April 4, 2024 • 59 mins
Embark on a journey through the digital maze with the ever-astute Dr. Michelle Wong, our guide from Lab Muffin Beauty Science, as she unpacks the peculiarities of social media's impact on mental health. She maps out the terrain of Facebook's familiar ground, wades through Twitter's rapid streams, and scales the trendy heights of TikTok and Instagram, all while juggling a spectrum of audience feedback. Our conversation reveals how certain corners of the internet can become sanctuaries, albeit sometimes ensnaring ones, for content creators like Michelle. The art of dealing with comments, particularly on a platform like YouTube Shorts, emerges as a tightrope walk between constructive dialogue and the odd internet skirmish.
Prepare for a dose of vitamin "Sea" as we sail into the tempestuous waters of sunscreen debates with Michelle, our science-first skipper. We chart the reasons why sun protection stirs up such a squall among consumers and navigate through the misinformation cyclones fueled by entities like the EWG. The discussion anchors on sun safety, the underestimated importance of vitamin D, and how public health advice must be a tailor-fit life jacket for individuals. Our exchange promises to leave you both sun-kissed with knowledge and shielded from the burn of skincare myths.
As we cap off this episode, we scrutinize the toxicity of benzene exposure and dismantle the 'natural versus synthetic' barricade that often clouds public judgement. Michelle lends her expertise to demystify the relationship between skincare, diet, and the waves of wellness trends that lap at our doors. We leave no stone unturned, from the market tides of coconut oil to the biohacking craze, and Michelle even teases her book, "The Science of Beauty," as the compass for navigating the enigmatic world of beauty products. Tune in for a concoction of humor and hard science that will sate your curiosity and perhaps inspire a more enlightened skincare routine.
You can find Dr. Wong
https://www.tiktok.com/@labmuffinbeautyscience?lang=en
https://www.instagram.com/labmuffinbeautyscience/?hl=en
You can find us on social media here:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
welcome.
Everyone is trying to figureout what episode it is.
I saw it.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I saw him trying to figure out which episode it was
thinking about it and he alwayscomes after me for not knowing
what episode is.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
That's all I want to point out, that's it I was
actually going to say welcomeback to learning how to sell
your soul and shill where youlearn every grifting technique.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, that's a long intro.
No wonder you're thinking aboutit.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yeah, I had to think about it.
Today's special guest is LabBaby, muffin, beauty, bumper
Buddy, something like that,something like that.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
It's also a very long name.
It's as long as your intro.
Yeah, but besides Oakley, who Ihave in my lap, we also have Dr
Wong.
How you doing.
Not too bad how are you going?
Well, she's doing a little sad.
I scared her.
I'm sorry, it's okay, I'mscaring her.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
We're just using too long of sentences.
We need to shorten thesentences.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, how are you doing, Dr Wong?
Tell us, why don't youintroduce yourself and give us a
little what you do on thesocial medias?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Sure.
So hi, I'm Dr Michelle Wong,also known as Lab Muffin Beauty
Science.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I was close.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I talk about the science behind beauty products.
I was close.
I talk about the science behindbeauty products.
So I'm on all the social mediaplatforms, which is not great
for my own mental health, butyeah so.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I'm on TikTok Instagram.
Don't worry, We'll get intothat.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, I'm on YouTube as well, so YouTube long form,
not just shorts.
I tried to do Facebook, butdon't really like Facebook.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Twitter is awful.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I will tell you of all the social media sites like
the worst comments you'll getfrom Facebook.
I think it's because people arejust older and they're just
totally set in their ways.
It doesn't matter what you say.
They're just like you're ashill for big pharma, like OK, I
guess so.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
I don't get paid from them, but I apparently.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I just everyone tells me I am, that's okay I'm pretty
sure the only people left onfacebook are over 40.
I feel like every social mediaplatform is terrible in its own
way.
Um, like the facebook is theyeah people who believe a like
any ai photo is completely realand they'll write wonderful.
And then yeah.
And then Twitter is just likethe Elon fans.
And then TikTok is like oh,tiktok is weird.
(02:33):
Tiktok is a mix.
I feel like it starts off badand then, once you get funneled
into like your little bubble,then it's okay.
And then, like, if someonewanders in, they get like
murdered.
Instagram oh, I don't know.
Instagram, it's again.
It's also a bubble thing.
If you wander outside of yourbubble, you realize there's so
much terrible it's terrible outthere, and then you go back to
(02:53):
your safe bubble and it's fine,I think.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Instagram it's easier to get outside your bubble,
though.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
There's a lot of hate on Instagram.
I find it's very.
People will just like losetheir minds at the smallest
thing, whereas tiktok it's moreof a safe bubble the bubble is
thicker.
It is a thicker bubble than ontiktok, than it is on instagram.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
In my yeah, my experience have you guys started
posting to um youtube shorts?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I haven't, because it's a maximum time is 60
seconds.
They only give you 60 seconds,yeah that's probably a problem
for you.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
That's tough.
Yeah, it's weird because thealgorithm like there's so much
less of a bubble on YouTube, youjust get the most weird set of
comments.
It's a bigger range, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And then YouTube long form, I'm assuming is just
people that follow you.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
So it's all like pretty nice, like mostly, oh,
still a mix.
It's not as bad as shorts, butit is still like you will still
get random people and becauseit's more anonymous, I guess, um
, I guess tiktok is true but you, I don't know, maybe it's
partly because I'm also female,um, and I'll just get comments
on like fix your teeth, like,just like that just okay.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
So is it more random on on on youtube, where it's
just like it'll talk about justanything else.
Is that just every site?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
oh, I feel like it's more random, yeah, like you get
served up to more random peopleand they'll just feel the need
to say things like it's verymuch um.
It doesn't feel like anything.
Which one is which?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
one is your favorite.
It's very much like the wholething.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Which one's your favorite to post on.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
People will just say things on the internet and
pretend you're not a human.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Do you have a favorite to post on, or is it
just kind of like yeah, you likelittle things about each of
them?
It doesn't.
You don't really have aspecific favorite.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Oh, I don't think I have a favorite.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, I think instagram is nice because I'm
probably more established there,so my bubble is thicker on
instagram.
The bigger you're following,the thicker the bubble.
Is what we're taking away fromthis, okay, so build up a
following and stay within thatbubble, because when you range
outside of that, your mentalhealth there's a correlating
decrease in your mental healthfor how far you get outside your
bubble pretty much.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
yeah, I think it's like when you're feeling okay,
then try the other platforms andthen, when you can't do it,
just retreat.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
That's great.
Well, I mean, I think so.
First off, what we got to talkabout is because you do stuff
that's, like you know, similarto us and that we try and like
call out some of the fake youknow health claims, but ours are
more focused usually onnutrition, whereas yours is
definitely more on the skincareand you know that side of things
.
So I mean, we could pretty muchstart anywhere, but I think the
(05:32):
place we got to start is thething that you know, one of the
most controversial, the thing Isee probably the most, and you
probably take a guess with that.
I feel like you probablyalready know what I'm saying.
But's, uh, sunscreen.
We see, it's just all the time.
Anytime I bring that up,doesn't matter how thick my
bubble is boy, is that a quote?
It doesn't matter how thick mybubble is.
There's always, there's alwayspeople that just just lose their
(05:57):
mind over over sunscreen, andit's really interesting because
they'll they'll listen toanything else, they'll agree
with anything else I have to say, but as soon as I bring up
sunscreen, they're like no, thisis the one thing that I know is
horrible for everyone andeverything.
And why is that, Dr Wong?
What is causing that?
I'm just genuinely curious.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
That's a good question.
I feel like it's a mix ofthings.
So, first off, I think becausesunscreen is a drug, um, and
because the ingredients insunscreen they have really long,
complicated names likeoxybenzone, avobenzone, and
that's the American version.
Um, in Australia we have thelonger one, so I can't even
remember what the avobenzone oneis, but it's two, two words and
(06:39):
it's like I don't know sevensyllables or something.
Um, but yeah, I think that hasa really big part of it, Cause
you know, even in food it's likestranger danger.
The scarier the ingredientsounds, the more people have
that gut reaction, and I meanpeople's gut reactions.
They're powerful, Like weevolved to have them.
We've had them for millions ofyears.
People just immediately assumeit's got a long name, it
(07:03):
complicated, I can't pronounceit.
Or you hear that even intiktoks I can't even pronounce
the names.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
We've heard that once or twice that's one really big
part.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Um, another big part is because it is a drug in the
us and australia but the us issuch a big influence on the
internet um, because it's a drug, it gets studied a whole bunch.
So you get all these studieswhere they have found tiny
little dangers, because that'sthe whole point.
They want to make sure they've,like, really fleshed out the um
evidence base and then they'llbe able to pick up on tiny
hazards that have only beenspotted in, like, I think, for
(07:36):
oxybenzone.
Um, like the, the one that theEuropean union actually acts on
is like a tiny change in themale rat fetuses, like some part
of their, like some tube intheir testicles, something like
that.
It's like the tiniest littlechange and that's where they
actually set the limit.
But because you're seeing thatchange, you're seeing like all
(07:58):
these other changes in, like ratbiomarkers, and because we've
got that level of detail, it'sreally easy to just go on Google
Scholarscreens, hazards, andthen you'll get a million
results compared to, like Idon't know, something really
unstudied like um strawberryextract or something.
Um, you're not going to get thesame sort of level of results
and detail of study.
So the ewg and organizationslike that.
(08:21):
They can just pick up all theselike tiny, tiny, tiny things,
make it look like a whole bunch,and then people are
automatically scared.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Oh, the EWG.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
For the people who don't know what the EW, the
environmental working group.
Why don't you?
What's your take on theenvironmental working group?
What's your honest opinion?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
I feel like, since you you're both in the nutrition
space, I feel like you probablyhave way more feelings about it
than I do, because I mean,their core has always been the
dirty dozen right, it's alwaysjust been pesticides, food, and
they've only relatively recentlyI mean it has been like 15
years or something but it's anewer branch of their I don't
(09:02):
know their octopus-re reachingscale, where they've got the
Skin Deep database.
So their big shtick in beautyis they'll take an ingredients
list and then they'llautomatically match it to
entries in their database.
And their database is just likefull of any study they found
that has any sort of negativeconnotation.
It's all just in there.
(09:22):
And, of course, like sunscreeningredients, tons of studies
where it's negative, tons ofstudies where it's positive.
But you don't see those.
You just see the giant list ofnegatives.
Parabens giant list, becausethey were the most popular
preservatives.
Tons of studies on them, newpreservative, less studies, less
positive studies, but also lessnegative studies.
So completely safe.
You'll even look up like thesame ingredient under a
(09:45):
different name.
And the ewg has two separateentries.
One is like six out of ten forhazard, the other one is one out
of ten and it's simply becausetheir database is based on vibes
based they do not take intoaccount the dosage at all yeah,
basically that's likethe biggest problem with clean
(10:06):
beauty, I assume in nutrition aswell.
It's just like it's, it's alljust vibes.
There's nothing quantitative um, because that info isn't there.
So it's not actually possibleto do this.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
You do have to at some point trust the scientists
who are making the products it'sbasically like if you just got
rid of the core base oftoxicology and then instead
fully leaned into if it'snatural, it's good.
That fallacy kind of that'sbasically the way I see the
environment, the EWG.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
They claim that they're nonpartisan, unbiased,
whatever, but they actuallystarted out as an anti-GMO lobby
group, so they areanti-scientific advancement,
basically.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Basically, I think your point to your point, dr
Wong, though it's so truebecause you can find you can
call me Michelle.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
That makes me feel like I'm like a middle-aged GP.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
To your point, michelle.
I like what you said about howyou can just find negative
studies on these ingredients,because you can find that in
nutrition.
I mean you can look up variousdifferent uh additives,
preservatives, uh, bhts when Isee a lot, lots of stuff like
that, these antioxidants butyou're going to find so much
more when it comes to somethinglike that's classified as a drug
, like you look at.
(11:25):
Actually, if you look atsomething with skincare longer
names, more studies and so yeah,people are probably just gonna
it's just more ammo, it's moreammo for those people to say, oh
no, that's bad because of thisstudy I found right yeah, and
also, um, I guess it's also thereporting as well.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
So, because it's been more studied.
There's been all thesesunscreen stories in the news.
In late 2019, early 2020, theFDA started looking into
sunscreen regulation again,which is great.
You would hope that yourregulatory body is re-examining
things based on your evidence.
And they did a study where theyfound that they had this
assumption, which was I believeit was something like five
(12:06):
nanograms per mil.
If less than that was gettingit, it was some sort of
threshold.
If less than that was gettinginto the blood, they just
assumed it was safe because,like, the number of molecules in
there would just not be enoughto elicit any sort of real
harmful effect.
But then they realized it wasabove that, and so they
published a paper that madeheadlines.
It was all this like sunscreensare getting into your blood and
(12:32):
it's like actually it's becausethe FDA has, like special rules
around drug regulation.
People have known thatsunscreens have been getting
into the blood in the EU.
Like.
The regulators have recognizedthis and based their safety
assessments on this since, likeI think, 1997.
It was one of the earlieststudies, but, yeah, that just
kept making the news because ofthese differences in drug
regulation as well, and alsopart of it is actually, at the
(12:53):
moment, animal testing.
So the US requires particularanimal tests for drugs, which,
again, like people say, animaltesting is a really bad thing.
But it's actually a positivesign that the regulators care a
lot like that they're forcingpeople to do these somewhat
unethical studies these days,like back in the day.
