Dr. Kate’s Guide to Beauty and Fashion
With a title like “Dr. Kate’s guide to beauty and fashion” I feel the need to first assure you of my credentials. I am indeed a scientist. I am also a girl; 28 years old to date. I work as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Stanford University, California, and while I might spend a lot of time in lab wearing the stereotypical white coat, jeans and flats; I also do all the usual girly things like shopping, styling my hair, putting on makeup, waxing, getting my eyelashes dyed (a must for someone so blonde), exfoliating, tanning (well, attempting to), dieting, and I’ve been known to get on my sewing machine and sew the occasional dress or two.
On Monday this week I left my basement lab around lunchtime to walk to Stanford Shopping Center. I needed to buy makeup and also to get outdoors for some much needed sun. At Macy’s I reminded myself that I was only there to buy my trusted Christian Dior foundation and nothing else. But this attempt to avoid impulse purchases was threatened by the expert sales skills of the makeup counter ladies. One gasped and looked at my face closer. “Oh my, can I put some eye cream on you?” This cleverly played straight into my I’m-getting-closer-to-30 irrational fear of eye wrinkles. Then as I waited at the checkout in Andronico's to buy a zero-calorie bottle of flavored water I glanced at the displayed magazines and caught a title on the cover of Elle: “Think you’re not hot? Why all men really want you now”. Despite my logical self I still desperately wanted to buy this magazine to reassure myself that I am attractive, at least to some men.
The point of this story is not to highlight how good the sales and marketing surrounding beauty and fashion is at getting us to part with our money. Instead I want to point out that because our buying is largely driven by emotions rather than fact we’re at risk of not choosing the right product or service. And the right choice is important, especially for those of us trying to survive on a budget. So we need to temper this approach. Each purchase – whether it be a new pair of jeans, or a face cream, or spa treatment – is an investment and should be treated as such. No successful investor would acquire commodities, properly, or whole companies without first doing due diligence. And neither should you when it comes to your beauty and fashion purchases. Especially because you’re investing in the most important thing on the planet – you!
My message is that your beauty and fashion due diligence should be guided by scientific evidence. Science has given us our most important products, or arguably all our products; from nylon stockings to mascara that stays on all day long. But the industry is two-sided. On one hand there are the personal care super companies – L’Oreal or Procter and Gamble to name a couple – with large R&D labs and budgets who do valued and credible scientific research which provides benefits to mankind even beyond the consumer products that eventuate. On the other there is a lot of hocus pocus and hand waving from companies who sell products worth little beyond the beautiful packaging and false dreams of flawless beauty.
Since I already factor scientific understanding into my beauty and fashion purchases it makes sense that I should share this information. I do my homework. Wading through the scientific literature doesn’t seem nearly as arduous when it’s to find out exciting things like how to get a better result from styling my hair with my flat iron (the topic of my next post). In this blog I will give a summary of my findings and recommendations. I won’t always be right. Scientists aren’t always right. But I can give you my best understanding from the most up-to-date studies.
To end this first post I’d like to say a big thanks to Ryan and Liv for hosting this community and providing such a valuable resource for all our online beauty and fashion purchases. Some very exciting developments are coming this way soon.
And to anyone who was wondering; I didn’t buy the eye cream or the magazine.
DK
