The Cosmic Chemistry of Cosmetics

Learn about the evolution of paints, powders, perfumes and other potions as we discuss the artful science of cosmetics.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And I'm with one of my favorite co-hosts, Lynn Koplitz. Lynn, welcome back to StarTalk.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  Thank you. I really, I'm, I just have to tell you, I'm so mad at you.

• 0:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Because I didn't get to be on the football show.

• 0:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, excuse me, I got football peeps out there.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I'm a chick. You didn't think I knew anything about football.

• 0:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, next time.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  Meanwhile, I walked in and asked who was playing in the Super Bowl.

• 0:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next time, for the spaghetti bowl, we'll invite you for that one.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  Thanks, Neil. Are you calling me fat? Okay, what's the show about?

• 0:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The show today is about cosmetics, the chemistry and science of cosmetics.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  So I'm here for the chick show.

• 0:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right. Well, I thought maybe, you know, have some expertise about cosmetics. Did you know that cosmetics derives its name from the word cosmos?

• 1:03Speaker 01

  Of course, I did. Everyone knows that. You mean cosmos like the cocktail?

• 1:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, well, maybe they all share the same common Greek word origin, cosmos with a K. And it means sort of order. And so cosmetics has been used since ancient times to rearrange a person's experience.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Appearance, yeah, yeah. Is this what you do with your cosmetic? You rearrange your appearance?

• 1:26Speaker 01

  No, at this point, at this point, I really don't care. This is what you look like when you start giving up.

• 1:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Apparently, apparently Neanderthal wore makeup. We have evidence of that. There's their-

• 1:38Speaker 01

  Why? And they still couldn't make themselves look better?

• 1:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's our representation. But we've never drawn, have you ever seen a Neanderthal draw-

• 1:47Speaker 01

  How do I make brows smaller?

• 1:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They all had unibrows back then, for sure. So the lumps of red ochre and black manganese have been found in Neanderthal sites from 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. And these are, these are things that can change the color of, of your skin.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  That's interesting. So I guess they use that probably to tell, I mean, it's funny to say that they used it to attract, you know, Neanderthal men. It's not hard to attract them even now.

• 2:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's just funny. I can't, I'm trying to picture a Neanderthal with makeup on. It's just, it's, it's somehow counter to any concept we have of them.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  Well, I would think they have so, I, I just never thought of them having time to do that.

• 2:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you know, the most famous.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Hunt and gather seems to be priorities on Maslow's hierarchy of needs there.

• 2:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I think the most famous of all, like famous people who used a lot of makeup was of course Cleopatra. Cleopatra, like total makeup babe, right?

• 2:41Speaker 01

  And I love the Elizabeth Taylor Cleopatra when it's like 60s looking. There's apparently a lot of extra blue eye makeup. And why was that? Why did Cleopatra?

• 2:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know. If it's available to you, you know, the Egyptians was a pretty advanced civilization in its day and they're very into their looks and they buried people with all of your royalty, of course. They buried you with all of your belongings, but also all the things that made you look beautiful. They tried to preserve that. And so we look at that and oh, that's weird, but of course that's what we all do today.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 3:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know? So do you know, I interviewed two cosmetic chemists.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  Although we don't do that and paint it outside someone's casket. A picture of them with a full eye makeup out full drag.

• 3:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I, I, I gave a talk recently at a cosmetics chemistry conference and bumped into a couple of cosmetic chemists who I couldn't resist. I said, I gotta get them on StarTalk radio. They're, they're two professors of chemistry at Fairleigh Dickinson University in, in, in New Jersey. And one of them is, his name is Art, right name, George Alice and Steve Herman. So let's just see what they have to say about it and we'll get back to this, the whole show on cosmetic chemistry here on StarTalk.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 3:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What is your philosophy? Is it to pres- is it to-

• 4:00Speaker 02

  Buddhism.

• 4:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it to make people better looking than they are? Or to prevent them from looking worse than they should?

• 4:07Speaker 02

  The first aspect of cosmetics was simple products that do basic things. Wash your hair, so let's clean. Uh, simple things that like hand creams that does take dry skin and make you feel a little bit better. And functional products that everybody hopefully uses like anti-perspirant and soap. So, it starts-

• 4:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  It starts-

• 4:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Again, it's true. When I put on my deodorant, I'm not thinking chemist, really not. I'm just thinking, I don't want to smell today.

• 4:35Speaker 02

  But you're thinking not only what a cosmetic chemist does, but in the case of an anti-perspirant and a sunscreen of an OTC drug. So what we do-

• 4:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Over the counter drug.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Correct. So what we do is sometimes cosmetics, uh, which are not regulated by the FDA that way. Sometimes we make products that are regulated. You can see that on the label. When you buy a sunscreen, they will have active ingredients followed by the other ingredients. Same thing when you buy an anti-perspirant.

• 5:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so FDA doesn't regulate it because we don't eat it? Or at least not supposed to eat it?

• 5:06Speaker 03

  They do regulate both cosmetics and drugs.

• 5:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  FDA regulates cosmetics? I didn't know that.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act is what we're governed under, but they leave cosmetics off of the agency name because it's sort of one of the little minor players.