Obviously the ethics haveevolved, but, yeah, like, the
(13:18):
fact that this is still arequirement is actually a sign
that regulations are strict.
So, yeah, the lack of animaltesting is actually one of the
reasons why the FDA is stillsaying chemical sunscreens
aren't safe and effective,because this data doesn't exist,
because in the EU, sunscreensare cosmetics and so they're not
allowed to be tested on animals.
(13:39):
But anyway, yeah, so a lot ofthe things that people are
pointing to as signs of poorregulation are actually signs of
good regulation strictregulation.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Interesting.
So what is your take, then, onthis?
So the thing I see all the timeis don't get chemical
sunscreens, because basically ithas the word chemical in it,
that's essentially it.
And instead you should getmineral sunscreens.
Yeah, I know chemical, right,the word chemical in it, that's
essentially.
And instead you should getmineral sunscreens.
Yeah, I know chemical, right.
And so, like I've seen you talka lot about mineral sunscreens
and how maybe they're not quiteas effective, uh, but you know,
(14:12):
give us a little, can you?
Yeah, can you give us a littlerundown, because that I'm sure
that's something we'll get askedabout.
Should I just always get amineral-based sunscreen over a
chemical-based one?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
yeah, that's a really good question and it's one of
the most common questions thatcomes up.
So, first off, as you bothalluded to, everything is a
chemical.
The minerals which I use, zincoxide, titanium dioxide
literally those are ionic namesfor chemicals.
Like that's how it works Metalname, non-metal name.
So, yeah, first of that, Iguess, like what it really comes
(14:42):
down to always is, the bestsunscreen is the one you will
actually use, and that means ithas to fit your budget.
It has to be enjoyable enoughthat you will apply a lot of it
and reapply it regularly, likeit's literally just down to that
.
Whichever one works for you.
Now, if we go down a bit morecomplicated, um, I would
generally recommend, if you havesensitive skin, maybe look at a
(15:03):
mineral sunscreen or anoverseas chemical sunscreen so
not US, because you haven'tallowed the newer ones because
of the animal testingrequirements.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Right, okay.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
So the newer chemical sunscreens are they're just
nicer to use, really that's themain thing.
They're larger, so they don'tget into skin as easily.
So if you are worried about anysort of endocrine effects, they
are, like just by default saferalthough those aren't really a
big concern as well and they'rejust nicer to use and they're
more effective.
(15:33):
So there's less of it thatneeds to be in the product for
it to work.
Well, if you really don't likewhite cast, if you really care
about a light feel and your skinis not particularly sensitive,
then chemical sunscreens areprobably going to be more
enjoyable.
Now, if we go to safetyspecifically, I guess by default
mineral sunscreens are arguablysafer because they have larger
(15:57):
particles.
They're actually solidparticles ground into a powder.
They're just not going to getinto your skin.
Exception would be spraysunscreens and powder sunscreens
, because those particles canget into your lungs and that's
also not great.
But yeah, in terms of skinpenetration, that's the case.
But if we look at how safe allthe sunscreens are, in general
(16:18):
they're very safe.
I mentioned earlier that thelimits are generally based on
these tiny, tiny effects inanimals.
So for oxybenzone, the EUrecently lowered their limit and
, yeah, it was based on thetiniest change in a male rat
fetus.
So hopefully everyone is awarethat when you're pregnant, you
(16:38):
just can't do things because youcan't eat sushi, raw cheese,
that kind of of thing, becausefetuses are in a vulnerable
state.
It's like the most vulnerablestate, um, as humans.
So, um, yeah, like the changein a time, a tiny change in a
malar at fetus not even like achange that's really negative.
I think it was like the lengthof a particular part of the
(17:01):
testicles, like tini change.
That's the sort of triggerpeople are using.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
But it could be negative.
That's the thing it could be.
That's basically what I feellike with like diet sodas and
like sucralose, or like itdamages your gut microbiome.
I'm like, well, it possiblyalters your gut microbiome, we
don't know Like it could be bad.
It could be bad, it could bebeneficial, we just don't know.
But it's just easy to say, oh,that's a change, so it's
(17:27):
therefore bad because I don'tlike this thing.
I already don't like this thing, so it changed.
Another thing that means thisthing is bad.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
therefore, yeah, and a lot of people don't realize
that toxicology is based onfetuses and embryos and pregnant
women.
The limits are set for theseunborn children and unborn rats
in this case.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah, one myth I see a lot is pregnant women are told
not to use chemical sunscreensbecause it could harm their
fetus.
It's like, well, these safetylimits were based on male rat
fetuses.
Not only that, but also it'slike in the in the eu and also
usually the fda does this aswell.
Um, the limit is one percent ofthe amount that would cause
(18:11):
that change.
So not only is is this likeextremely high bar for safety,
it's like that bar is 100 timeshigher than what is actually
allowed.
So the EU I believe it was 2.2%oxybenzone that they're now
allowing.
The US and the old EU limit was6%, so you would actually need
600% to get that male rat fetuschange.
(18:34):
There's so many caveats, likeif humans were like rats, if you
applied the maximum amountevery single day tons of stuff.
They also like, I think likeeven with skin absorption, they
were like they tested a range ofdifferent skin absorptions, got
a bunch of different resultsand they were like, well, we've
got a range, so we're going togo with the high, we're going to
assume the highest absorption,and so, yeah, there's just tons
(18:57):
and tons of margins of safetybuilt on top of each other.
So, yeah, chemical sunscreensgenerally are extremely safe.
They've also been used for areally long time, especially the
ones in the US, which are theones people tend to freak out
about.
There's a really long historyof safe use.
Plus, it's protecting you fromsomething that is bad, which is
UV.
There's a huge body of evidenceshowing that UVv causes skin
(19:21):
cancer.
Um causes other things too, like, I mean, if you care about your
how your skin looks, um, thenit increases pigmentation.
So if you have melasma, anysort of uneven pigment makes
that worse, increases wrinkles.
Um causes immunosuppression.
Um, so, yeah, there's like awhole bunch of things that it's
protecting against.
So it's always this like riskbenefit, exactly.
(19:43):
But yeah, and of course, thereare also risks with the mineral
sunscreen.
So I mentioned um inhalation.
That's actually one of thereasons why, um spray mineral
sunscreens are bad, because ifyou inhale the tiny
nanoparticles, it is possiblethat it can cause lung
inflammation, which could leadto other.
I can't remember exactly.
It is possible that it cancause lung inflammation which
could lead to other.
I can't remember exactly whatit is.
I believe it's.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
But what if I want to tan my lungs?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
That's what's new.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Well, you shouldn't inhale the sunscreen, which you
shouldn't have done anyway, sowe all win.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
But what you are saying is we should buy a
mineral sunscreen and not makeit at home.
Okay, because for everybodylistening, my favorite video
that michelle did was coveringpaul saladino making his own
mineral sunscreen.
I, I loved this video so much.
Was it complete nonsense?
Of course it was.
Basically he took, you knowthis, he took a cake uh, was it
one of those cake mixers?
You know those little handmixer things and tried to blend
(20:38):
up and make his own sunscreenout of.
I don't know.
It was like beef tallow andlike some sort of.
I don't even remember what itwas, but it was so great.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
I just he's like you can eat it too.
I'm like okay, I guess thatmeans it's safe, it's so good,
well, well, ironically, um, inthe food space there's that
whole like titanium dioxide andm&M's thing, um, yeah, which is
like well, I mean, now he'seating the mineral sunscreen
like titanium dioxide is theother.
(21:06):
I guess he technically wasprobably using zinc, um.
But yet one of the big problemswith mineral sunscreens why I
would argue that it's often lesssafe is, first, off, white,
cast like it's white, so youapply less, and the less you
have, the more space there isfor UV to get into your skin,
right.
But the second thing is becauseit's white, so you apply less,
and the less you have, the morespace there is for uv to get
into your skin, right.
But the second thing is becauseit's solid particles.
Solid particles like to sticktogether, like particles like to
(21:27):
clump, um, it's just physics,right, um, and yeah.
So if you have a mineralsunscreen, if you leave it in
any sort of heat, it tends tojust settle and separate and
clump and then when it clumps,then I mean with sunscreen you
need the particles to spread outso they cover up your skin.
If they clump, you've got likelumps on your skin, you've got
gaps, um, and so mineralsunscreens tend to be less
(21:50):
stable.
If you look at um, consumerreports, they do this sunscreen
study sort of thing.
It's like a modified version ofthe official SPF test.
But, um, if you look at whichsunscreens fail, it's usually a
modified version of the officialSPF test, but if you look at
which sunscreens fail, it'susually a whole bunch of mineral
sunscreens.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Because of that problem, the clumping problem,
Okay, so yeah, basically, I mean, I think, just pick the one
that you have access to, you canafford, that, you can apply
enough.
Yeah, so can you clue me in onthis, because I know the sheer
basics about sunscreen.
So I know there's SPF okay,right, and the higher the SPF,
(22:27):
the more UV it blocks right, itblocks, but it's not like SPF 40
is like twice as good as SPF 20, right?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
It actually is.
Oh, okay.
That's what I meant to say Iknew, I knew that.
No, it's a really common myth,and part of the reason it's such
a common myth is because theAmerican Academy of Dermatology
has it on their website andsunscreen scientists have
written letters into peerreviewed journals complaining
about this.
Um, without naming them, Ithink, which might've been where
(23:00):
they went wrong.
Um, but yeah, so, um, I guessthe so the explanation is um,
back in the day, when they wereworking out how to name, how to
like, rate different sunscreens,they actually picked spf
because it was proportional toprotection in terms of how much
uv is getting in.
So a spf 50 sunscreen willblock one on, will only let in
(23:22):
one on 50 of the uv.
Um spf 30 will let in one on 30.
So that's the conversion, um,and this is specifically skin
reddening uv.
So the burning stuff, um, yeah,so if you're using spf 15
versus 30, then spf 15 isletting in twice as much uv,
which is what you care about,right, like you don't care about
(23:43):
what's not hitting your skin,you care about what's coming in.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Right, Okay, so what do you recommend for just the
average person, Like do I need a50?
Should I grab?
Like does it just depend?
Like what's the deal?
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Generally, I would just go for as high as you can,
because back in the day theywould argue that higher SPF
sunscreens were more expensive,less nice to use, and these days
that's just not the case.
There are tons of really niceSPF 50 sunscreens that are fine
and it actually helps with underapplication.
(24:18):
Most people do not apply enoughsunscreen.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Most people apply a third to half of the amount they
should be applying and SPF isvery roughly scaled with amount,
Because obviously I know howmuch to apply and I'm just
asking for the people listeningbut for those people, how much
should they be applying?
Speaker 1 (24:34):
So if it's literally just your face, it's somewhere
around a quarter teaspoon.
Or there's this like two fingerthing.
So if you apply two likefat-ish lines on your fingers,
that's just your face For yourwhole body.
It's a shot glass which is, Ithink, 35-ish mils, and if you
want to divide it into differentparts very roughly, it's one
teaspoon per leg and arm, oneteaspoon for your face, head,
(24:59):
head, ears and neck, oneteaspoon for the front of your
torso, neck.
One teaspoon for the front ofyour torso, one teaspoon for the
back of your torso and how manylines for coating my lungs your
lungs are like what was it likearea of a tennis court or
something right, so a lot sobasically a lot of
Speaker 2 (25:17):
lines of sunscreen when you're going to the beach
to get wasted and you have yourshot glass, just fill that up
first with sunscreen, then apply.
Then you can consume your toxicalcohol in that, in the shot
afterwards.
So it's all about a balancingact, right, like you, it's not
toxic if you add bobby'selectrolytes.
(25:37):
I'm I'm gonna make sure I don'tget skin cancer, but esophageal
cancer, gastric cancer, youknow, like you know, it's all,
it's all, it's all a balancingact.
Which cancer is better?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
oh, that's great I think another thing that plays
into people, um, not uh,thinking that higher spF is
better, is when you look at thefractions.
People see, you know, one over50, that's 98%.
You go to SPF 100, you're onlygoing from 98 to 99.
So they see that it's 1%increase and they're like well,
(26:12):
that's not worth it.
But 1% can actually be a lot.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, if you think about it in terms of what gets
through.
So 99% blocked, that's 1% goingthrough.
98% blocked, that's 2% goingthrough.
98% blocked, that's 2% goingthrough You're getting twice as
many UV photons getting intoyour skin.
And also the 99% 98%, that'sonly if you apply the perfect
amount perfectly like completelyevenly that shot glass,
completely evenly all over yourbody.
(26:37):
No one does that.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
There are studies showing that no one does that.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
So if you underapply, if you apply half the amount,
you get 99 divided by two versus, yeah, 98 divided by two and so
on.
So you're actually not gettingas much.
And there are a couple ofstudies, although they are
funded by Neutrogena, sopossible conflict of interest,
but it matches with every othertype of evidence we have.
If they did a couple of studieswhere they got people I think
(27:06):
one was skiing, they had an SPF100 and an SPF 50, and they just
got people to apply as much asthey wanted, like SPF 50 on one
half of their face, spf 100 onthe other half, and consistently
it was people were getting moreburnt on the SPF 50 side.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
I mean, I'm a ginger, so I just literally apply as
much as I possibly can until I'mlike so slippery that you know
somebody goes to hug me, and I'mjust like what's up with me?
Speaker 2 (27:34):
uh, so like vitamin d , because that's one.
One thing I always hear is likedon't apply sunscreen because
then you're not going to get thevitamin D you need.
So is that a thing?
Do we need to worry about that?
