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 380. I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and with me today

is Virtual Valerie. Hello, Virtual Valerie. Hi, Perry. The Real Valerie couldn't be here today

due to some lab issues and the holidays coming up. So I thought we'd have

Virtual Valerie here, her AI doppelganger to help me out. With all due respect, Perry, I don't

think that would be a good idea. You know how Valerie doesn't like any of this AI stuff. And,

well, I'm not sure most of the listeners do either. You should probably just do this one on your own.

All right. I guess that's a good point, Virtual Valerie, but can I just keep you here to laugh at my

non-sequodors and my dad jokes? I don't think that is going to work, but you have a good show.

All right, well, thanks, Virtual Valerie. I guess this will just be a solo show,

unless I can get cerebellum to poke her head in here. Anyway, since it's a solo show, let me get

right to answering a bunch of your questions. And I'm going to answer questions about whether

quats and hair conditioners are causing bacterial resistance.

What I think of the wish skin health products, whether more expensive heat-protectant products work better than less expensive ones, how to figure out whether hair is high or low porosity,

is it worth buying products online instead of in drugstores and are patented ingredients really game changers?

Or are they just marketing gimmicks?

But first, some of that chit-chat.

Well, you know, I'm just here alone since it's just me sitting in a closet.

This is my wife's closet.

You know, I was setting up this chair and the whole podcast, the microphone, and my cat, Teddy, who was just sleeping on the bed, he just gets into the closet, jumps on the chair and then sits there right where I was going to sit. What is it about chairs that attracts cats? Well, anyway, you know, I see I'm coming to the end of the year,

...