Hi, I'm Perry and you're listening to The Beauty Brains.

Welcome to the Beauty Brains, a show where real cosmetic chemists answer your beauty product questions

and give you an insider's look at the cosmetic industry.

This is episode 424.

I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and with me today is Valerie George.

Hello, Valerie.

Hi, Perry.

Guess what?

Episode 424 is a palindrome, and I beat you to it.

Oh, you did.

I've been waiting all week to say that. Ah. You know, Valerie, not everybody is enthralled with palindromes as me. I was playing cards with a girl last weekend in this card tournament I was in, and her name was Anna, A-N-N-A. And I was like, hey, that's a palindrome. And she goes, what's a palindrome? Oh, my goodness. That's so embarrassing. These young kids these days. But we'll be answering questions like that on today's show, and we'll also be answering questions, including what's the difference between Cetafil and Amlactin? How do you know if a sunscreen is delivering on the SPF that they claim?

Are copper peptides better than retinol? How do you stay smoother, longer after shaving?

And can extreme heat or cold affect the performance of a beauty product?

But first, let's talk about you and I and not seeing each other. It's been a little while since the last

I saw you were in Europe. I was. I went to Germany to visit some family, a little R&R, and then I went

to a trade show called In Cosmetics Global. This year it was in Paris. Next year it'll be in

Barcelona, but it's a busy time of year. I feel like March, April, and May are so hectic with travel in the beauty industry because

you have all these shows you have to be at, different meetings, like makeup in L.A.,

the American Oil Chemistry Convention, Suppliers Day, New York, which you might be at.

It's just, yeah, it's a hectic time of year.

It is a hectic time of year. But speaking of in cosmetics, so how was the show this year?

It was really good. It was so big. And I honestly couldn't get to everything. I felt like it was a

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