What's going on?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
So it is a thing that a lot of people aren't getting
enough vitamin D, and it's sucha thing that Australia put out
these guidelines, which most ofthe world has followed, except
the US.
The US seems to be quiteresistant to this.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, number one, and not listening to anybody else.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Freedom seems to be quite resistant to this.
Yeah, number one, and notlistening to anybody else,
freedom.
It's honestly weird.
Like I don't want to do like abig pharma conspiracy, but I
feel like part of it might belike because you don't have a
really like socialised publichealth system as much as
everywhere else and you don'thave restrictions, but anyway.
So the Australian guidelines,which I believe they're not
(28:20):
quite peer-reviewed yet, butthey're made by the peak bodies,
so it's going to pass.
Um, basically the guidelinesare if it's uv actually this is
the old guidelines.
They've improved it recently.
The old guidelines were um, ifit's uv index of three or above,
wear sunscreen.
If it's below, don't wearsunscreen.
If the uv index is really low,purposely seek out a bit of sun
(28:43):
during the day.
Um, like, purposely expose somebody parts.
The newer guidelines are waymore detailed and they actually
do it by skin color.
So one, uh, the big problem wasthat, um, some immigrants were
getting um rickets, like theykids were getting rickets, which
is like I don't know.
To me it feels like a charlesdickens kind of condition.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, like vitamin D deficiency messes up your bones,
um, and so they've changed itto skin color as well.
So those old um guidelines werefor white people, which is most
of Australia, but now they'vegone for um.
If you have darker skin and ifyou have different risks, like
if you have a family history ofskin cancer, then you go more
one way.
If you don't, then you go morethe other way, and they've also
(29:26):
done it by the amount of skinyou expose and by city.
It's so detailed.
It's really interesting and Ithink more people should know
about this.
They've got these tables wherethey go.
If you're exposed, like ifyou're wearing fully covered,
you need this much sun to getenough vitamin D.
In Melbourne in winter, if youcover up, like if you leave out
(29:48):
your arms and legs, you needthis much sun, like it's so
detailed, but in general it is.
If you wear sunscreen, it seemslike that doesn't really affect
your vitamin D that much,because you are probably going
into the sun.
You probably didn't applyperfectly because no one does,
and so you're still going to getenough vitamin D through the
gaps.
The big problem seems to beclothing that covers you up and
just not going outside.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
Yeah, another thing people forget is that light
bounces and so if you're sittingin the shade you're still
getting some light.
And just take your sweater off,get, get, let the skin actually
absorb something while you'resitting in the shade yeah, um.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
So one thing that is really interesting is um the
amount of uv you get if you'rein the middle of a field.
Um, about very roughly.
About 40 of the uv you'regetting is directly from the sun
shining on you and about 60 isthe blue sky bouncing it onto
you.
So if you're sitting in theshade you're not getting any of
that 40% direct.
But if you're seeing like halfof the sky, then you're getting
(30:47):
like 50% of the 60%, which isstill 30% of the UV if you're
standing, like literally in thesunny field.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Wow, no kidding.
Oh, is that why?
So when people go to themountains, they go up in the
snow and like the snow bouncesall the light then they just get
destroyed by the sun and theyes, yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
I've seen so many people.
They think it like it's, it wassuch a thing.
Um, people think it's likewindburn and stuff like that.
No, it's, it's a sunburn, it'sjust so many people that go out
in the snow and they won'tprotect themselves and like
their face will just be red yeah, because I don't think people
realize like how common likeskin skin cancer is.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Like how many cases of skin cancer are there every
year?
There's like a kajillion, it's.
It's, it's insane.
I mean, it's so common and wejust kind of like I feel like a
lot of just kind of shrug it off, like, oh yeah, sunscreen I'm
supposed to have.
That it's kind of like brushingyour teeth.
I'm not talking about anybodyparticular, especially not
myself.
It's like, yeah, I kind of doit here and there and it's not
that you know, I just do it whenI remember but like it is
actually something that we do itmore than paul does?
Speaker 3 (31:51):
who doesn't believe in brushing his teeth and
washing his body?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
no, no no, no, no.
I saw in a recent video hebrushes his teeth, but he
doesn't use microplastic.
He doesn't use plastic becauseof microplastics and he doesn't
use toothpaste, he just useslike a bristle no, he uses like,
like I don't know horse hairs,like it's like some kind of it's
like some kind of hair orsomething and he's just like,
just like, shoves it around onhis teeth and like to get rid of
(32:16):
the debris and I'm like, hey,that's better than nothing right
like that.
It's better than nothing, but umyeah it's so good paul for for
operating it's so good, so yeah,so oh.
People always always ask mewhenever I bring up sunscreen,
benzene people always like I'mgetting so much benzene, like,
and I know that's a big concern.
(32:38):
Give us, can you give us like alittle like a comparison,
because I know like you'll getlike as much benzene like I
don't know like living in a city, right, you just breathe that
shit, yeah, whereas like in howmuch are you getting through
sunscreen?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
like very little right yeah, so, oh, I'm working
on a really long video on this,because the lab that detected
the benzene they have a bit of asus history.
Um, it's it's video.
But yeah, so this lab this is alab called Valishaw and they've
been announcing that they'vedetected benzene in lots of
(33:08):
different products over theyears.
So sunscreen in 2021, also handsanitizers just before that,
antiperspirants, dry shampoo.
The newest one is benzoylperoxide, which is an acne
treatment.
So the newest one is benzoylperoxide, which is an acne
treatment, but before that, theywere actually also the people
who first alerted people aboutNDMA in Zantac, but it turns out
(33:31):
they're not very good atmeasuring things in my opinion
Is that important.
Yeah, because I mean, it's thedose that's important, right?
So, yeah, if you're measuringit, and it's the dose that's
important, right?
Um, so yeah, if you'remeasuring it, um, and it's like
if something is too high, youonly know if it's too high if
you've measured it accurately.
Um, yeah, so with sunscreen,the amounts they detected were
(33:53):
somewhere around um.
I think the highest was sixparts per million and they made
it sound really, really scarybecause they put it in like
nanograms, which is like it was.
It was like I don't know600,000 nanograms, which is like
for a normal person it's likesix milligrams.
But anyway, they reallysensationalized their findings
(34:14):
for various reasons, which Iwill speculate about in this
video which I am currentlyworking on.
But yeah, so the amounts werenot as bad as people think.
They keep on saying that it's aknown human carcinogen.
There's no safe level, but yeah, the background benzene we get
is quite a lot.
So benzene is in petrol, um orgasoline, if you're yeah,
(34:35):
america petrol.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
What the hell is that ?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
that is gasoline.
My american friends yeah, soyou're.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
You are getting more of that when you're filling in
you're filling up your car thanyou are from sunscreen.
You're getting more of it whenyou're breathing um yeah,
especially if you live in a cityyeah, and indoors like indoors
is worse than outdoors, becausebenzene is also used for making
things like paint and furniture.
It's's all just off-gassing.
So, yeah, the amount you'regetting is really tiny.
(35:05):
If you convert it to like theincrease in cancer risk, get an
increase of like 0.00, like thistiniest fraction.
If you keep inhaling it for therest of your life continuously,
it's just not a huge deal.
Well, it's not as big a deal asthe media is making it out to
be.
Like it's not good to breathemore benzene.
Lowering benzene is great, butthe things you should care about
(35:27):
Sunscreen is not high on thelist, because you don't use that
much sunscreen.
You don't use it all year round, or most people don't.
You don't use it on your bodythe whole year round, so you're
not using the large amounts thatthey were calculating for it on
your body the whole year round,so you're not using the large
amounts that they werecalculating for, um, well,
valley Shore were calculatingfor Um, yeah, so the thing you
should probably care about.
(35:48):
This is from, like, probablythe top benzene toxicologist, um
, when he was interviewed aboutthis sunscreen story.
It's not um.
If you're really wanting toreduce your exposure, park your
car outside of your garagegarage if your garage is
attached to your house, becausethat petrol evaporation goes
into your house and breathing alow level for a longer period of
time is actually worse for youthan high levels, very um over
(36:12):
very short terms.
Yeah, so the benzene itselfisn't carcinogenic.
Your body turns it intosomething carcinogenic.
They're low capacity, whichmeans that if you get a whole
bunch at once, you actually getless cancer than if you get a
(36:34):
low amount over a longer amountof time.
Yeah, this is from um mo, atoxicologist who is mo skin lab.
He's great.
If people want to know moreabout the safety behind
cosmetics, definitely follow himon instagram.
He does really good stuff andthere's just not that many
toxicologists who aren'tcomplete quacks on social media
well, that's true for all.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Like social media is just where it brings in the
quacks, because I mean, that'show you sell your shit, right,
like that's, yeah, the mostpopular toxicologist, I think,
is like the?
Speaker 1 (37:01):
um, the one who sells a some toxicology course and
keeps telling people thatcandles are killing them.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Um, I feel like you might have come across her.
Does he have his own candles?
Yeah, does he have his owncandles that he sells.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
She's attached to like some clean living store.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Smart.
See, this is the thing, this iswhat we need.
It's like Dave Asprey.
He's always like oh, there'smolds in our coffee.
Also, I sell this coffee Likehere you go, like that's the way
to do it, man, like that's theway to do it.
Man, I'm telling you.
But you know, here's what I'mthinking.
Here's what I'm thinking.
It's like something likesunscreen, where we all kind of
it's one of those things where alot of people kind of
collectively just roll theireyes like yeah, I know, I should
put it on.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(37:39):
But when you see something likeon the news where it's a little
sensationalized, and you seethem talking about possible
negatives, even not even justlike confirmed, just like, oh,
this is possible, that's that'sthe slightest possibility,
that's enough for people to go.
Oh, like I already wasn'tprobably gonna do it, now I'm
definitely not gonna do it rightand I think it.
Just it gets left out that,like you're saying the cost
(37:59):
benefit ratio, like, is thereyou can think vaccines, another
good one, like, is therepotential for a reaction?
Sure, but the net benefit is soinsanely so massive that you
please do it.
Please.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Like I understand, I understand there might be some
potential, possibly, maybewhatever negative, but it's just
do it like and it's alwaysfunny that like they're scared
of the benzene causing cancer,but so does the sun yeah, like
literally the sun is a knownhuman carcinogen with no safe
level as well.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Like literally the same class and the dose you're
getting of sun is so much higherbecause, like, if you just look
at the raw amounts of peoplegetting um, benzene related
leukemia versus sun related skincancer, it's just not
comparable.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
But I just I see Go ahead, it's fine, it's fine.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
For all our listeners .
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Liam's just, you know , crying into his hands he's got
the whole facepalm going on, Isee so many videos of people
that are like we're doing thebest thing for humans.
Right now.
We're outside naked in thewilderness soaking up every sun
molecule there is, and we're notdoing any of that poisons,
(39:19):
while they're like also smokinga pipe or some shit.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Gotta tan your taint.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
And it's just like what are you?
And it just it always, italways comes back to this
natural is better fallacy, andI'm so tired of it, but I'm
never gonna hear the end of itlike I, and I think it's because
we've pushed towards like I, Idon't know like, because the
whole thing with gmos we werejust talking about, with like
the environmental working group,like anything, science has
(39:45):
become just concerning at theleast and bad at the most, and
it's just so frustrating becausenow it's just yeah, everything
natural is good, so get outthere, get as much UV as
possible, I don't know, eatrandom mushrooms in the forest,
because I'm sure that's fine,get bitten by a snake Because,
like, at the same time, we'vebeen getting more videos of
(40:08):
Americans coming to Australiaand picking up blue ring
octopuses, which are like super,super toxic so I wonder if that
is like that's.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
I feel like that's related.
Um, yeah, australia, like I'mpretty sure I've never seen a
nate.
Oh no, I've definitely seen a.
Nature is good for you video inaustralia which is just daft.
Like from birth we're taughtabout spiders and snakes and you
know spiders are.
Spiders are nice.
If they're over there, don'tfreak out, stay away from them.
But yeah, but americans, youhave bears.
(40:40):
Bears are awful, like you canrun away like spiders.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
You have a chance against a spider you have no
chance against a bear no, I meanbears are warm and cuddly.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
What are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (40:54):
what is it?
Speaker 3 (40:54):
I've only had to save one person from a bear so far
oh, what's the saying?
Speaker 2 (40:59):
it's like black if it's black, be aggressive.
If it's brown, lay down, and ifit's white, good night.
Like that's the saying, because, like polar, bears will just
kill you.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
no matter what Polar bears, do not mess with a polar
bear.
Also, do not mess with a moose.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
So now welcome to Moose Talk.
This is where we go over howall animals are dangerous and
you shouldn't have any pets,because everybody's trying to
kill you.
Because everybody is trying tokill you, but yeah.
I'm just frustrated and I justneed to get it out because it's
(41:37):
just, it's so annoying and it'sjust it's.
It's like with everything.
It always swings back and forth, right, like I remember when,
like I mean, I don't remember, Iwasn't alive, but I remember,
like you look at something likebaby formula.
Like when baby formula came out, it was like, ooh, science,
like science is better thannature, so more women would like
use baby formula.
And then it kind of swungbackwards Like oh no, this is,
(42:00):
this is poison, basically,basically created for babies.
And now everything natural isbetter.
And I'm sure we'll just swingback around like the other way.
It's just always goes back andforth.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
And it's just always like we always have to go back
and forth between the extremes,right it's.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
It's so frustrating.
It's like can we have a littlefucking nuance?
So there's something you'd like.
You're saying like I love whatyou're talking about.