• 5:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, are you suggesting that if you come up with a new shampoo, it needs FDA approval?

• 5:26Speaker 02

  Absolutely not.

• 5:26Speaker 03

  No.

• 5:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So then what are you saying?

• 5:28Speaker 03

  We're saying that the shampoo, the manufacturer is required by law to prove that the, or to have data that the shampoo is safe for the public to use.

• 5:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay, so it's a-

• 5:39Speaker 03

  They have, they're responsible for the safety, but the FDA would monitor it if there were a question about it from the public or from some incidents that might have occurred.

• 5:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And clearly, clearly it's easier to demonstrate the safetiness of a topical product than one that you ingest and has to interact with you chemically.

• 5:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, the uh, the testing is is less ri- I shouldn't say less rigorous, but less extensive than you would have to do for a drug product.

• 6:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, this, the, these are two professional cosmetic chemists and they're talking, they're talking their trade. And you know, this, this beauty thing's been going back, we mentioned the Neanderthals with makeup. And Cleopatra, it's also references in the Bible. Jezebel is among them.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, she says that she uh, was anointed with perfume.

• 6:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  And you know, there's also a big thing in the Bible about, if you think about it, the wise men brought frankincense and myrrh and those were all perfumes.

• 6:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Myrrh.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Perfume was a big thing in the Bible. There's always this thing, and then she poured oil on Jesus's head and Jesus was like, she's the only one who gave me her smelly oil.

• 6:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's all there. I mean, it's, it's, it's, not that I've ever smelled myrrh before, I have no idea.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  I think they were stupid gifts anyway, if you want my opinion. Bring some, bring some soap and a blanket, you idiot.

• 6:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the things you really need, or diapers.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  If you're really wise men. How about something for the donkey, who's been dragging this poor lady around?

• 7:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, over the years, the, what we've learned is that cosmetics attempt, with the way people use them, they try to exaggerate what you are as female in contrast with who you're trying to attract. And some, sometimes it's a, uh, features like contrast between the color of your lips and the color of your cheek and your eyes and this sort of thing.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  I think that's really interesting. I was reading that because men don't have as much of a contrast as women usually.

• 7:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It turns out, I wouldn't have thought so until I'd sort of read up on this, and it turns out to be true. There's certain sort of fundamental differences between men and women in their appearance, and then we'd use makeup to try to exaggerate that, so that you can stand out better.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  This is the difference between me and Neil. Neil read up to see it was true. I went online and, and Googled women in drag, and then looked, and then went and looked at like Hillary Swank from Boys Don't Cry.

• 7:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh yeah, yeah, when she played a boy, basically.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  And, and what they basically did was powdered her lips down, like her lips were really, and, and I, it was really bizarre to me. I was like, what do you know, that's true.

• 7:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so they, so, so, in other words, the Hollywood, Hollywood folks, whether or not they know it explicitly, they certainly know implicitly that that's what they gotta do to make.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  And throughout history, I guess that's always been true. Women have exaggerated, like, and the dark, I guess the dark red lips mean. A youthful.

• 8:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And now it gets exaggerated with surgery.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Right. Oh, and Queen Elizabeth, you remember that thing I read about?

• 8:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what was it?

• 8:20Speaker 01

  That she made her face white. Face white, and then she would paint blue veins so that she looked transparent.

• 8:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's creepy.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  And creepy, transparent and creepy.

• 8:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so other things, they're drugs with cosmetic applications. Did you know that there were eye drops given to people who had glaucoma? And what they found is that those eye drops had a side effect where they grew longer and thicker and darker eyelashes. It's now approved by the FDA for cosmetic use.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  I just have pictures of someone going, "Oh Grandma, I'm so glad you can see and look at those lashes. Don't you look so fawn-like, Nana?"

• 8:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are hot, Grandma.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Look at you, Nana, with those big blinky eyes. Um, yeah, that's, I think that latis, but then there, but now the concern is that they're, aren't they changing eye colors or something?

• 9:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, yeah, so yeah, but it turns, it also makes your eyes darker. So if you had blue eyes and you really liked your blue eyes, they would, they'd get darker. But then you'd have reduced effects of glaucoma, so that's your.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  But they don't turn your brown eyes blue.

• 9:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, they don't turn your brown eyes blue.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  But a book.

• 9:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And of course, there's the famous Botox.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 9:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a neurotoxin.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Oh, do we have some sort of music that goes da, da, da, da, da?

• 9:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a, it's from the bacteria, Bacillus botulinus, and.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Whatever, which means terrific.

• 9:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so what it does is it paralyzes the nerve endings where it gets injected. Do you know anything about Botox, Lynn?

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Oh, you're such a jerk. You know I do. I get it all the time. I would get it right now if I could get it.

• 9:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what part of your anatomy do you stick it up, do you put it in?

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Stick it up. That's nice, Neil. I hope your family.

