Dr Michelle Wong - Beauty Science

Unionised

Myth 2 This myth comes from the idea that nails, bones and teeth are all hard, so they're made of the same material. But bones and teeth have high calcium content (20-40%), nails are mostly made of keratin, the same protein as your hair, and only have about 0.03% calcium.

It's weird being on US time and seeing social media wind down at night, my ADHD peak social time is 1 am...

Myth 1 A balanced diet is good for every part of your body - yes, nutritional deficiencies obviously should be treated (usually through supplements not food). Most skin and hair dietary advice is NOT conducive to a balanced diet - e.g. avoiding food groups can lead to deficiencies and disordered eating. It's notoriously difficult to remove confounders from nutrition studies (e.g. if you stop eating eggs and notice a change, is it due to no eggs, or whatever new thing you're eating instead?)

Beauty myths that need to die (Part 2) 1. Changing your diet is a good way to improve your skin/hair 2. Calcium is good for your nails 3. Chemical sunscreens need time to activate on skin 4. Sunscreen is destroying coral reefs 5. Anti-aging = anti-wrinkle

Hot blocked for pointing out that derms in every country outside of the US say you don't need sunscreen every day, and now this banger is stuck at the top of my "replies" feed ✨️indefinitely✨️

Foam is about how a formula stabilises a thin liquid film that traps air bubbles Harshness to skin is about how the formula interacts with skin, a complex mixture of lipids, proteins, water etc Because they work differently, there can be overlap between foam and harshness, but they're really not correlated in modern cleansers. There are lots of ingredients that increase foam without increasing harshness - such as glycerin!

Target US is closer to Kmart than Target AU I will not be taking any questions

Fun fact: the National Academies report on the environmental impacts of sunscreens highlighted this NOAA page that claims sunscreens are damaging reefs as an example of bad science reporting, alongside the EWG. The NOAA page says they'll update after they review the National Academies report... wonder if they read up to that part yet?

Fragrance in the vast majority of cosmetics have to follow IFRA guidelines. These are based on independent safety assessments that look at allergies, endocrine disruption etc. "Everyone has to wear sunscreen every day" is not mainstream medical advice in most countries, including Australia and NZ (highest skin cancer rates). The official advice is sunscreen if the UV index goes above 3 - one of the authors is Dr Adele Green, who ran THE clinical trial showing sunscreen prevents skin cancer!

Skincare myths that need to die: 1. Chemical sunscreen absorbs UV, physical sunscreen reflects UV 2. You can judge a product by the ingredient list 3. Parabens are bad 4. Fragrance is bad 5. Everyone needs to wear sunscreen every single day 6. Foaming cleansers are bad 7. Physical sunscreens give better protection 8. The cleanser you use doesn't matter 9. Retinol is useless, everyone should use tretinoin 10. "Medical grade" skincare has stronger actives than "drugstore" skincare

Taking some "Australian" sunscreens home