How Do I Get Rid of Underarm Stains?
Anonymous asks…I was wondering about yellow underarm stains. I don’t know how to a) prevent them, b) get them out of clothing or c) what they actually are caused from.I’ve been told that it is something to do with teenage hormones and that I’ll grow out of it. Any advice would be helpful.
The Right Brain respectfully replies:
The stains you’re seeing on your shirts have nothing to do with teenage hormones. They’re caused by ingredients in your antiperspirant. Specifically, the aluminum salts used in antiperspirants to stop you from sweating can form an acidic complex that stains shirts yellow. (Cotton shirts are particularly susceptible to this reaction.)
What can you do about it?
First of all, you can switch from using antiperspirants (which cause staining) to deodorants (which don’t). Of course, then you’ll sweat more. If you want to know why, check out our previous post on this subject.
Second, if you prefer to stay dry and don’t want to give up your antiperspirant, consider which form you’re using. Gels and creams tend to be wetter and are absorbed better by fabric and therefore cause greater staining. Sticks are a bit drier and so they don’t cause so much yellowing.
Finally, if you rinse your shirts in cold water before you wash them, you’ll greatly reduce the amount of staining. Washing, especially in hot water, can make the stains worse. For a more detailed description of the problem and potential solutions, click here and here.
What Is Dry Eye?
Four Eyes implores us… Please give me the scoop on “Dry Eye.” I enjoyed your post on eye drop addiction and I was wondering if there’s anything else you can tell me.
The Right Brain obliges:
We’re glad to help, Four! Simply stated, Dry Eye is a condition that occurs when your eye’s natural ability to produce tears is impaired. Several factors can cause this condition including exposure to a low humidity environment, aging, eye strain (from reading or working on computers!) and even some medications. Symptoms include dryness (duh!), stinging/burning sensations, a crusty discharge (yuck!) or difficulty wearing contacts.
What can you do about it?
Go check out Bausch.com for treatment tips. Basically, you can minimize the conditions that can cause drying in the first place, you can add artificial lubrication (eye drops), or (and we’re not making this up) you can have a doctor sever the canals that drain tears from your eye to your nose. The latter suggestion seems a bit harsh to us, but hey, they’re YOUR eyes.
The Beauty Brains Blog Blast
Here are some links to a few of our favorite beauty blog posts of the week. Enjoy!
All About the Pretty writes a love letter to a jar of pomegranate moisture mask.
Afrobella preaches the pleasures of piticures. (It’s a pedicure for your armpits!)
A Mom In Red High Heels waxes eloquently about red wine inspired beauty care.
All Laquered Up has a polished new blog design that you should check out.
The Beauty Brains give you the skinny on cosmetics made from human corpse fat.
The Little Known Connection Between Your Hair and A Turkey Dinner
What does your hair have in common with turkey?
They both contain a chemical called tryptophan. Tryptophan is one of the amino acids that make up the protein structure of hair. It is also easily degraded by UV radiation so when scientists measure sun damage to hair, they can measure how much tryptophan is lost.
Hairy turkey
Ok, that’s mildly interesting, but why is hair related to turkey?
Because tryptophan is also found in turkey. In fact, it’s the chemical that people claim is responsible for making you sleepy after a big Thanksgiving dinner.
Except that’s not really true. Snopes.com has an excellent debunking of the turkey-tryptophan myth. While it IS true that some forms of tryptophan can be a natural sedative, the kind in turkey (and many other meats as well) doesn’t make you drowsy. So, if you doze off after a big Thanksgiving meal, blame it on too much wine and mashed potatoes and not the tryptophan!
Giving thanks
And finally, since today is Thanksgiving here in the US, we’d like to thank all our readers for their continued support. Without your questions we wouldn’t be able to do this blog.
Where Do Cosmetics Come From? Read The Label
Curses’ question…Ok, I know (or I’m pretty sure I know) that when a cosmetic label says “distributed by,” it means the company didn’t actually produce the product, they just sell it. “Made/Created/Produced by” means they did. How do private labellers deal with this issue? If I own a cosmetics company and farm out production to someone else, but they use my specific, unique formula, would I then be distributing or making? What if I use a standard formula offered by the private labeller? I guess, in a nutshell, my question is at what point does the terminology change? Is it legally regulated, or is it more of a marketing or semantics thing?