• 10:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I ask, I ask because you hear about it getting used in the face, but I recently learned that Hollywood folks who are going to be on the red carpet, they get it injected into their armpits to prevent sweating.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't have like wet spots underneath.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  It's for people who like have that perspiration problem, who are going through a hot flashes like I'm doing, but I wouldn't do that. To me, that's way too vain. I just have it shot right in my face.

• 10:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just in your face?

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it paralyzes your face and you really can't use facial expression as much, which I don't think it's all that correct. I don't think facial expression's all cracked up.

• 10:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's go back to my interview with, in this case, we focus on Steve Herman. He's a cosmetic chemist from Fairleigh Dickinson University. And we'll just get some background on how some of these products were developed. What's this one I see everywhere, polysorbate 60? What does that do and what is it for?

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Polysorbate 60, polysorbate 20 are surfactants or emulsifiers.

• 10:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was gonna say 20, too. I just, I was gonna say that.

• 10:56Speaker 02

  You can say 20. And if you had hours and hours, we could go into how that actually came about. And it came out of World War II. There was a company called Atlas Chemical Company in Delaware that was making explosives out of menitol. And I think that was left over was just piling up outside the building. It was sorbitol.

• 11:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is the byproducts of explosives?

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Of making explosives. We sent people to Germany as the war was ending, scientists, because we wanted to know what kind of science Germany had during the war. One of the people came from Atlas Chemical Company, went to Germany and found out how the German chemists were making chemicals water soluble, using something called ethoxylation. He came back, saw this big pile of debris and said, "Oh, my God, if we ethoxylate this, we're gonna have products that are, have detergent properties." And those were the first surfactants that were synthetic chemicals that were used in personal care.

• 11:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so you said a lot of words in there. Let me just unpack that. So, a lot of chemistry words.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  A lot of chemistry words.

• 12:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so surfactant. What is a surfactant?

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Okay, well, it's to take all this chemistry and reduce it to one magic molecule. And let's go back to something that everyone knows, Italian dressing. When you take a bottle of Italian dressing, you have two layers in it.

• 12:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The oil and the vinegar.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  And when you use it, you shake it before you use it because that shaking temporarily mixes it together. But you can buy creamy Italian dressing, which is...

• 12:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My preference.

• 12:27Speaker 02

  Which is all mixed together.

• 12:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It sticks better to the lettuce.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  Something...

• 12:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't tell me you put glue in it, so that sticks better than the other stuff?

• 12:34Speaker 02

  Something that you put in it changes it from being two separate phases, which is in a regular Italian dressing, to one phase, which is called an emulsion. And you use emulsions all the time?

• 12:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, one phase, that's your fancy word for one density?

• 12:49Speaker 02

  Well, yes. You've taken two things that are incompatible and you've married them.

• 12:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, there's a lot going on there, Lynn.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  There's a lot going on.

• 12:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Lynn, I was browsing your website recently, Lynn Coplitz Comedy dot com.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 13:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And did I, did I see what I thought I saw?

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's me getting Restylane and Botox and Perline. Restylane and Perline are fillers.

• 13:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But these are your beauty secrets. You're letting your people realize this?

• 13:14Speaker 01

  I'm just letting them know that I'm real. I'm keeping it real now. But they can see it. It's a video on there.

• 13:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a video of you getting Botox and, and, and what are you, what are you getting injected in your skin?

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Restylane and Perline are fillers.

• 13:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fillers?

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they're things like what they used to use, it was collagen. Now they use Restylane and Perline.

• 13:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  They're apparently better for you.

• 13:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this, this flushes out parts of your face that would otherwise be sunken and wrinkled?

• 13:36Speaker 01

  It builds them up. It's, it's, it's called a, um, a knifeless, uh, uh, what do you call it? Facelift.

• 13:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, we'll talk about lasers and how you remove scars and what role NASA has played in all of this. We're in a moment.

• 14:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk Radio, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson with Lynn Coplitz, my comedic co-host. Lynn, you're here for our special show on cosmetic chemistry. So, so it's, the cosmetic industry is not only about the chemistry, it's about the mechanical things one can do to the body. And lasers, well, you know all about Lasik surgery. It fixes your eyes so that you don't need the glasses and the, and the, and the contact lenses. And generally people believe they look more beautiful without glasses. And so there's lasers making people beautiful. What do you think of that?

• 14:42Speaker 01

  I don't wear glasses, so I, you know, Neil, I just care about things that affect me directly.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  So, no, but, but I do think it's a little weird to do that. I think most people look fine with glasses or contacts.

• 14:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I feel the same way, actually. Sometimes even glasses can even be sexy, you know?

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do.

• 14:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. And of course they use lasers for hair removal.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  We grew up in a hot for teacher time, that's why.

• 15:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know Einstein wrote down the first equation that enabled lasers and I'm just wondering

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Is that true?

• 15:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is true, it is true, not widely known.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  And he clearly didn't use it. He was a hairy little mess.

• 15:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I just wanted to say I'm inventing lasers so that we can have Lasik surgery one day. It's interesting how you can invent something and I have no clue where it'll turn up later on.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  I just wish we had that when I was a kid because we didn't have hair removal and I'm Italian, so I look like a little monkey.

