video, but it’s a very entertaining and thought-provoking deep dive into plagiarism by content creators. It’s a topic I have a lot of feelings about, especially since another content creator tried to cancel me for pointing out that they plagiarised me.

  It might not be immediately obvious, but plagiarism has consequences for online information in general:

  • Plagiarisers usually don’t understand what they’re talking about, which leads to spreading of misinformation

  • It’s extremely demotivating for the people making original content and takes money from them, leading to less and less original, thoughtful and informed work

• PODCAST: Lateral with Tom Scott is a fun kind-of-game-show where people guess interesting answers to questions - if you’re a fan of lateral thinking puzzles and weird trivia, this is a good time.

• LIFE TIP: How to actually deal with hayfever, from an Australian GP. Life-changing advice for fellow sneezy people!

Poll: New updates format?

Now that you’ve gotten through a couple of these, what do you think about the new email updates format? Do you prefer this newsletter style, or the old “new post” alerts right after a new post goes live?

I’m also working on some content ideas for next year - please let me know what topics you’re curious about!