Critical Thinking – Lab Muffin Beauty Science

Sunscreen safety and the FDA situation: Huberman’s skincare podcast response (Part 2)

Michelle Wong — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 04:32:41 +0000

The most controversial topic in Dr Andrew Huberman’s skincare episode is probably sunscreen safety, which is hugely misunderstood even by scientists and medical doctors. Much of the confusion comes from differing sunscreen regulations around the world, and the fact that “not safe” has different meanings in everyday, regulatory and toxicological contexts. This is part 2 of my articles responding to ...

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Physical barriers for sun protection? Huberman’s skincare podcast response (Part 1)

Michelle Wong — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 12:49:47 +0000

A little while back, Dr Andrew Huberman, a Stanford neuroscientist with a massive podcast, released an episode called “How to Improve Skin Health & Appearance”. It had a bunch of slightly weird recommendations if you’re familiar with skincare science. He mentioned some of his sources, but didn’t have any experts talking. 1.5 months later, he released another skin episode, this ...

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Factcheck: Low-Tox Sunscreen Swaps?

Michelle Wong — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 03:47:35 +0000

There’s been a few viral posts about how harmful chemical sunscreens are. The latest one is a post about “Sunscreen Swaps” from @a.glimpse.of.amelia (an Australian “low-tox” consultant) and @jordiepieface (a nutritionist from New Zealand), claiming that “some conventional sunscreens can do more harm than good”. Unfortunately, most of the post is inaccurate, and it’s likely scaring people away from using ...

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Is benzene in benzoyl peroxide a cancer risk?

Michelle Wong — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 11:58:37 +0000

There’s been a lot of stories about benzene contamination in personal care products over the last 4 years. This year, benzene was discovered in benzoyl peroxide, a staple acne treatment. How concerned should we be? Petition and original paper I’ve written about the background behind Valisure’s benzene analyses before, as well as questions about the accuracy of their data and ...

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Red flags for unreliable sources: a guide

Michelle Wong — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 03:13:01 +0000

How do you check if information is reliable? One shortcut that works well (most of the time) is to check if the source itself is reliable! This is much faster and easier than trying to learn the science behind an area you’re not already familiar with – it takes a lot of time to properly factcheck information, even for experts. ...

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Benzene in your products, Part 2: The story of Valisure

Michelle Wong — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 15:01:50 +0000

Here’s Part 2 of our deep dive into benzene contamination in your products. In Part 1, we talked about whether the experiments were “realistic” (no), and whether the cancer risk was described accurately (also no). This time, we’ll be discussing the wider issues around the private lab behind these findings, Valisure. This is adapted from the video version (which works ...

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Does rosemary oil work for hair growth? The science

Michelle Wong — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 21:25:28 +0000

Is rosemary oil a natural, science-backed treatment for hair growth? According to a lot of doctors, scientists and trichologists across the internet, yes – there’s “scientific proof” that it works as well as minoxidil. But unfortunately, that isn’t true. It all seems to be a misunderstanding of a single study: Rosemary oil vs minoxidil 2% for the treatment of androgenetic ...

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Does tranexamic acid work? Response to The Beauty Brains

Michelle Wong — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 09:57:11 +0000

I recently talked about how I don’t think tranexamic acid works in most skincare products I’ve come across, in both a YouTube video and an Instagram post. Perry Romanowski and Valerie George of The Beauty Brains podcast commented on my opinions in Episode 369, “Can Tranexamic Acid Really Reduce Hyperpigmentation?”, published 14 July 2024. Unfortunately I don’t think they looked ...

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Benzene in your products, Part 1: Bad science

Michelle Wong — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 13:57:51 +0000

It’s now Round 5 of “benzene in your products is giving you cancer” – over the last three years, this “known human carcinogen” been found in hand sanitiser, sunscreen, deodorant, dry shampoo, and now benzoyl peroxide acne products. I previously talked about benzene in sunscreen and dry shampoo, but it’s time for a deeper dive into these findings, and the ...

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Why you can’t trust study abstracts

Michelle Wong — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 20:20:14 +0000

One of the biggest sources of myths in beauty is misunderstanding how scientific research works, and how to interpret scientific evidence. A huge problem I’ve seen is people relying on abstracts – the short summary of the paper – instead of reading the full text. Here’s why this isn’t a good idea. This article is based on part of this ...

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