We're like, oh, the newguidelines like there's a lot of
nuance for each situation, butthat's boring.
That's boring.
I don't want nuance.
It is a lot of tables that it'sa lot of tables.
Yeah, that's dry and I want youto just to give me the extremes
on everything and just I don'tknow, and I'll just wing it.
(42:36):
I guess I'm done.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
I mean part of it is also just like a lot of the time
traditional science justdoesn't respect SciComm, which
is what we're all doing rightLike.
I mean, like the lack of goodpsych on is part of all our
origin stories.
That's why we started going onthe Internet and making these
(42:59):
videos and trying to communicateit to people Because, I mean,
public health has kind ofdropped the ball in a lot of
places on that side, on thecommunication side, on the like
sort of empathy side, they'vejust kind of assumed that the
old tactics worked in this newsocial media age.
And there are clients like I'vebeen talking to some um, some
academics in australia who workin skin cancer research and like
they see the problem andthey're more interested in like
(43:19):
adapting their strategies.
But it's just slow and alsojust like.
I don't know how much you'veworked in science, but in
general scientists, like thescience community just doesn't
care about SciComm.
Like they're like why would youdo SciComm?
Why aren't you in the lab?
Why aren't you just working onresearch?
Your life is worthless If youcare about like teaching,
education.
(43:39):
That's all like.
And it does like kind of comeback down to misogyny.
I think as well Part of thetime, like it is that whole,
like teaching is not what youshould be doing.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
And yeah, it's, it's a mess.
There's a lot of reasons.
Yeah, that's fair, so all islost and give up.
But seriously though, um, whatwould you give?
I'm so, I want, I don't, Idon't want to leave people all
like bad, okay, so like you do alot of things with skincare,
like can you give us some?
Like I'm getting older, I'm 32,I'm in tiktok years, I'm like
ancient, like what?
What do I do for like my skinto?
like you know be make it betterfor longer, less bad for more
(44:21):
time.
Like what am I, what should,what's?
Speaker 1 (44:22):
bad more time less bad, more time.
What should I do?
for less bad, more time well, Ithink, on the good side.
I think a lot of people whocare about skincare have really
turned towards science, becauseI I mean, that is how you get
better skin and you can see thebetter results.
And as humans, we just caremore about short-term things.
Cancer is far away, butwrinkles are really close.
(44:43):
Everyone has this sort of gap,but sunscreen is the best for
both.
So sunscreen is definitely good.
The best supported ingredientswould probably be retinoids,
specifically tretinoin and theprescription retinoids.
So tretinoin, differin is overthe counter.
Now there's also tazaritin, sothose are like the drug
(45:05):
retinoids which are actuallyapproved for anti-aging.
Differin isn't, but there'senough evidence that I feel like
it should soon.
Retinol is also great.
Retinol is over the counter.
The best brands are probablyNeutrogena and ROC, because they
know how to stabilize it andthey were also involved in the
Tretinoin research.
Yeah, so the drug research hasalso filtered into anti-aging,
(45:28):
which is great.
Yeah, I think in general, ifyou don't care about how your
skin looks that much, sunscreenis still good.
Cleanser and moisturizer,especially if your skin feels
like tight or uncomfortable,moisturizer is good for that.
And then, yeah, add a retinol,maybe add some exfoliants, so
chemical exfoliants help yourskin shed itself better because,
(45:50):
as as we like, our skin justresponds to its environment.
So if you're in a drierenvironment, your skin cells
just don't shed as well.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Um I imagine that's pretty important for people who
have acne trouble.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
Yes, yeah so acne a lot of the time comes from when
you're well.
One of the contributing factorsis your skin cells aren't
shedding properly and so theyclump up and clog your pores.
Um, yeah so chemicals, foliantslike salicylic acid, glycolic
acid, lactic acid are great forsmoothing out your skin.
Um, giving that like glass skinlook that everyone wants and,
yeah, clearing up your pores oh,I mean, I don't want that.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
I want that weathered old man who just came out of a
cave in the same, we're alldifferent.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
Some of us want to look young and beautiful.
Other of us want to look like Ijust walked out of a cave after
30 years oh, that's what I'mgoing for, right there um, since
he brought it, since robbrought it up, I just like
people always ask me like oh,what's the connection between
like diet and like acne?
Do you have like any insight?
(46:52):
I've seen some things like oh,high sugar diet might be, might
cause some acne for some people.
I've heard things on dairy.
Do you have anything kind of onthat realm?
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Yeah, so there's so many problems with nutrition
studies, like you two havetalked about them heaps, but in
skin, um, like, the biggestissue is always, like they're
mostly done on college-agedmales because, um, they need to
participate in studies to getclass credits, um, so those are
always the subjects, um, andacne is so hormonal that, yeah,
(47:25):
gender makes a big difference,um, or sex, rather, makes a big
difference in terms of thehormones, because androgens are
one of the contributing factorsto acne.
In terms of the studies thatexist, the best evidence is for
high sugar and dairy, but ofcourse, you see tons of people
(47:45):
who eat tons of sugar, tons ofdairy, no acne, so it's a really
complicated multifactorialcondition.
Um, and it seems like thethings that work most reliably
for acne for everyone, are notdiet related and there are a lot
less like, they require a lotless of a lifestyle change and
there's a lot less risks thanchanging your diet to get rid of
(48:07):
, like, a really big food group,because, I mean, dairy is a big
part of lots of people's dietsand if you cut out dairy, then
you end up with all sorts ofweird nutritional imbalances, um
, whereas yeah, problem foranother different using benzoyl
peroxide.
um, like, it's not as big of achange.
So, generally, um, diet isn'trecommended, like dietary
(48:30):
changes isn't recommended as anacne treatment.
But if you do want to changelike, if you do want to explore
that, it's a good idea to likecut out one or two foods that
you think might be contributingand then put them back in and
see what happens.
So, experiment on yourself.
Don't make huge radical changeswithout consulting a doctor,
but yeah, chances are othertreatments will work better.
(48:52):
I have a video on this which Idid with a dermatologist, dr
Anjali Mato, who is an acnespecialist.
So, yeah, check that out.
Speaker 3 (49:02):
Whenever people ask me about acne, I tell them
change your bedsheets more.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
It's the simplest life change Low risk and it will
make a huge difference yeah,and even if it doesn't, it'll
make you feel better, which,honestly, oh yeah there's
nothing better than sleeping inclean, warm sheets.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
What do you think about?
Um, the people that talk aboutusing a beef tallow for acne?
Speaker 1 (49:26):
oh man, I mean it's fine, like it's a moisturizer,
like it's a moisturizer, it'sjust a moisturizer.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
Seems expensive.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
One of the interesting things, though, is
beef tallow, actually the fattyacid composition of beef tallow.
There's a lot of saturatedfatty acids, but there's also
oleic acid, which is omega-9.
And there have been studieslinking increased omega-9 to
acne.
And also saturated fat, likecoconut oil, is famous for
causing acne in a lot of peopleagain, not all but um, there is
(49:58):
a bit of a link.
So I feel like tallow maybeisn't the best option, like it's
not the safest compared to seedoils, which are actually linked
to less acne.
Um, but it's more natural,natural, so it's gotta be better
that's how it works like isrubbing like beef fat on your
(50:19):
face really more natural thanrubbing like sunflower seeds,
like I don't know about thisnaturalness thing like you think
back to caveman, surely likeyou wouldn't want to waste the
calories?
Speaker 2 (50:29):
welcome back to what's more natural, that we
changed our podcast.
What's more natural?
Rubbing on beef fat?
Speaker 3 (50:36):
well, I think our next main product needs to be
sunflower acne face masks yeah Idon't know, it's the tello
thing really.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
It's.
It's weird, but like, if itworks for you, that's great.
It's a moisturizer.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
I feel like the people that see benefit from it
are either maybe it's thevitamins in it or the
moisturizer part of it, rather,than the actual beef tallow
itself.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
Yeah, I think if they use coconut oil it would be
similar, and it's weird thatcoconut oil is not cool anymore.
I remember when people wereadding it to everything,
michelle.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
It always goes up and down.
It was cool, now it has to notbe cool.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
We'll get back to it Maybe high demand meant lower
prices and then less affiliatecommissions.
And then now beef tallow israre enough that it's in that
sweet spot for commissions.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
She's figured it out.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Oh, should we get into coconut oil now?
Because it's going to come back.
Like you know, we always knowit's on a pendulum, so maybe we
need to get in when thegetting's good and then we can
sell it when it's good, probablynot a bad idea, and global
warming should make it easier togrow tropical crops right.
See now you're really using yournoodle now, you're really
figuring galaxy brain costbenefit, as we said at the start
(51:58):
of the episode.
This is where you learn yourgrifting techniques exactly it's
cost benefit this the the earthis getting warmer, we are
destroying it, but that meansmore coconuts and we can profit
off that.
There you go and benefit.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
There we go.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Problem solved.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
Oh, liam's just dying .
I'm so over it.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
So, yeah, we got to ask our final question what's
your favorite Oreo?
What's your favorite Oreo?
I don't have one.
We always ask this we don'thave well, I'm in Australia.
Speaker 1 (52:28):
We don't get the good flavors of anything.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
You, I'm in Australia .
We don't get the good flavorsof anything.
You just got your Lake Canada.
It's like Australia, exceptmore dangerous animals.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
Well, they have small dangerous animals.
Speaker 3 (52:41):
We have big dangerous animals.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
You have Americans who cross the border sometimes.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
Oh yeah, we have Americans yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
I think that puts us ahead in the dangerous category.
Speaker 3 (52:49):
I loved you saying America's going over to
Australia.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
Yeah, I think that puts us ahead in the in the
dangerous category, can we?
I love her, you love to saylike America's going over to
Australia and picking up likeoctopus, like that's great.
Can we get that on a shirt ofjust like an American, like, oh,
look at this, that's fantastic.
I love natural, that's what Iwant.
I want that shirt too.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
Well, I'll add it to the list of merch ideas that we
have from like.
Every episode has a merch ideanow.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
Yeah, we got to go back and just pick out some of
these are favorites and thenwe'll just ask, like people what
do you want?
I'm on team picking up octopus.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
We should just start a consulting agency for like how
to shill properly, although,honestly, our ideas aren't that
good.
We should really get like howto shill properly, although,
honestly, our ideas aren't thatgood.
We should really get into thefarmer shill game.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
That's where the money is meant to be.
It's where it is right now.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
That's for sure.
Did you see the report that themakers of Ozempic are under
fire?
Speaker 1 (53:54):
because it's a $ a thousand dollar drug and they
can apparently make it for fivebucks.
That's such an american problem, oh man.
So american coded?
Speaker 2 (53:59):
we already get told to get paid for by big pharma.
We might as well actually makemoney from them, like right or
it's, if we're already there.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
Yeah, I mean they're gonna, they're gonna yell at us
about it anyway but the thing isis like, oh, I did see this
doctor this morning.
He, um, he posted this videothat said like here are four,
four medications every manshould be on, and I think three
of one of them was fish oil, um,but I think three of them were
like, um.
One was like Viagra can'tpronounce the name.
(54:30):
One was metformin um, one withfinasteride, and it's like so
many of the comments were justlike wow, give me more
information.
Whereas, like, and a lot ofthese were like the biohacking
people who are like the type whoare more likely to be like big
pharma shill.
It's like this is actual, likethis is way more big pharma
(54:50):
shilling than what we're doing.
Like we're defending likereally cheap things.
We're talking about how, like,cheap products are fine, that's
not, that's terrible.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
Curious about this now, like, was it actually
viagra like, or was it todalafil?
Speaker 1 (55:03):
yes to dalafil to valafil.
Speaker 3 (55:05):
Okay, that made a little bit more sense.
Speaker 1 (55:07):
Sorry, I, I should know this my phd um, I just
don't care about man drugs, um,but that's fair but yeah, it's
like actual big pharma shillingpeople are seem the same.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
People seem to be fine with that I guess you just
have to phrase it just right andfind the group, yeah, find the
group that you're looking forbiohacking to make sure you have
erections every day biohacking.
So we're interesting, why, why?
Speaker 3 (55:40):
why do normal people need to take to dolophil every
day?
Speaker 2 (55:43):
oh, it's protective of your blood vessels, probably
based on some tiny, started offas like a blood pressure
medication and they were like oh, we can make a lot more money
off the bazoingas.
You know, like we can make moremoney off this, let's make
money off that.
Speaker 3 (55:59):
I thought these were the bazoingas.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
So I was thinking more like I guess bazinga Maybe
what I was thinking of andthat's like an erection, I don't
know.
I was going some direction theb and the bazoingas because the
bazoingas and the bazoingas,there's the male and female.
Um, yeah, we got to get intothe biohacking too.
I think that's a good routebecause, yeah, people and those
people have money, like thebiohackers are the ones that
(56:20):
have money, right, you know,like they're the ones that are
like getting older greens yeah,they've got the money to pay
like athletic greens, like ahundred dollars we could
Speaker 3 (56:28):
I mean there's so much potential, there's so much
potential, there's so muchpotential, so much potential, so
where can everybody find you?
Speaker 1 (56:37):
I'm on all the platforms.
I I have my website,labmuffincom, where I have lots
of articles and honestly, that'sprobably the best place for
people who are more academicallyminded.
Um, but I'm also on instagram,um, tiktok, youtube is probably.
Youtube is probably also better.
I have longer videos there thatgo into more detail, but, um,
yeah, the short videos are funlonger videos for people who
(57:00):
have an attention span longerthan seven seconds yeah, or if
they they want to just put on along thing and do their laundry
oh, there we go I'm gonna putlike a tv over top of my washing
machine.
