It’s a new year! Here’s the first Lab Muffin update for 2024 - the whole archive is here.
Shorter content
My latest posts on Instagram and TikTok:
How to find smudgeproof eyeliner
Does water damage hair? (No)
Drug vs cosmetic retinoids guide
Is colour-adjusting sunscreen a gimmick? (Yes)
Is tretinoin better than adapalene? Ultimate guide to drug retinoids
It’s Part 3 of my retinoids series! It’s the one where I finally get to nerd out about receptors (which will happen even more with Part 4!). This part covers:
Tretinoin in detail, including different formulas (encapsulated, gel vs cream…)
Why newer retinoids were invented (aka why tretinoin sucks a bit)
Deep dive on adapalene, tazarotene and trifarotene (Aklief)
Myths about choosing drug retinoids
Which retinoid is best for what?
Converting between retinoid percentages
It’s on YouTube and Nebula, and there’s a blog post version too.
Colour-changing lip products
I’ve been meaning to write a blog post about these for a while - it’s finally up! These are the lip and blush products that start off colourless (or even wacky colours like green), then turn pink on your lips.
They’re often marketed as giving a “personalised” colour, which is a cute marketing story, but based on the chemistry… it’s the same colour on everyone.
Read more about the science behind them here.
2023 Favourites
I’ve turned some of my 2023 Innovative Favourites video into blog posts! Here are the first two installments (I realised I go on tangents a lot, so I’ve decided to split up some of my content to make things easier to find!):
The “Everything” serum (includes discussion of my product review process - maybe this should’ve been split too. Oops.)
Random recommendations
SLEEPING TIPS: Vanessa Hill of Braincraft has been a science communicator for a long time, and is a behavioural sleep scientist with lots of videos on how to sleep better.
Thanks to her I’ve actually made my phone useful for helping me get to sleep! The secret is making sure you’re only using it for relaxing activities - for me it’s doing easy questions on Brilliant, and definitely NOT doomscrolling on social media.READING: On a related note: no, light from electronic screens won’t age your skin much, if at all!
WATCHING: I’ve been sucked into the cult of Bobby Fingers. It’s hard to describe what his videos are - part relaxing sculpting, part performance art, part sarcastic narration in a thick Irish accent. It’s not for everyone, but that’s art, right?
WEARING: Covid is spiking in a lot of places, so if you want to reduce your chances of getting sick and/or risking long covid (Dianna of Physics Girl is one of many affected), some masks work extremely well!
My favourite is the 3M Aura, a N95/P2 respirator which fits most faces well and is very breathable (I’ve slept and given 3 hour lectures in it - though not at the same time! Yet.). According to 3M, you don’t need to throw them out after each use - you can reuse them until they get dirty or the straps break. The Laianzhi HYX1002 medium has a similar fit - it’s a tad looser, but it’s one of the best performing black options.
Animal photos!
I’ve had a very animal-filled holiday season, so here are some photos!
The dog we were dog-sitting, begging us to go to bed please it’s 3 hours past my normal bedtime.
My sister’s cats, who did not, in fact, want to wish us a Merry Christmas. Left is Truffle, who is not very bright but very pretty. Right is Button, who is very smart but must live with the burden of knowledge.
Polls
I’m planning to do a video putting overrated skincare ingredients into a tier list, but I can’t work out how to do a text-entry poll here - you can add your vote to Threads, or add a comment on this Substack post.
At BeautySciComm we’re also planning our next online camp (the replay of our first camp is here) - we’re planning to tackle beauty myths and misinformation. If you have any specific myths or misinformation topics you want us to cover, please let us know on this post!
Thank you! I skimmed the in-depth blog post on tretinoin and have a question -- I tend to occasionally overdo tretinoin cream application and will have some peeling...is this skin barrier disruption and irritation *harming* anything? It doesn’t bug me except it looks kinda bad sometimes. I’ve been using it for years but sometimes I take a couple nights off or put it on too quickly after washing face, etc, and end up with the peelies.