• 15:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you got hairy places.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, and my mother would let me bleach my mustache so then it was just kind of a light

• 15:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A blonde mustache.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Tom Selleck kind of looking thing, yeah.

• 15:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A blonde Tom Selleck mustache.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  A nice thick Magnum mustache.

• 15:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So also they use lasers to remove scars and stretch marks and tattoos because what it does is it vaporizes the upper layer of the skin and then the skin grows back afresh and so it can reduce the effects of discoloration and the rest of this.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Speaking of stretch marks.

• 15:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Did you ever hear about how

• 15:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I've never had a stretch mark.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  The Strivectin?

• 15:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I don't know what that is.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  That's a cream that they use for stretch marks and apparently somebody smacked it on their face. It works so well on the stretch marks. They said, oh, I'll see if it works. So they put it on their face and it did. And now they sell it in Sephora and stuff to remove, you know, fine lines from your face.

• 16:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know that.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  And my Botox guy said, oh yes, it works very well. So guess who's getting that today?

• 16:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Today?

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, on my way home.

• 16:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're getting a stretch marks cream on your face?

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Yes, and people use hemorrhoid cream on their face too to reduce puffiness.

• 16:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Women do this. This is crazy.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  I think it's just hilarious if someone's putting it on their butt and they're like, oh, this works well. Hey.

• 16:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What an idea.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Those puffy things under my eyes.

• 16:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My butt and my eyes, what a

• 16:41Speaker 01

  What else is puffy?

• 16:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One of my favorites is again the role of NASA nano technology, which is trying to make things as small as possible and still make them useful and effective. And so in sunscreens, it turns out if you turn sunscreens into sort of nanoparticles and layer that on your skin, then it's not this sort of goopy, greasy surface coating on your skin. What happens is the particles are so tiny, they actually get into the nooks and crevices and crannies of your skin surface and it has properties that resemble what light does off the surface of the moon. And so you can Correspond.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 17:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the software that they used at NASA to understand light reflectivity off the surface of the moon was applied to anti wrinkle cream with nanoparticles and how they would then interact with the light on the texture of your skin.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  That's interesting, and I think that's what they're doing a lot now with mineral makeup. You know, I don't know if you know about it, but it's where you can mix it and then you don't even, they say you can even sleep in it because, and it's great. It fills in the little lines on your face.

• 17:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just come part of your skin, right.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  And it becomes part of your skin.

• 17:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  And then what happens is a lot of it is reflective.

• 17:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  So now that's why people are wearing a lot of the shiny makeup because they say that it reflects the light.

• 17:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're sparkly, yeah.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  It makes you look youthful and dewy.

• 18:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is a big driver of cosmetics from the beginning, how to make you look youthful. And did you know that the female astronauts, perhaps the men as well, but we don't see those, female astronauts onboard space station are also use makeup in the morning, whatever their morning is, that they will put it on.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Well, I'm sure wouldn't they actually bump into an alien or something? You want to look your best.

• 18:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying, you know, you'd think maybe you'd leave the makeup at home, but this has to be NASA approved makeup so that doesn't like out gas or turn, you know, do weird things for you.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  That really would be funny though to be overly made up in the space helmet.

• 18:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's not only just things that make you look good, there's things that make you smell good, too. One of my favorite recent advances is they're trying to make a perfume that contains oxytocin.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  What is that?

• 18:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oxytocin, that's like the drug that makes.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Like oxycontin? Like a drug?

• 18:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, well, it's related. It's like the one where it's the one where you trust another person.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  So that you can put a perfume on that makes people go, "All right, you can have my handbag."

• 19:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I think they would be after other things if this is the perfume that they're wearing. So what they're trying to do is create a perfume.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Like a roofie perfume?

• 19:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A perfume that chemically changes how two people react to each other. It's not just, "Oh, you smell good." It's, "Wow, I really want more of you."

• 19:21Speaker 01

  I thought that pig semen perfume or pig sweat or whatever did that.

• 19:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I missed that news cycle, if that's what you're.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  They were using like some sort of gland from a pig and apparently it did it.

• 19:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It also did that.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  It was like pheromones or something.

• 19:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, well, this is what drives it. And so back to my interview with the cosmetic chemist Art George Ellis and Steve Herman.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 19:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We talked about the safety and concerns of cosmetics and also a little bit about perfumes. Let's see what they say.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  I worked for about thirty-eight years in the fragrance industry, specifically doing fragrance applications. So my-

• 19:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't- what, fragrance applications? What- what does that mean? Like, I know there's a better, a simpler way to say that. You stick nice smelling things into other things.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Oh, of course. When you- if you-

• 20:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, why didn't you say that? Well, no, no, right. Yeah, don't you- don't- don't say that.

• 20:08Speaker 02

  No, it's not right. When people think of fragrance, they think of going to a store like Bloomingdale's to the perfume counter and buying something like CK1.