The Left Brain responds:
You are correct that “Distributed by” means that the company didn’t actually make the product. They either hired someone else to make their formula or just bought someone else’s standard formula (probably customized for the specific project). “Manufactured by” means that the company owns the production plant that actually made the product.
Of course, there are no specific rules except that you have to label your product as either having been ‘Manufactured by’ or ‘Distributed by’. If someone wanted to put ‘manufactured by’ but they didn’t actually make it, they could still probably do it.
You can follow this link to the FDA for more fun information on cosmetic labeling in the US. For products outside the US, additional “country of origin” labeling regulations may apply.
How Does Brenda Christian Universal Brow Definer Work?
Killingspree questions…How the hell is Brenda Christian’s Universal Brow Definer supposed to work? Is there any science behind this?
The Left Brain raises an eyebrow:
One or the maxims of the Beauty Brains is that “if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.” It looks to me like the Universal Brow Definer fits that description.
Background on Universal Brow Definer
This product is an eyebrow colorant in pencil form and consists of waxes, oils, fatty alcohols, talc, and iron oxide colorants. (The full ingredient list is available on their website.) These are standard ingredients commonly used in similar products, however, the manufacturer makes several claims about this product that are rather incredulous.
Brenda Christian claims
Brenda makes the following claims about Universal Brow Definer on her website:
Scientifically reads and automatically color adjusts to the pH of your eyebrow hair follicle.
The Definer will not work on your hand or other areas of the face but is specifically designed to simulate eyebrow hairs.
Automatically adjusts from light to dark, warmer or cooler, to all natural eyebrow hair shades including Platinum Blonde, Soft Auburn, and deepest Brunette.
Just stroke Universal Brow Definer over clean skin in your eyebrow area and watch as it automatically changes to the color of your own individual eyebrow hairs, filling in tiny gaps and perfecting your shape.
The Definer even creates a fuller stroke toward the root of the hair, thinning to the end, just like your own natural eyebrow hair.
If you have had a hair color service, Universal Brow Definer will refract the hair color you have chosen, causing your new hair color to blend more naturally with your own eyebrows.
The science behind Universal Brow Definer
There are two key elements to these claims that I’d like to comment on: that the product automatically changes color to match natural brow shades and it is somehow triggered by the pH of the eyebrow follicle. The latter part of the claim doesn’t make much sense since the follicle doesn’t have an intrinsic pH and even if it did, the color of eyebrow hairs are not related to pH. It’s a moot point anyway since there doesn’t appear to be anything in this formula that could accommodate such a pH triggered change. (There are pH sensitive dyes but these are not allowed in products used around the eye.)
Enchanting encapsulation
Since pH isn’t an option are there other known mechanisms that could provide color change? In theory, yes. The formula contains three colorants: yellow, black and red iron oxides and white titanium dioxide. These colorants could be encapsulated (for example, with wax.) That encapsulation could provide a color change that is triggered by friction when the capsules are rubbed on the brow. However, I can think of no mechanism that would “automatically” match the released color to the natural color of the brows. Even if the colorants were encapsulated there is no apparent way to control how the color would be expressed. I should also note that none of these proposed mechanisms can explain how the product would work on eyebrows but not your hand or face.
The Beauty Brains bottom line
My review is based solely on a review of the ingredients in the product and an understanding of the chemical and physical properties of these ingredients. I can not conceive f any technical explanation for how this product could work as the manufacturer claims. There is always the possibility, however slight, that this product could somehow be combining these standard ingredients in such a way as to produce an effect that is not apparent. However, it would take a properly controlled test to convince me that this is the case and that this product is not just marketing hype. If anyone at Brenda Christian would care to share additional information with me about how this product works, I’d be happy to revisit the topic in a future post.
What do YOU think? Have you ever used a color changing product like this? What did you think of it?