Speaker 3 (57:15):
I'll just toss youtube up on there, throw the
laundry in, just be like, okaytime to watch some lab.
Baby muffin beauty.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
Baby body bumper make sure you don't use any of those
harsh chemicals in your laundry, though you're gonna want to
use beef towel mixed withcoconut oil.
Those are the only two thingsyou're allowed you can't have an
oil.
Stain the oil.
Uh, she can only use viagra inher clothes make sure the
(57:45):
clothes are nice and stiff.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
Oh, good night everybody and I have a book
that's out for pre-order at themoment.
It's called the science ofbeauty.
It comes out probably in june.
Speaker 3 (58:03):
It's about the science behind every beauty
product I'm gonna like addeverybody's book to my bookshelf
over here so you'll see it upthere eventually.
Amazing, and don't be yourworst.
Speaker 2 (58:18):
And don't be your worst.
welcome.
Everyone is trying to figureout what episode it is.
I saw it.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I saw him trying to figure out which episode it was
thinking about it and he alwayscomes after me for not knowing
what episode is.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
That's all I want to point out, that's it I was
actually going to say welcomeback to learning how to sell
your soul and shill where youlearn every grifting technique.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, that's a long intro.
No wonder you're thinking aboutit.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yeah, I had to think about it.
Today's special guest is LabBaby, muffin, beauty, bumper
Buddy, something like that,something like that.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
It's also a very long name.
It's as long as your intro.
Yeah, but besides Oakley, who Ihave in my lap, we also have Dr
Wong.
How you doing.
Not too bad how are you going?
Well, she's doing a little sad.
I scared her.
I'm sorry, it's okay, I'mscaring her.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
We're just using too long of sentences.
We need to shorten thesentences.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, how are you doing, Dr Wong?
Tell us, why don't youintroduce yourself and give us a
little what you do on thesocial medias?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Sure.
So hi, I'm Dr Michelle Wong,also known as Lab Muffin Beauty
Science.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I was close.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I talk about the science behind beauty products.
I was close.
I talk about the science behindbeauty products.
So I'm on all the social mediaplatforms, which is not great
for my own mental health, butyeah so.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I'm on TikTok Instagram.
Don't worry, We'll get intothat.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, I'm on YouTube as well, so YouTube long form,
not just shorts.
I tried to do Facebook, butdon't really like Facebook.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Twitter is awful.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I will tell you of all the social media sites like
the worst comments you'll getfrom Facebook.
I think it's because people arejust older and they're just
totally set in their ways.
It doesn't matter what you say.
They're just like you're ashill for big pharma, like OK, I
guess so.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
I don't get paid from them, but I apparently.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I just everyone tells me I am, that's okay I'm pretty
sure the only people left onfacebook are over 40.
I feel like every social mediaplatform is terrible in its own
way.
Um, like the facebook is theyeah people who believe a like
any ai photo is completely realand they'll write wonderful.
And then yeah.
And then Twitter is just likethe Elon fans.
And then TikTok is like oh,tiktok is weird.
(02:33):
Tiktok is a mix.
I feel like it starts off badand then, once you get funneled
into like your little bubble,then it's okay.
And then, like, if someonewanders in, they get like
murdered.
Instagram oh, I don't know.
Instagram, it's again.
It's also a bubble thing.
If you wander outside of yourbubble, you realize there's so
much terrible it's terrible outthere, and then you go back to
(02:53):
your safe bubble and it's fine,I think.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Instagram it's easier to get outside your bubble,
though.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
There's a lot of hate on Instagram.
I find it's very.
People will just like losetheir minds at the smallest
thing, whereas tiktok it's moreof a safe bubble the bubble is
thicker.
It is a thicker bubble than ontiktok, than it is on instagram.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
In my yeah, my experience have you guys started
posting to um youtube shorts?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I haven't, because it's a maximum time is 60
seconds.
They only give you 60 seconds,yeah that's probably a problem
for you.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
That's tough.
Yeah, it's weird because thealgorithm like there's so much
less of a bubble on YouTube, youjust get the most weird set of
comments.
It's a bigger range, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And then YouTube long form, I'm assuming is just
people that follow you.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
So it's all like pretty nice, like mostly, oh,
still a mix.
It's not as bad as shorts, butit is still like you will still
get random people and becauseit's more anonymous, I guess, um
, I guess tiktok is true but you, I don't know, maybe it's
partly because I'm also female,um, and I'll just get comments
on like fix your teeth, like,just like that just okay.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
So is it more random on on on youtube, where it's
just like it'll talk about justanything else.
Is that just every site?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
oh, I feel like it's more random, yeah, like you get
served up to more random peopleand they'll just feel the need
to say things like it's verymuch um.
It doesn't feel like anything.
Which one is which?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
one is your favorite.
It's very much like the wholething.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Which one's your favorite to post on.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
People will just say things on the internet and
pretend you're not a human.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Do you have a favorite to post on, or is it
just kind of like yeah, you likelittle things about each of
them?
It doesn't.
You don't really have aspecific favorite.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Oh, I don't think I have a favorite.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, I think instagram is nice because I'm
probably more established there,so my bubble is thicker on
instagram.
The bigger you're following,the thicker the bubble.
Is what we're taking away fromthis, okay, so build up a
following and stay within thatbubble, because when you range
outside of that, your mentalhealth there's a correlating
decrease in your mental healthfor how far you get outside your
bubble pretty much.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
yeah, I think it's like when you're feeling okay,
then try the other platforms andthen, when you can't do it,
just retreat.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
That's great.
Well, I mean, I think so.
First off, what we got to talkabout is because you do stuff
that's, like you know, similarto us and that we try and like
call out some of the fake youknow health claims, but ours are
more focused usually onnutrition, whereas yours is
definitely more on the skincareand you know that side of things
.
So I mean, we could pretty muchstart anywhere, but I think the
(05:32):
place we got to start is thething that you know, one of the
most controversial, the thing Isee probably the most, and you
probably take a guess with that.
I feel like you probablyalready know what I'm saying.
But's, uh, sunscreen.
We see, it's just all the time.
Anytime I bring that up,doesn't matter how thick my
bubble is boy, is that a quote?
It doesn't matter how thick mybubble is.
There's always, there's alwayspeople that just just lose their
(05:57):
mind over over sunscreen, andit's really interesting because
they'll they'll listen toanything else, they'll agree
with anything else I have to say, but as soon as I bring up
sunscreen, they're like no, thisis the one thing that I know is
horrible for everyone andeverything.
And why is that, Dr Wong?
What is causing that?
I'm just genuinely curious.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
That's a good question.
I feel like it's a mix ofthings.
So, first off, I think becausesunscreen is a drug, um, and
because the ingredients insunscreen they have really long,
complicated names likeoxybenzone, avobenzone, and
that's the American version.
Um, in Australia we have thelonger one, so I can't even
remember what the avobenzone oneis, but it's two, two words and
(06:39):
it's like I don't know sevensyllables or something.
Um, but yeah, I think that hasa really big part of it, Cause
you know, even in food it's likestranger danger.
The scarier the ingredientsounds, the more people have
that gut reaction, and I meanpeople's gut reactions.
They're powerful, Like weevolved to have them.
We've had them for millions ofyears.
People just immediately assumeit's got a long name, it
(07:03):
complicated, I can't pronounceit.
Or you hear that even intiktoks I can't even pronounce
the names.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
We've heard that once or twice that's one really big
part.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Um, another big part is because it is a drug in the
us and australia but the us issuch a big influence on the
internet um, because it's a drug, it gets studied a whole bunch.
So you get all these studieswhere they have found tiny
little dangers, because that'sthe whole point.
They want to make sure they've,like, really fleshed out the um
evidence base and then they'llbe able to pick up on tiny
hazards that have only beenspotted in, like, I think, for
(07:36):
oxybenzone.
Um, like the, the one that theEuropean union actually acts on
is like a tiny change in themale rat fetuses, like some part
of their, like some tube intheir testicles, something like
that.
It's like the tiniest littlechange and that's where they
actually set the limit.
But because you're seeing thatchange, you're seeing like all
(07:58):
these other changes in, like ratbiomarkers, and because we've
got that level of detail, it'sreally easy to just go on Google
Scholarscreens, hazards, andthen you'll get a million
results compared to, like Idon't know, something really
unstudied like um strawberryextract or something.
Um, you're not going to get thesame sort of level of results
and detail of study.
So the ewg and organizationslike that.
(08:21):
They can just pick up all theselike tiny, tiny, tiny things,
make it look like a whole bunch,and then people are
automatically scared.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Oh, the EWG.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
For the people who don't know what the EW, the
environmental working group.
Why don't you?
What's your take on theenvironmental working group?
What's your honest opinion?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
I feel like, since you you're both in the nutrition
space, I feel like you probablyhave way more feelings about it
than I do, because I mean,their core has always been the
dirty dozen right, it's alwaysjust been pesticides, food, and
they've only relatively recentlyI mean it has been like 15
years or something but it's anewer branch of their I don't
(09:02):
know their octopus-re reachingscale, where they've got the
Skin Deep database.
So their big shtick in beautyis they'll take an ingredients
list and then they'llautomatically match it to
entries in their database.
And their database is just likefull of any study they found
that has any sort of negativeconnotation.
It's all just in there.
(09:22):
And, of course, like sunscreeningredients, tons of studies
where it's negative, tons ofstudies where it's positive.
But you don't see those.
You just see the giant list ofnegatives.
Parabens giant list, becausethey were the most popular
preservatives.
Tons of studies on them, newpreservative, less studies, less
positive studies, but also lessnegative studies.
So completely safe.
You'll even look up like thesame ingredient under a
(09:45):
different name.
And the ewg has two separateentries.
One is like six out of ten forhazard, the other one is one out
of ten and it's simply becausetheir database is based on vibes
based they do not take intoaccount the dosage at all yeah,
basically that's likethe biggest problem with clean
(10:06):
beauty, I assume in nutrition aswell.
It's just like it's, it's alljust vibes.
There's nothing quantitative um, because that info isn't there.
So it's not actually possibleto do this.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
You do have to at some point trust the scientists
who are making the products it'sbasically like if you just got
rid of the core base oftoxicology and then instead
fully leaned into if it'snatural, it's good.
That fallacy kind of that'sbasically the way I see the
environment, the EWG.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
They claim that they're nonpartisan, unbiased,
whatever, but they actuallystarted out as an anti-GMO lobby
group, so they areanti-scientific advancement,
basically.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Basically, I think your point to your point, dr
Wong, though it's so truebecause you can find you can
call me Michelle.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
That makes me feel like I'm like a middle-aged GP.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
To your point, michelle.
I like what you said about howyou can just find negative
studies on these ingredients,because you can find that in
nutrition.
I mean you can look up variousdifferent uh additives,
preservatives, uh, bhts when Isee a lot, lots of stuff like
that, these antioxidants butyou're going to find so much
more when it comes to somethinglike that's classified as a drug
, like you look at.
(11:25):
Actually, if you look atsomething with skincare longer
names, more studies and so yeah,people are probably just gonna
it's just more ammo, it's moreammo for those people to say, oh
no, that's bad because of thisstudy I found right yeah, and
also, um, I guess it's also thereporting as well.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
So, because it's been more studied.
There's been all thesesunscreen stories in the news.
In late 2019, early 2020, theFDA started looking into
sunscreen regulation again,which is great.
You would hope that yourregulatory body is re-examining
things based on your evidence.
And they did a study where theyfound that they had this
assumption, which was I believeit was something like five
(12:06):
nanograms per mil.
If less than that was gettingit, it was some sort of
threshold.
If less than that was gettinginto the blood, they just
assumed it was safe because,like, the number of molecules in
there would just not be enoughto elicit any sort of real
harmful effect.
But then they realized it wasabove that, and so they
published a paper that madeheadlines.
It was all this like sunscreensare getting into your blood and
(12:32):
it's like actually it's becausethe FDA has, like special rules
around drug regulation.
People have known thatsunscreens have been getting
into the blood in the EU.
Like.
The regulators have recognizedthis and based their safety
assessments on this since, likeI think, 1997.
It was one of the earlieststudies, but, yeah, that just
kept making the news because ofthese differences in drug
regulation as well, and alsopart of it is actually, at the
(12:53):
moment, animal testing.
So the US requires particularanimal tests for drugs, which,
again, like people say, animaltesting is a really bad thing.
But it's actually a positivesign that the regulators care a
lot like that they're forcingpeople to do these somewhat
unethical studies these days,like back in the day.
Obviously the ethics haveevolved, but, yeah, like, the
(13:18):
fact that this is still arequirement is actually a sign
that regulations are strict.
So, yeah, the lack of animaltesting is actually one of the
reasons why the FDA is stillsaying chemical sunscreens
aren't safe and effective,because this data doesn't exist,
because in the EU, sunscreensare cosmetics and so they're not
allowed to be tested on animals.
(13:39):
But anyway, yeah, so a lot ofthe things that people are
pointing to as signs of poorregulation are actually signs of
good regulation strictregulation.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Interesting.
So what is your take, then, onthis?
So the thing I see all the timeis don't get chemical
sunscreens, because basically ithas the word chemical in it,
that's essentially it.
And instead you should getmineral sunscreens.
Yeah, I know chemical, right,the word chemical in it, that's
essentially.
And instead you should getmineral sunscreens.
Yeah, I know chemical, right.
And so, like I've seen you talka lot about mineral sunscreens
and how maybe they're not quiteas effective, uh, but you know,
(14:12):
give us a little, can you?