• 20:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They used to chase you down. They don't do that anymore.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, they don't do that anymore. But much more perfume by volume goes into things like Tide and Downy. The biggest consumer of perfumes is Procter & Gamble, and they go into laundry detergent. But, another thing is-

• 20:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know that. So my clothes are smelling fresh and clean. That's one place all this fragrant research goes into. That's what you're saying.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  Exactly. Another thing is if you watch people shop, let's say for shampoo, and just watch a consumer going to buy shampoo. What do they do? They open the cap and they smell it. They don't think about how it cleans their hair. The signal to buy comes from the nose.

• 20:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this dabbles in aromatherapy, right? I mean, I've smelled products labeled as aromatherapeutic, and they smell much deeper to me than other things that also smell good.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  The cosmetic industry, well, the perfume industry specifically, defines something as aromasience to describe the emotional and physical effects that fragrance can have on us.

• 21:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so it could be for any fragrance, then. How about the fact that when you smell something, it can trigger a memory from decades ago?

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Well, that's called the Proustian hypothesis.

• 21:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, now I understand it.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Is that Marcel Proust?

• 21:28Speaker 02

  It is Marcel Proust.

• 21:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Marcel Proust, okay.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  In Remembrance of Things Past, there is a long description of the memories evoked by the smell of a madeleine, a French pastry. And that's given its name to all of the emotive, the memorialistic fragrance.

• 21:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's cute.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  Another example, let's say the smell of skunk, which many people don't like.

• 21:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Many?

• 21:50Speaker 02

  Many people.

• 21:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would say a hundred percent.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  It is not a hundred percent. My wife likes the smell of skunk. She associates it with visiting her grandmother in Pennsylvania. What- They would drive from New Jersey to Pennsylvania.

• 22:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's an associative smell.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  Absolutely. So, her smell of skunk reminds her of her grandmother, and it brings back a happy memory. So, some things are learned. If, right now, I had put the smell of Chanel number five on you and punched you in the face, the next time you smelled Chanel number five, you would...

• 22:19Speaker 03

  You would have an association, yeah.

• 22:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I would assure you that that would be the last time you ever did that to anybody.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  It doesn't disprove the science.

• 22:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't disprove the science. So, Lynn, are you from the backwoods? Did you use "Oh, the skunk"? Or...

• 22:35Speaker 01

  No. First of all, I'm not from the backwoods.

• 22:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're from some wood. Where did you grow up in?

• 22:39Speaker 01

  No. My family lives in Virginia. It's hardly the backwoods.

• 22:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Compared to Manhattan, I would think so.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Okay, but the smell is called... I just like that he's like, "My wife would like this smell again."

• 22:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Chanel number five? Do you still use this?

• 22:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I wear it partly for that reason, because it reminds me of my mother.

• 22:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so it's an associative memory again?

• 22:56Speaker 01

  It reminds me of my mom, and also because every time I'm around men, they're like, "That smells really good," and it's because it reminds them of their mother.

• 23:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so it's not only what cosmetics smell like, it's whether they're safe to use. Let's pick up a clip on that.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  The products that you get from the cosmetic industry are safe and effective. There are consumer groups, because there's so much misinformation on the internet, who have what they call an anti-chemical bias, and they think everything that has chemistry on it is gonna kill you, and it's a big conspiracy.

• 23:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, my best friends are made of comical.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And these anti-chemical groups, while there are safety issues...

• 23:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, they're like the chemistry version of PETA.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  Correct. And there are anti-cosmetic activists trying to make laws. The fact is, the industry has been extremely concerned about safety forever. The fragrance industry is specifically very concerned about safety.

• 23:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but it's not because they're altruistic. It's because they would go out of business, right? I don't believe it's because they really care.

• 23:57Speaker 03

  They want to keep their, you know, their reputation up.

• 23:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right.

• 24:00Speaker 03

  Also to forestall any more stringent regulations or more...

• 24:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so they police themselves, basically. Right, exactly. Otherwise, somebody comes after you.

• 24:09Speaker 03

  A lot of industries are like that. They want to make sure that they're maintaining safe and effective and quality products, because, again, it's good business. And it prevents, or, you know, slows down the increased regulatory constraints that we might have.

• 24:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I mean, safety matters in everything. And what's the cost of beauty is what this is all about, you know? And after the break, what we're gonna do, we're gonna talk about how the ancient Egyptians used lead-based makeup.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Isn't it dangerous? Would that kill them?

• 24:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would, but they wouldn't have known that. In fact, they didn't even know that the element lead, you know...

• 24:44Speaker 01

  They'd die looking good.

• 24:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, we'll talk more about animal testing and how that can be circumvented because of technology.

• 25:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Radio, special show on cosmetic chemistry. Not cosmic chemistry, cosmetic chemistry. This stuff goes way back. And of course, there's some health issues that you should be concerned about. For example, if you go back into the 19th century, there was this belladonna. You ever read about belladonna?

• 25:35Speaker 01

  It's poison, right?

• 25:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, yeah, but not as originally used. It was a juice that they used to drink. And it makes your eyes sparkle, your pupils dilate, and your cheeks go flush for having consumed it. And these are considered signs of attraction because, in fact, the name beautiful...

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Now it's called ecstasy.

• 25:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you translate belladonna, what do you get? You get beautiful...

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Beautiful girl.

• 25:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Beautiful woman, that's right. That's right. And it's also known as deadly nightshade. And it has toxic qualities, and in overdose, causes death. So it's beauty or death, you know? It's one of these things.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Oh, and that's really weird. So if you don't take an overdose of it, it just makes you look pretty?

• 26:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and in overdose, you're dead.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  But then everybody gets gluttonous. "I wanna be prettier."

• 26:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's also, did you know that the, that oxytocin, that chemical that gives, makes people trust each other, this has been found as a fundamental part of the, you know, the prairie voles? You know about these?

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 26:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Watch the animal planet.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  I was just gonna say, um, whatever. It's a little dog that runs around on the prairie.

• 26:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's the monogamous prairie vole. Like, they, they find a mate and they stay hooked, hitched for life. And what we think is going-

• 26:46Speaker 01

  What is that? Is that an animal?

• 26:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Vole, an animal, a prairie vole, yeah.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Don't say vole like I'm supposed to know. I don't know what it is.

• 26:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it's the animal planet. Everybody knows if you watch the animal channel. I'm just saying, there's, there's a, there's a kind of prairie vole that is monogamous. And it's monogamous their entire life. And when you study what may have enabled that, what they find is that the release of oxytocin and other chemicals can allow them to be addicted to each other. We think it's an addiction. The, that's what the oxytocin-

• 27:16Speaker 01

  That makes me sad. That means we're gonna take their little glands. Right? That's what it means. That's what it means. I'm telling you right now, someone's gonna cut open that little prairie vole and get its little thing that makes it monogamous.

• 27:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe they can make it in the lab. But with regard, interesting you mentioned, with regard to animal testing on cosmetics. That's been a hot topic.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Well, because it's been done for years and it's really hideous.

• 27:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what they're trying to-

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Bunnies in the eye with mascara.

• 27:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So what they're trying to do is shift away from animal testing. And so, for example, L'Oréal, the, the company, they designed a new chip that simulates the behavior of skin cells when you've put makeup on it. And it eliminates the need to test out allergic responses in other little pets and fuzzy creatures.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Bravo, L'Oréal.

• 27:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. And so the chip contains a layer of cultured human skin cells. And it allows them to recognize whether there's an immune response or a, a, uh, or whether you have an allergic response, based on what, the reaction of the skin cells on this chip. So that, you know, that's, that's, that's where that plays.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  What does it mean, Neil, when it says that something's, I, I don't know exactly what this means, when something is hypoallergenic? I mean, it doesn't mean that, I know it's, it means that it's better for people with allergies, but it can't mean that it won't, it won't hurt you. It just means that it's, it's really, when they've tested it, it's worked well on people with allergies.

• 28:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, exactly, exactly. Well, or tested on whatever forces there were. We've got a good clip where we've got my two favorite cosmetic chemists, the only two that I know. They just talk about what they, what they do and what, what efforts, how widespread their efforts are in, in culture and in our beauty.

• 28:53Speaker 03

  What the consumer is looking for are really drastic changes to their skin structure that's happened because of age, and they'd like to reverse that. But reversing that is actually a physiological change. You're changing the structure and function of...

• 29:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of your biochemistry, right?

• 29:11Speaker 03

  Right, so you're tailing into the drug area and you'd have to basically do the studies to show that that was both safe and effective for performing that function.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  But there are things that we can do that don't affect your skin, that still make you feel better, look better. There are optical properties that... When you have a wrinkle on your skin, it's actually a shadow. It's where you see it, because it's a shadow. If you can lighten that area optically, you don't see the shadow and you don't see the wrinkle.

• 29:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's just makeup at that point.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  No, no, no, it's a little bit...

• 29:44Speaker 03

  Well, it's masking technology.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  It's a little different because the shadow is there, but also as you grow older, your skin color changes. Skin and young people has a greenish-blue color component and a red color component.

• 29:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that like white people's skin? I mean, whose skin are you talking about?

• 29:59Speaker 02

  White people's skin.

• 30:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, thank you.

• 30:01Speaker 02

  Being a white person, I'm gonna stick with that.

• 30:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People equals white people. When I was a kid, you know, the Crayola, you know, they didn't call it pink, they called it flesh. I said, "What flesh are you talking about?" What? Okay, so go on.

• 30:13Speaker 02

  Okay, so us white people have these two pigments. As you get older, the reddish-blue one fades away and you look redder.

• 30:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's why older people, they look redder.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  They are redder.

• 30:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They don't just look redder, they are redder.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  They are redder. Now, you can now take a particle, you can make it reflect light, and then you can make it actually iridescent and you can engineer that color so it reflects out a bluish-green light, which counteracts that reddish appearance. You've now made the wrinkle go away optically, and you've changed the color of the skin to make the skin look younger.

• 30:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because subliminally, we associate the other color with younger people.

• 30:54Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 30:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's amazing what these guys are thinking about. I mean, I don't know, it's kinda creepy, actually, that somebody put that much brain power into what's going on on your face. Lynn, are you, you're happy for this?