Yeah, can you give us a littlerundown, because that I'm sure
that's something we'll get askedabout.
Should I just always get amineral-based sunscreen over a
chemical-based one?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
yeah, that's a really good question and it's one of
the most common questions thatcomes up.
So, first off, as you bothalluded to, everything is a
chemical.
The minerals which I use, zincoxide, titanium dioxide
literally those are ionic namesfor chemicals.
Like that's how it works Metalname, non-metal name.
So, yeah, first of that, Iguess, like what it really comes
(14:42):
down to always is, the bestsunscreen is the one you will
actually use, and that means ithas to fit your budget.
It has to be enjoyable enoughthat you will apply a lot of it
and reapply it regularly, likeit's literally just down to that
.
Whichever one works for you.
Now, if we go down a bit morecomplicated, um, I would
generally recommend, if you havesensitive skin, maybe look at a
(15:03):
mineral sunscreen or anoverseas chemical sunscreen so
not US, because you haven'tallowed the newer ones because
of the animal testingrequirements.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Right, okay.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
So the newer chemical sunscreens are they're just
nicer to use, really that's themain thing.
They're larger, so they don'tget into skin as easily.
So if you are worried about anysort of endocrine effects, they
are, like just by default saferalthough those aren't really a
big concern as well and they'rejust nicer to use and they're
more effective.
(15:33):
So there's less of it thatneeds to be in the product for
it to work.
Well, if you really don't likewhite cast, if you really care
about a light feel and your skinis not particularly sensitive,
then chemical sunscreens areprobably going to be more
enjoyable.
Now, if we go to safetyspecifically, I guess by default
mineral sunscreens are arguablysafer because they have larger
(15:57):
particles.
They're actually solidparticles ground into a powder.
They're just not going to getinto your skin.
Exception would be spraysunscreens and powder sunscreens
, because those particles canget into your lungs and that's
also not great.
But yeah, in terms of skinpenetration, that's the case.
But if we look at how safe allthe sunscreens are, in general
(16:18):
they're very safe.
I mentioned earlier that thelimits are generally based on
these tiny, tiny effects inanimals.
So for oxybenzone, the EUrecently lowered their limit and
, yeah, it was based on thetiniest change in a male rat
fetus.
So hopefully everyone is awarethat when you're pregnant, you
(16:38):
just can't do things because youcan't eat sushi, raw cheese,
that kind of of thing, becausefetuses are in a vulnerable
state.
It's like the most vulnerablestate, um, as humans.
So, um, yeah, like the changein a time, a tiny change in a
malar at fetus not even like achange that's really negative.
I think it was like the lengthof a particular part of the
(17:01):
testicles, like tini change.
That's the sort of triggerpeople are using.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
But it could be negative.
That's the thing it could be.
That's basically what I feellike with like diet sodas and
like sucralose, or like itdamages your gut microbiome.
I'm like, well, it possiblyalters your gut microbiome, we
don't know Like it could be bad.
It could be bad, it could bebeneficial, we just don't know.
But it's just easy to say, oh,that's a change, so it's
(17:27):
therefore bad because I don'tlike this thing.
I already don't like this thing, so it changed.
Another thing that means thisthing is bad.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
therefore, yeah, and a lot of people don't realize
that toxicology is based onfetuses and embryos and pregnant
women.
The limits are set for theseunborn children and unborn rats
in this case.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah, one myth I see a lot is pregnant women are told
not to use chemical sunscreensbecause it could harm their
fetus.
It's like, well, these safetylimits were based on male rat
fetuses.
Not only that, but also it'slike in the in the eu and also
usually the fda does this aswell.
Um, the limit is one percent ofthe amount that would cause
(18:11):
that change.
So not only is is this likeextremely high bar for safety,
it's like that bar is 100 timeshigher than what is actually
allowed.
So the EU I believe it was 2.2%oxybenzone that they're now
allowing.
The US and the old EU limit was6%, so you would actually need
600% to get that male rat fetuschange.
(18:34):
There's so many caveats, likeif humans were like rats, if you
applied the maximum amountevery single day tons of stuff.
They also like, I think likeeven with skin absorption, they
were like they tested a range ofdifferent skin absorptions, got
a bunch of different resultsand they were like, well, we've
got a range, so we're going togo with the high, we're going to
assume the highest absorption,and so, yeah, there's just tons
(18:57):
and tons of margins of safetybuilt on top of each other.
So, yeah, chemical sunscreensgenerally are extremely safe.
They've also been used for areally long time, especially the
ones in the US, which are theones people tend to freak out
about.
There's a really long historyof safe use.
Plus, it's protecting you fromsomething that is bad, which is
UV.
There's a huge body of evidenceshowing that UVv causes skin
(19:21):
cancer.
Um causes other things too, like, I mean, if you care about your
how your skin looks, um, thenit increases pigmentation.
So if you have melasma, anysort of uneven pigment makes
that worse, increases wrinkles.
Um causes immunosuppression.
Um, so, yeah, there's like awhole bunch of things that it's
protecting against.
So it's always this like riskbenefit, exactly.
(19:43):
But yeah, and of course, thereare also risks with the mineral
sunscreen.
So I mentioned um inhalation.
That's actually one of thereasons why, um spray mineral
sunscreens are bad, because ifyou inhale the tiny
nanoparticles, it is possiblethat it can cause lung
inflammation, which could leadto other.
I can't remember exactly.
It is possible that it cancause lung inflammation which
could lead to other.
I can't remember exactly whatit is.
I believe it's.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
But what if I want to tan my lungs?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
That's what's new.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Well, you shouldn't inhale the sunscreen, which you
shouldn't have done anyway, sowe all win.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
But what you are saying is we should buy a
mineral sunscreen and not makeit at home.
Okay, because for everybodylistening, my favorite video
that michelle did was coveringpaul saladino making his own
mineral sunscreen.
I, I loved this video so much.
Was it complete nonsense?
Of course it was.
Basically he took, you knowthis, he took a cake uh, was it
one of those cake mixers?
You know those little handmixer things and tried to blend
(20:38):
up and make his own sunscreenout of.
I don't know.
It was like beef tallow andlike some sort of.
I don't even remember what itwas, but it was so great.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
I just he's like you can eat it too.
I'm like okay, I guess thatmeans it's safe, it's so good,
well, well, ironically, um, inthe food space there's that
whole like titanium dioxide andm&M's thing, um, yeah, which is
like well, I mean, now he'seating the mineral sunscreen
like titanium dioxide is theother.
(21:06):
I guess he technically wasprobably using zinc, um.
But yet one of the big problemswith mineral sunscreens why I
would argue that it's often lesssafe is, first, off, white,
cast like it's white, so youapply less, and the less you
have, the more space there isfor UV to get into your skin,
right.
But the second thing is becauseit's white, so you apply less,
and the less you have, the morespace there is for uv to get
into your skin, right.
But the second thing is becauseit's solid particles.
Solid particles like to sticktogether, like particles like to
(21:27):
clump, um, it's just physics,right, um, and yeah.
So if you have a mineralsunscreen, if you leave it in
any sort of heat, it tends tojust settle and separate and
clump and then when it clumps,then I mean with sunscreen you
need the particles to spread outso they cover up your skin.
If they clump, you've got likelumps on your skin, you've got
gaps, um, and so mineralsunscreens tend to be less
(21:50):
stable.
If you look at um, consumerreports, they do this sunscreen
study sort of thing.
It's like a modified version ofthe official SPF test.
But, um, if you look at whichsunscreens fail, it's usually a
modified version of the officialSPF test, but if you look at
which sunscreens fail, it'susually a whole bunch of mineral
sunscreens.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Because of that problem, the clumping problem,
Okay, so yeah, basically, I mean, I think, just pick the one
that you have access to, you canafford, that, you can apply
enough.
Yeah, so can you clue me in onthis, because I know the sheer
basics about sunscreen.
So I know there's SPF okay,right, and the higher the SPF,
(22:27):
the more UV it blocks right, itblocks, but it's not like SPF 40
is like twice as good as SPF 20, right?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
It actually is.
Oh, okay.
That's what I meant to say Iknew, I knew that.
No, it's a really common myth,and part of the reason it's such
a common myth is because theAmerican Academy of Dermatology
has it on their website andsunscreen scientists have
written letters into peerreviewed journals complaining
about this.
Um, without naming them, Ithink, which might've been where
(23:00):
they went wrong.
Um, but yeah, so, um, I guessthe so the explanation is um,
back in the day, when they wereworking out how to name, how to
like, rate different sunscreens,they actually picked spf
because it was proportional toprotection in terms of how much
uv is getting in.
So a spf 50 sunscreen willblock one on, will only let in
(23:22):
one on 50 of the uv.
Um spf 30 will let in one on 30.
So that's the conversion, um,and this is specifically skin
reddening uv.
So the burning stuff, um, yeah,so if you're using spf 15
versus 30, then spf 15 isletting in twice as much uv,
which is what you care about,right, like you don't care about
(23:43):
what's not hitting your skin,you care about what's coming in.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Right, Okay, so what do you recommend for just the
average person, Like do I need a50?
Should I grab?
Like does it just depend?
Like what's the deal?
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Generally, I would just go for as high as you can,
because back in the day theywould argue that higher SPF
sunscreens were more expensive,less nice to use, and these days
that's just not the case.
There are tons of really niceSPF 50 sunscreens that are fine
and it actually helps with underapplication.
(24:18):
Most people do not apply enoughsunscreen.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Most people apply a third to half of the amount they
should be applying and SPF isvery roughly scaled with amount,
Because obviously I know howmuch to apply and I'm just
asking for the people listeningbut for those people, how much
should they be applying?
Speaker 1 (24:34):
So if it's literally just your face, it's somewhere
around a quarter teaspoon.
Or there's this like two fingerthing.
So if you apply two likefat-ish lines on your fingers,
that's just your face For yourwhole body.
It's a shot glass which is, Ithink, 35-ish mils, and if you
want to divide it into differentparts very roughly, it's one
teaspoon per leg and arm, oneteaspoon for your face, head,
(24:59):
head, ears and neck, oneteaspoon for the front of your
torso, neck.
One teaspoon for the front ofyour torso, one teaspoon for the
back of your torso and how manylines for coating my lungs your
lungs are like what was it likearea of a tennis court or
something right, so a lot sobasically a lot of
Speaker 2 (25:17):
lines of sunscreen when you're going to the beach
to get wasted and you have yourshot glass, just fill that up
first with sunscreen, then apply.
Then you can consume your toxicalcohol in that, in the shot
afterwards.
So it's all about a balancingact, right, like you, it's not
toxic if you add bobby'selectrolytes.
(25:37):
I'm I'm gonna make sure I don'tget skin cancer, but esophageal
cancer, gastric cancer, youknow, like you know, it's all,
it's all, it's all a balancingact.
Which cancer is better?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
oh, that's great I think another thing that plays
into people, um, not uh,thinking that higher spF is
better, is when you look at thefractions.
People see, you know, one over50, that's 98%.
You go to SPF 100, you're onlygoing from 98 to 99.
So they see that it's 1%increase and they're like well,
(26:12):
that's not worth it.
But 1% can actually be a lot.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, if you think about it in terms of what gets
through.
So 99% blocked, that's 1% goingthrough.
98% blocked, that's 2% goingthrough.
98% blocked, that's 2% goingthrough You're getting twice as
many UV photons getting intoyour skin.
And also the 99% 98%, that'sonly if you apply the perfect
amount perfectly like completelyevenly that shot glass,
completely evenly all over yourbody.
(26:37):
No one does that.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
There are studies showing that no one does that.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
So if you underapply, if you apply half the amount,
you get 99 divided by two versus, yeah, 98 divided by two and so
on.
So you're actually not gettingas much.
And there are a couple ofstudies, although they are
funded by Neutrogena, sopossible conflict of interest,
but it matches with every othertype of evidence we have.
If they did a couple of studieswhere they got people I think
(27:06):
one was skiing, they had an SPF100 and an SPF 50, and they just
got people to apply as much asthey wanted, like SPF 50 on one
half of their face, spf 100 onthe other half, and consistently
it was people were getting moreburnt on the SPF 50 side.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
I mean, I'm a ginger, so I just literally apply as
much as I possibly can until I'mlike so slippery that you know
somebody goes to hug me, and I'mjust like what's up with me?
Speaker 2 (27:34):
uh, so like vitamin d , because that's one.
One thing I always hear is likedon't apply sunscreen because
then you're not going to get thevitamin D you need.
So is that a thing?
Do we need to worry about that?
What's going on?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
So it is a thing that a lot of people aren't getting
enough vitamin D, and it's sucha thing that Australia put out
these guidelines, which most ofthe world has followed, except
the US.
The US seems to be quiteresistant to this.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, number one, and not listening to anybody else.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Freedom seems to be quite resistant to this.
Yeah, number one, and notlistening to anybody else,
freedom.
It's honestly weird.
Like I don't want to do like abig pharma conspiracy, but I
feel like part of it might belike because you don't have a
really like socialised publichealth system as much as
everywhere else and you don'thave restrictions, but anyway.
So the Australian guidelines,which I believe they're not
(28:20):
quite peer-reviewed yet, butthey're made by the peak bodies,
so it's going to pass.
Um, basically the guidelinesare if it's uv actually this is
the old guidelines.
They've improved it recently.
The old guidelines were um, ifit's uv index of three or above,
wear sunscreen.
If it's below, don't wearsunscreen.
If the uv index is really low,purposely seek out a bit of sun
(28:43):
during the day.