• 31:08Speaker 01

  But you know I do a lot of TV stuff and everything, and I've studied all these little makeup artists, and one of the best things they say is like when you put bronzer on, to always put really bright pink blush on top of it, because then it looks more youthful, otherwise, just the bronzer will make you look older.

• 31:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's all about trying to look young?

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got another clip where we talk about the effects of smoking and sun exposure on how old or young you can look. Let's see what more our, what my favorite chemists tell us.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  The worst things for your skin are the sun and smoking. We know that.

• 31:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why does, what does smoking do to your skin? I never heard that.

• 31:42Speaker 02

  Oh, smoking is terrible. If you look at smokers, their skin gets like tremendously wrinkled, and I hate to say it's about chemistry, it's about the free radicals that are in smoke. It, it affects like the collagen.

• 31:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so it's the external presence of the smoke, not the fact that they inhaled it that affects the skin?

• 31:55Speaker 02

  Oh, correct.

• 31:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so how about people who hang around campfires? Same problem?

• 31:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 31:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. I didn't know that. So campfire people have messed up skin, is what you're saying?

• 32:03Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, if you do it all your life, and then go to look for, at, at a-

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and barbecue people, people tailgating football games, they're gonna have bad skin.

• 32:13Speaker 03

  Well, the amount of hours that they really spend doing that, Neil, would not probably not be significant.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  Like a chain smoker.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, not like a chain smoker.

• 32:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so, uh, same show is always a, a chain smoker's immersed in the cloud all the time. I got you.

• 32:27Speaker 02

  So let's go back to the sun. We know the sun is bad for you, and we do make sunscreens-

• 32:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I happen to like the sun, but, okay, but, all right.

• 32:33Speaker 03

  You have some natural protection, Neil.

• 32:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, okay.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  But, this, we know the sun is bad for you, it breaks down DNA, the sunscreens that we make, and they have SPF, they have, they have drug claims on them, and we know that by either staying out of the sun, or by wearing sunscreens, that you are definitely preventing a lot of damage, external damage from your skin. And there's two kinds of aging, there's aging from the outside, and there's aging from the inside. It's called extrinsic and intrinsic aging. That external aging from assault from the, from the environment, from smoke, from sun, from chemicals that are in the air, the cosmetic industry can help protect you from. So that, as a preventative thing, is very, very real.

• 33:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in a way, it's like a cosmetic force field?

• 33:18Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 33:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where you're protected from assaults on your beauty.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  Correct. So that's the number one thing.

• 33:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's probably the bulk of the products that get sold.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  Yes. It's a huge market. Number two is...

• 33:32Speaker 03

  Sunscreens in regular daily products now, protecting...

• 33:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's in lip balm. You know, I remember when it showed up, it's like, "Oh, that's a good idea."

• 33:42Speaker 02

  The next thing we can do is halt some of the damage that the sun is causing. The sun creates a cascade effect damage that leads to other damage. And by using things like antioxidants, we're able to stop that cascading effect and prevent, you know, the damage from spreading as far as it could. So there you see a lot of products that have vitamins in them or antioxidant claims often from botanical products.

• 34:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, what I think you might be able to do is to send people into space and then gravity is not dragging on your body parts, you know. Have you looked at the skin of astronauts who've come back? You have?

• 34:19Speaker 02

  Yes. The effect of being in space is the same as the effect of natural aging on the ground, on skin.

• 34:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's no different?

• 34:28Speaker 02

  No, it is accelerated in space. The added effect that you get from being in space is equivalent to what we get aging here. It increases wrinkles and degradation.

• 34:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ten times faster or five times faster? Do we know? It's hard because they don't spend that, you know, they're only a few months in space.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  But we know it has a bad effect on the skin because, look, you're in an environment where things like humidity are different than they are on the earth.

• 34:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I mean, the sun is, you know, you've got to love the sun, but it's going to mess you up as well.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  And see, I come from a time like, I was raised in Florida and my mother would literally roll us and like lather us down in baby oil, plain old baby oil.

• 35:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Before you went out to the...

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, before I went to the beach. If we got the sand on us, we looked like chicken cutlets. We would literally, and we would play all day in that. And now I'm like, oh my gosh, it's gonna affect me.

• 35:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that was not a protection from the sun. That, that just oiled you up.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  It just, it basically just greased you up so you could go cook.

• 35:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You could get fried.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it's, of course, it's the ultraviolet light from the sun that interacts with your skin and makes you dark. And of course, that's what gives you skin cancer. But they have these tanning beds. For people that don't want to wait for the sun or go to the beach. Did you ever use tanning beds? What do you use?

• 35:44Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 35:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm asking. I don't know.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  I'm right up there with Snooki and the rest of the guy. Gym, gym laundry tan. Um, yeah, I, I, I use tanning beds. I use them all the time. And right now, the tanning salon by my house closed.

• 35:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh oh.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  And I've been feeling very pasty.

• 35:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why you look kinda Casper-like here.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. And, um, but, but, but I started taking vitamin D because I saw this thing on Good Morning America where they said if you're not getting sun, that you have to take vitamin D.

• 36:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've gotta take a quick break, but more StarTalk when we return.