Um, like, purposely expose somebody parts.
The newer guidelines are waymore detailed and they actually
do it by skin color.
So one, uh, the big problem wasthat, um, some immigrants were
getting um rickets, like theykids were getting rickets, which
is like I don't know.
To me it feels like a charlesdickens kind of condition.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, like vitamin D deficiency messes up your bones,
um, and so they've changed itto skin color as well.
So those old um guidelines werefor white people, which is most
of Australia, but now they'vegone for um.
If you have darker skin and ifyou have different risks, like
if you have a family history ofskin cancer, then you go more
one way.
If you don't, then you go morethe other way, and they've also
(29:26):
done it by the amount of skinyou expose and by city.
It's so detailed.
It's really interesting and Ithink more people should know
about this.
They've got these tables wherethey go.
If you're exposed, like ifyou're wearing fully covered,
you need this much sun to getenough vitamin D.
In Melbourne in winter, if youcover up, like if you leave out
(29:48):
your arms and legs, you needthis much sun, like it's so
detailed, but in general it is.
If you wear sunscreen, it seemslike that doesn't really affect
your vitamin D that much,because you are probably going
into the sun.
You probably didn't applyperfectly because no one does,
and so you're still going to getenough vitamin D through the
gaps.
The big problem seems to beclothing that covers you up and
just not going outside.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
Yeah, another thing people forget is that light
bounces and so if you're sittingin the shade you're still
getting some light.
And just take your sweater off,get, get, let the skin actually
absorb something while you'resitting in the shade yeah, um.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
So one thing that is really interesting is um the
amount of uv you get if you'rein the middle of a field.
Um, about very roughly.
About 40 of the uv you'regetting is directly from the sun
shining on you and about 60 isthe blue sky bouncing it onto
you.
So if you're sitting in theshade you're not getting any of
that 40% direct.
But if you're seeing like halfof the sky, then you're getting
(30:47):
like 50% of the 60%, which isstill 30% of the UV if you're
standing, like literally in thesunny field.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Wow, no kidding.
Oh, is that why?
So when people go to themountains, they go up in the
snow and like the snow bouncesall the light then they just get
destroyed by the sun and theyes, yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
I've seen so many people.
They think it like it's, it wassuch a thing.
Um, people think it's likewindburn and stuff like that.
No, it's, it's a sunburn, it'sjust so many people that go out
in the snow and they won'tprotect themselves and like
their face will just be red yeah, because I don't think people
realize like how common likeskin skin cancer is.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Like how many cases of skin cancer are there every
year?
There's like a kajillion, it's.
It's, it's insane.
I mean, it's so common and wejust kind of like I feel like a
lot of just kind of shrug it off, like, oh yeah, sunscreen I'm
supposed to have.
That it's kind of like brushingyour teeth.
I'm not talking about anybodyparticular, especially not
myself.
It's like, yeah, I kind of doit here and there and it's not
that you know, I just do it whenI remember but like it is
actually something that we do itmore than paul does?
Speaker 3 (31:51):
who doesn't believe in brushing his teeth and
washing his body?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
no, no no, no, no.
I saw in a recent video hebrushes his teeth, but he
doesn't use microplastic.
He doesn't use plastic becauseof microplastics and he doesn't
use toothpaste, he just useslike a bristle no, he uses like,
like I don't know horse hairs,like it's like some kind of it's
like some kind of hair orsomething and he's just like,
just like, shoves it around onhis teeth and like to get rid of
(32:16):
the debris and I'm like, hey,that's better than nothing right
like that.
It's better than nothing, but umyeah it's so good paul for for
operating it's so good, so yeah,so oh.
People always always ask mewhenever I bring up sunscreen,
benzene people always like I'mgetting so much benzene, like,
and I know that's a big concern.
(32:38):
Give us, can you give us like alittle like a comparison,
because I know like you'll getlike as much benzene like I
don't know like living in a city, right, you just breathe that
shit, yeah, whereas like in howmuch are you getting through
sunscreen?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
like very little right yeah, so, oh, I'm working
on a really long video on this,because the lab that detected
the benzene they have a bit of asus history.
Um, it's it's video.
But yeah, so this lab this is alab called Valishaw and they've
been announcing that they'vedetected benzene in lots of
(33:08):
different products over theyears.
So sunscreen in 2021, also handsanitizers just before that,
antiperspirants, dry shampoo.
The newest one is benzoylperoxide, which is an acne
treatment.
So the newest one is benzoylperoxide, which is an acne
treatment, but before that, theywere actually also the people
who first alerted people aboutNDMA in Zantac, but it turns out
(33:31):
they're not very good atmeasuring things in my opinion
Is that important.
Yeah, because I mean, it's thedose that's important, right?
So, yeah, if you're measuringit, and it's the dose that's
important, right?
Um, so yeah, if you'remeasuring it, um, and it's like
if something is too high, youonly know if it's too high if
you've measured it accurately.
Um, yeah, so with sunscreen,the amounts they detected were
(33:53):
somewhere around um.
I think the highest was sixparts per million and they made
it sound really, really scarybecause they put it in like
nanograms, which is like it was.
It was like I don't know600,000 nanograms, which is like
for a normal person it's likesix milligrams.
But anyway, they reallysensationalized their findings
(34:14):
for various reasons, which Iwill speculate about in this
video which I am currentlyworking on.
But yeah, so the amounts werenot as bad as people think.
They keep on saying that it's aknown human carcinogen.
There's no safe level, but yeah, the background benzene we get
is quite a lot.
So benzene is in petrol, um orgasoline, if you're yeah,
(34:35):
america petrol.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
What the hell is that ?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
that is gasoline.
My american friends yeah, soyou're.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
You are getting more of that when you're filling in
you're filling up your car thanyou are from sunscreen.
You're getting more of it whenyou're breathing um yeah,
especially if you live in a cityyeah, and indoors like indoors
is worse than outdoors, becausebenzene is also used for making
things like paint and furniture.
It's's all just off-gassing.
So, yeah, the amount you'regetting is really tiny.
(35:05):
If you convert it to like theincrease in cancer risk, get an
increase of like 0.00, like thistiniest fraction.
If you keep inhaling it for therest of your life continuously,
it's just not a huge deal.
Well, it's not as big a deal asthe media is making it out to
be.
Like it's not good to breathemore benzene.
Lowering benzene is great, butthe things you should care about
(35:27):
Sunscreen is not high on thelist, because you don't use that
much sunscreen.
You don't use it all year round, or most people don't.
You don't use it on your bodythe whole year round, so you're
not using the large amounts thatthey were calculating for it on
your body the whole year round,so you're not using the large
amounts that they werecalculating for, um, well,
valley Shore were calculatingfor Um, yeah, so the thing you
should probably care about.
(35:48):
This is from, like, probablythe top benzene toxicologist, um
, when he was interviewed aboutthis sunscreen story.
It's not um.
If you're really wanting toreduce your exposure, park your
car outside of your garagegarage if your garage is
attached to your house, becausethat petrol evaporation goes
into your house and breathing alow level for a longer period of
time is actually worse for youthan high levels, very um over
(36:12):
very short terms.
Yeah, so the benzene itselfisn't carcinogenic.
Your body turns it intosomething carcinogenic.
They're low capacity, whichmeans that if you get a whole
bunch at once, you actually getless cancer than if you get a
(36:34):
low amount over a longer amountof time.
Yeah, this is from um mo, atoxicologist who is mo skin lab.
He's great.
If people want to know moreabout the safety behind
cosmetics, definitely follow himon instagram.
He does really good stuff andthere's just not that many
toxicologists who aren'tcomplete quacks on social media
well, that's true for all.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Like social media is just where it brings in the
quacks, because I mean, that'show you sell your shit, right,
like that's, yeah, the mostpopular toxicologist, I think,
is like the?
Speaker 1 (37:01):
um, the one who sells a some toxicology course and
keeps telling people thatcandles are killing them.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Um, I feel like you might have come across her.
Does he have his own candles?
Yeah, does he have his owncandles that he sells.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
She's attached to like some clean living store.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Smart.
See, this is the thing, this iswhat we need.
It's like Dave Asprey.
He's always like oh, there'smolds in our coffee.
Also, I sell this coffee Likehere you go, like that's the way
to do it, man, like that's theway to do it.
Man, I'm telling you.
But you know, here's what I'mthinking.
Here's what I'm thinking.
It's like something likesunscreen, where we all kind of
it's one of those things where alot of people kind of
collectively just roll theireyes like yeah, I know, I should
put it on.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(37:39):
But when you see something likeon the news where it's a little
sensationalized, and you seethem talking about possible
negatives, even not even justlike confirmed, just like, oh,
this is possible, that's that'sthe slightest possibility,
that's enough for people to go.
Oh, like I already wasn'tprobably gonna do it, now I'm
definitely not gonna do it rightand I think it.
Just it gets left out that,like you're saying the cost
(37:59):
benefit ratio, like, is thereyou can think vaccines, another
good one, like, is therepotential for a reaction?
Sure, but the net benefit is soinsanely so massive that you
please do it.
Please.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Like I understand, I understand there might be some
potential, possibly, maybewhatever negative, but it's just
do it like and it's alwaysfunny that like they're scared
of the benzene causing cancer,but so does the sun yeah, like
literally the sun is a knownhuman carcinogen with no safe
level as well.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Like literally the same class and the dose you're
getting of sun is so much higherbecause, like, if you just look
at the raw amounts of peoplegetting um, benzene related
leukemia versus sun related skincancer, it's just not
comparable.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
But I just I see Go ahead, it's fine, it's fine.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
For all our listeners .
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Liam's just, you know , crying into his hands he's got
the whole facepalm going on, Isee so many videos of people
that are like we're doing thebest thing for humans.
Right now.
We're outside naked in thewilderness soaking up every sun
molecule there is, and we're notdoing any of that poisons,
(39:19):
while they're like also smokinga pipe or some shit.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Gotta tan your taint.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
And it's just like what are you?
And it just it always, italways comes back to this
natural is better fallacy, andI'm so tired of it, but I'm
never gonna hear the end of itlike I, and I think it's because
we've pushed towards like I, Idon't know like, because the
whole thing with gmos we werejust talking about, with like
the environmental working group,like anything, science has
(39:45):
become just concerning at theleast and bad at the most, and
it's just so frustrating becausenow it's just yeah, everything
natural is good, so get outthere, get as much UV as
possible, I don't know, eatrandom mushrooms in the forest,
because I'm sure that's fine,get bitten by a snake Because,
like, at the same time, we'vebeen getting more videos of
(40:08):
Americans coming to Australiaand picking up blue ring
octopuses, which are like super,super toxic so I wonder if that
is like that's.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
I feel like that's related.
Um, yeah, australia, like I'mpretty sure I've never seen a
nate.
Oh no, I've definitely seen a.
Nature is good for you video inaustralia which is just daft.
Like from birth we're taughtabout spiders and snakes and you
know spiders are.
Spiders are nice.
If they're over there, don'tfreak out, stay away from them.
But yeah, but americans, youhave bears.
(40:40):
Bears are awful, like you canrun away like spiders.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
You have a chance against a spider you have no
chance against a bear no, I meanbears are warm and cuddly.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
What are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (40:54):
what is it?
Speaker 3 (40:54):
I've only had to save one person from a bear so far
oh, what's the saying?
Speaker 2 (40:59):
it's like black if it's black, be aggressive.
If it's brown, lay down, and ifit's white, good night.
Like that's the saying, because, like polar, bears will just
kill you.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
no matter what Polar bears, do not mess with a polar
bear.
Also, do not mess with a moose.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
So now welcome to Moose Talk.
This is where we go over howall animals are dangerous and
you shouldn't have any pets,because everybody's trying to
kill you.
Because everybody is trying tokill you, but yeah.
I'm just frustrated and I justneed to get it out because it's
(41:37):
just, it's so annoying and it'sjust it's.
It's like with everything.
It always swings back and forth, right, like I remember when,
like I mean, I don't remember, Iwasn't alive, but I remember,
like you look at something likebaby formula.
Like when baby formula came out, it was like, ooh, science,
like science is better thannature, so more women would like
use baby formula.
And then it kind of swungbackwards Like oh no, this is,
(42:00):
this is poison, basically,basically created for babies.
And now everything natural isbetter.
And I'm sure we'll just swingback around like the other way.
It's just always goes back andforth.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
And it's just always like we always have to go back
and forth between the extremes,right it's.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
It's so frustrating.
It's like can we have a littlefucking nuance?
So there's something you'd like.
You're saying like I love whatyou're talking about.
We're like, oh, the newguidelines like there's a lot of
nuance for each situation, butthat's boring.
That's boring.
I don't want nuance.
It is a lot of tables that it'sa lot of tables.
Yeah, that's dry and I want youto just to give me the extremes
on everything and just I don'tknow, and I'll just wing it.
(42:36):
I guess I'm done.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
I mean part of it is also just like a lot of the time
traditional science justdoesn't respect SciComm, which
is what we're all doing rightLike.
I mean, like the lack of goodpsych on is part of all our
origin stories.
That's why we started going onthe Internet and making these
(42:59):
videos and trying to communicateit to people Because, I mean,
public health has kind ofdropped the ball in a lot of
places on that side, on thecommunication side, on the like
sort of empathy side, they'vejust kind of assumed that the
old tactics worked in this newsocial media age.
And there are clients like I'vebeen talking to some um, some
academics in australia who workin skin cancer research and like
they see the problem andthey're more interested in like
(43:19):
adapting their strategies.
But it's just slow and alsojust like.
I don't know how much you'veworked in science, but in
general scientists, like thescience community just doesn't
care about SciComm.
Like they're like why would youdo SciComm?
Why aren't you in the lab?
Why aren't you just working onresearch?
Your life is worthless If youcare about like teaching,
education.
(43:39):
That's all like.
And it does like kind of comeback down to misogyny.
I think as well Part of thetime, like it is that whole,
like teaching is not what youshould be doing.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
And yeah, it's, it's a mess.
There's a lot of reasons.
Yeah, that's fair, so all islost and give up.
But seriously though, um, whatwould you give?
I'm so, I want, I don't, Idon't want to leave people all
like bad, okay, so like you do alot of things with skincare,
like can you give us some?
Like I'm getting older, I'm 32,I'm in tiktok years, I'm like
ancient, like what?
What do I do for like my skinto?
like you know be make it betterfor longer, less bad for more
(44:21):
time.
Like what am I, what should,what's?
Speaker 1 (44:22):
bad more time less bad, more time.
What should I do?
for less bad, more time well, Ithink, on the good side.
I think a lot of people whocare about skincare have really
turned towards science, becauseI I mean, that is how you get
better skin and you can see thebetter results.
And as humans, we just caremore about short-term things.
Cancer is far away, butwrinkles are really close.
(44:43):
Everyone has this sort of gap,but sunscreen is the best for
both.
So sunscreen is definitely good.
The best supported ingredientswould probably be retinoids,
specifically tretinoin and theprescription retinoids.
So tretinoin, differin is overthe counter.
Now there's also tazaritin, sothose are like the drug
(45:05):
retinoids which are actuallyapproved for anti-aging.
Differin isn't, but there'senough evidence that I feel like
it should soon.
Retinol is also great.
Retinol is over the counter.
The best brands are probablyNeutrogena and ROC, because they
know how to stabilize it andthey were also involved in the
Tretinoin research.
Yeah, so the drug research hasalso filtered into anti-aging,
(45:28):
which is great.
Yeah, I think in general, ifyou don't care about how your
skin looks that much, sunscreenis still good.
Cleanser and moisturizer,especially if your skin feels
like tight or uncomfortable,moisturizer is good for that.
And then, yeah, add a retinol,maybe add some exfoliants, so
chemical exfoliants help yourskin shed itself better because,
(45:50):
as as we like, our skin justresponds to its environment.
So if you're in a drierenvironment, your skin cells
just don't shed as well.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Um I imagine that's pretty important for people who
have acne trouble.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
Yes, yeah so acne a lot of the time comes from when
you're well.
One of the contributing factorsis your skin cells aren't
shedding properly and so theyclump up and clog your pores.
Um, yeah so chemicals, foliantslike salicylic acid, glycolic
acid, lactic acid are great forsmoothing out your skin.
Um, giving that like glass skinlook that everyone wants and,
yeah, clearing up your pores oh,I mean, I don't want that.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
I want that weathered old man who just came out of a
cave in the same, we're alldifferent.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
Some of us want to look young and beautiful.
Other of us want to look like Ijust walked out of a cave after
30 years oh, that's what I'mgoing for, right there um, since
he brought it, since robbrought it up, I just like
people always ask me like oh,what's the connection between
like diet and like acne?
Do you have like any insight?
(46:52):
I've seen some things like oh,high sugar diet might be, might
cause some acne for some people.
I've heard things on dairy.
Do you have anything kind of onthat realm?
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Yeah, so there's so many problems with nutrition
studies, like you two havetalked about them heaps, but in
skin, um, like, the biggestissue is always, like they're
mostly done on college-agedmales because, um, they need to
participate in studies to getclass credits, um, so those are
always the subjects, um, andacne is so hormonal that, yeah,
(47:25):
gender makes a big difference,um, or sex, rather, makes a big
difference in terms of thehormones, because androgens are
one of the contributing factorsto acne.
In terms of the studies thatexist, the best evidence is for
high sugar and dairy, but ofcourse, you see tons of people
(47:45):
who eat tons of sugar, tons ofdairy, no acne, so it's a really
complicated multifactorialcondition.
Um, and it seems like thethings that work most reliably
for acne for everyone, are notdiet related and there are a lot
less like, they require a lotless of a lifestyle change and
there's a lot less risks thanchanging your diet to get rid of
(48:07):
, like, a really big food group,because, I mean, dairy is a big
part of lots of people's dietsand if you cut out dairy, then
you end up with all sorts ofweird nutritional imbalances, um
, whereas yeah, problem foranother different using benzoyl
peroxide.
um, like, it's not as big of achange.
So, generally, um, diet isn'trecommended, like dietary
(48:30):
changes isn't recommended as anacne treatment.
But if you do want to changelike, if you do want to explore
that, it's a good idea to likecut out one or two foods that
you think might be contributingand then put them back in and
see what happens.
So, experiment on yourself.
Don't make huge radical changeswithout consulting a doctor,
but yeah, chances are othertreatments will work better.
(48:52):
I have a video on this which Idid with a dermatologist, dr
Anjali Mato, who is an acnespecialist.
So, yeah, check that out.
Speaker 3 (49:02):
Whenever people ask me about acne, I tell them
change your bedsheets more.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
It's the simplest life change Low risk and it will
make a huge difference yeah,and even if it doesn't, it'll
make you feel better, which,honestly, oh yeah there's
nothing better than sleeping inclean, warm sheets.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
What do you think about?
Um, the people that talk aboutusing a beef tallow for acne?
Speaker 1 (49:26):
oh man, I mean it's fine, like it's a moisturizer,
like it's a moisturizer, it'sjust a moisturizer.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
Seems expensive.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
One of the interesting things, though, is
beef tallow, actually the fattyacid composition of beef tallow.
There's a lot of saturatedfatty acids, but there's also
oleic acid, which is omega-9.
And there have been studieslinking increased omega-9 to
acne.
And also saturated fat, likecoconut oil, is famous for
causing acne in a lot of peopleagain, not all but um, there is
(49:58):
a bit of a link.
So I feel like tallow maybeisn't the best option, like it's
not the safest compared to seedoils, which are actually linked
to less acne.
Um, but it's more natural,natural, so it's gotta be better
that's how it works like isrubbing like beef fat on your
(50:19):
face really more natural thanrubbing like sunflower seeds,
like I don't know about thisnaturalness thing like you think
back to caveman, surely likeyou wouldn't want to waste the
calories?
Speaker 2 (50:29):
welcome back to what's more natural, that we
changed our podcast.
What's more natural?
Rubbing on beef fat?
Speaker 3 (50:36):
well, I think our next main product needs to be
sunflower acne face masks yeah Idon't know, it's the tello
thing really.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
It's.
It's weird, but like, if itworks for you, that's great.
It's a moisturizer.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
I feel like the people that see benefit from it
are either maybe it's thevitamins in it or the
moisturizer part of it, rather,than the actual beef tallow
itself.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
Yeah, I think if they use coconut oil it would be
similar, and it's weird thatcoconut oil is not cool anymore.
I remember when people wereadding it to everything,
michelle.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
It always goes up and down.
It was cool, now it has to notbe cool.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
We'll get back to it Maybe high demand meant lower
prices and then less affiliatecommissions.
And then now beef tallow israre enough that it's in that
sweet spot for commissions.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
She's figured it out.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Oh, should we get into coconut oil now?
Because it's going to come back.
Like you know, we always knowit's on a pendulum, so maybe we
need to get in when thegetting's good and then we can
sell it when it's good, probablynot a bad idea, and global
warming should make it easier togrow tropical crops right.
See now you're really using yournoodle now, you're really
figuring galaxy brain costbenefit, as we said at the start
(51:58):
of the episode.
This is where you learn yourgrifting techniques exactly it's
cost benefit this the the earthis getting warmer, we are
destroying it, but that meansmore coconuts and we can profit
off that.
There you go and benefit.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
There we go.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Problem solved.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
Oh, liam's just dying .
I'm so over it.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
So, yeah, we got to ask our final question what's
your favorite Oreo?
What's your favorite Oreo?
I don't have one.
We always ask this we don'thave well, I'm in Australia.
Speaker 1 (52:28):
We don't get the good flavors of anything.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
You, I'm in Australia .
We don't get the good flavorsof anything.
You just got your Lake Canada.
It's like Australia, exceptmore dangerous animals.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
Well, they have small dangerous animals.
Speaker 3 (52:41):
We have big dangerous animals.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
You have Americans who cross the border sometimes.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
Oh yeah, we have Americans yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
I think that puts us ahead in the dangerous category.
Speaker 3 (52:49):
I loved you saying America's going over to
Australia.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
Yeah, I think that puts us ahead in the in the
dangerous category, can we?
I love her, you love to saylike America's going over to
Australia and picking up likeoctopus, like that's great.
Can we get that on a shirt ofjust like an American, like, oh,
look at this, that's fantastic.
I love natural, that's what Iwant.
I want that shirt too.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
Well, I'll add it to the list of merch ideas that we
have from like.
Every episode has a merch ideanow.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
Yeah, we got to go back and just pick out some of
these are favorites and thenwe'll just ask, like people what
do you want?
I'm on team picking up octopus.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
We should just start a consulting agency for like how
to shill properly, although,honestly, our ideas aren't that
good.
We should really get like howto shill properly, although,
honestly, our ideas aren't thatgood.
We should really get into thefarmer shill game.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
That's where the money is meant to be.
It's where it is right now.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
That's for sure.
Did you see the report that themakers of Ozempic are under
fire?
Speaker 1 (53:54):
because it's a $ a thousand dollar drug and they
can apparently make it for fivebucks.
That's such an american problem, oh man.
So american coded?
Speaker 2 (53:59):
we already get told to get paid for by big pharma.
We might as well actually makemoney from them, like right or
it's, if we're already there.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
Yeah, I mean they're gonna, they're gonna yell at us
about it anyway but the thing isis like, oh, I did see this
doctor this morning.
He, um, he posted this videothat said like here are four,
four medications every manshould be on, and I think three
of one of them was fish oil, um,but I think three of them were
like, um.
One was like Viagra can'tpronounce the name.
(54:30):
One was metformin um, one withfinasteride, and it's like so
many of the comments were justlike wow, give me more
information.
Whereas, like, and a lot ofthese were like the biohacking
people who are like the type whoare more likely to be like big
pharma shill.
It's like this is actual, likethis is way more big pharma
(54:50):
shilling than what we're doing.
Like we're defending likereally cheap things.
We're talking about how, like,cheap products are fine, that's
not, that's terrible.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
Curious about this now, like, was it actually
viagra like, or was it todalafil?
Speaker 1 (55:03):
yes to dalafil to valafil.
Speaker 3 (55:05):
Okay, that made a little bit more sense.
Speaker 1 (55:07):
Sorry, I, I should know this my phd um, I just
don't care about man drugs, um,but that's fair but yeah, it's
like actual big pharma shillingpeople are seem the same.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
People seem to be fine with that I guess you just
have to phrase it just right andfind the group, yeah, find the
group that you're looking forbiohacking to make sure you have
erections every day biohacking.
So we're interesting, why, why?
Speaker 3 (55:40):
why do normal people need to take to dolophil every
day?
Speaker 2 (55:43):
oh, it's protective of your blood vessels, probably
based on some tiny, started offas like a blood pressure
medication and they were like oh, we can make a lot more money
off the bazoingas.
You know, like we can make moremoney off this, let's make
money off that.
Speaker 3 (55:59):
I thought these were the bazoingas.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
So I was thinking more like I guess bazinga Maybe
what I was thinking of andthat's like an erection, I don't
know.
I was going some direction theb and the bazoingas because the
bazoingas and the bazoingas,there's the male and female.
Um, yeah, we got to get intothe biohacking too.
I think that's a good routebecause, yeah, people and those
people have money, like thebiohackers are the ones that
(56:20):
have money, right, you know,like they're the ones that are
like getting older greens yeah,they've got the money to pay
like athletic greens, like ahundred dollars we could
Speaker 3 (56:28):
I mean there's so much potential, there's so much
potential, there's so muchpotential, so much potential, so
where can everybody find you?
Speaker 1 (56:37):
I'm on all the platforms.
I I have my website,labmuffincom, where I have lots
of articles and honestly, that'sprobably the best place for
people who are more academicallyminded.
Um, but I'm also on instagram,um, tiktok, youtube is probably.
Youtube is probably also better.
I have longer videos there thatgo into more detail, but, um,
yeah, the short videos are funlonger videos for people who
(57:00):
have an attention span longerthan seven seconds yeah, or if
they they want to just put on along thing and do their laundry
oh, there we go I'm gonna putlike a tv over top of my washing
machine.
Speaker 3 (57:15):
I'll just toss youtube up on there, throw the
laundry in, just be like, okaytime to watch some lab.
Baby muffin beauty.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
Baby body bumper make sure you don't use any of those
harsh chemicals in your laundry, though you're gonna want to
use beef towel mixed withcoconut oil.
Those are the only two thingsyou're allowed you can't have an
oil.
Stain the oil.
Uh, she can only use viagra inher clothes make sure the
(57:45):
clothes are nice and stiff.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
Oh, good night everybody and I have a book
that's out for pre-order at themoment.
It's called the science ofbeauty.
It comes out probably in june.
Speaker 3 (58:03):
It's about the science behind every beauty
product I'm gonna like addeverybody's book to my bookshelf
over here so you'll see it upthere eventually.
Amazing, and don't be yourworst.
Speaker 2 (58:18):
And don't be your worst.
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