• 36:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Radio. Welcome back. You know, there's a whole industry behind creams that will change your skin color, make it lighter, make it darker, get rid of dark spots.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  And I buy them all.

• 36:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Lynn, you're, I, if, if we took away your cosmetics cabinet, Lynn, what would you look like the next day?

• 36:59Speaker 01

  Neil, I look just fine.

• 37:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Lynn, not the way you talk about it. I don't, I don't know.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  I just have a lot of lotions and ointments. But now, look at my hands.

• 37:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're orange. Why do you have orange hands?

• 37:09Speaker 01

  Because when you use self-tanner, if you, if you don't put gloves on, which I absolutely don't, and you don't use like a scrub to take it off immediately, your hands will get darker.

• 37:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You rub self-tanner on your body?

• 37:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, all the time.

• 37:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, just the parts that are exposed?

• 37:23Speaker 01

  All the time. And every time I rub it in, I think, I hope this isn't carcinogenic.

• 37:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta call my guys and find out.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Could you?

• 37:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so that we have another clip where we talk about just what what goes on with these with all the skin change color changing that so these guys, like I said, are not only worry about things that make you beautiful. You know, makeup and rouge and all the rest of this, but just things people do just to completely change who and what they are. And it's kind of scary, I think.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Well, they also control like antiperspirants and stuff too, like things that make you stop sweating.

• 37:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That all of this, all of this, it's kind of the the power that they exercise over what we look like is extraordinary. So let's find out what they say about sort of ethnic products and skin lighteners. And of course, they'll come the dangers of tanning.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Ethnic products, I learned the hard way, don't use the black girl's hair stuff.

• 38:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's find out.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  Now, since you pointed out that you're not a white person, we have, we have it, there's a whole.

• 38:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is a radio audience, so we have to clarify that.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  There is a whole range of things that then happen because African American hair is different from Caucasian hair. And the products have to be made differently, the treatments, makeup has to be different colors. And one of the products to straighten hair, it has very severe chemistry. So the ethnic hair products are a specialty within the personal care products that we make that go to the special needs of these other markets.

• 38:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So anytime I'm on TV, of course, you go in the makeup room. It's funny when I walk in, there's a whole other box that they slide over into place that has the palette. Yeah, the palette that would serve my skin color.

• 39:00Speaker 02

  And those products, what we call ethnic products, which were basically a small little industry on their own. About 10 years ago, those companies were bought up by the giants like L'Oréal and became then part of their their mass market.

• 39:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 39:16Speaker 02

  Operations, so that changed from being sort of a little neighborhood type of product to being part of the the multinationals.

• 39:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, that would help mainstream it, I guess, if you're part of the the bigger force of the.

• 39:27Speaker 03

  Right, the market really grew and they saw an opportunity there and they bought, as Steve said, a number of those bigger companies. Uh Afro Sheen, I think was one of them.

• 39:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I remember, I used that. I had, you know, big Afro.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  And another example of these kind of products are skin lighteners, which are very popular in the Asian market, where there are societies that identify lighter skin with upper class because the workers were out in the sun and the rich people were inside. So, an upper class person, if they add a lighter skin tone, and we have products like that. There are drug products that are using and there are botanical products that are used as skin lighteners.

• 40:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, there's never a point where you say, "This is crazy. What are you guys doing?" It's like, just be yourself.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 40:12Speaker 03

  Nobody's satisfied with being their self. They want to change their hair color, their skin color.

• 40:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but you're like, enabling that, right? Suppose you said, "You guys are crazy." Just, just...

• 40:22Speaker 02

  But then, on the opposite side, you have the white people who want to be dark, and then you have the tanning salons, and you have the...

• 40:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, tanning salons, does that, I assume they have the right wavelength of UV to not...

• 40:35Speaker 02

  They're terrible. They're one of the most dangerous things, and probably they will end up being banned. They are the worst things ever for people's skin. They will give you cancer.

• 40:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But why hasn't that been rampant already, whereas there's a time delay that'll show up?

• 40:48Speaker 02

  It's happening.

• 40:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, these guys are, these guys are on it, these guys. I mean, they're, they're, they're telling it like it is and how it might be about these tanning salons, you know?

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Listen, I just, I'm stuck still on the ethnicity thing.

• 41:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah?

• 41:02Speaker 01

  I just want to know what it is that makes like, black women not age. Like, Oprah's like, 400 years old. She doesn't look one bit different today than she did when she started. And I watched her in color purple the other day.

• 41:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah?

• 41:16Speaker 01

  On high def, and she's still, and she's not that pretty in color purple. And, but not a line on her face.

• 41:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not a line on the face.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Not a line.

• 41:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And even Eddie Murphy's joke that, that black people really don't have the acne problems that the white people do.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  No, they don't have acne or backney or any of that horrible...

• 41:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Backney, ooh!

• 41:31Speaker 01

  White people get backney.

• 41:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's go back to my guys and see what they see about the, say about the future of cosmetics.

• 41:39Speaker 03

  In the near term, there's a lot more involvement of the biology scientist in skin biology and also genomics.

• 41:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, beauty from within?

• 41:48Speaker 03

  Beauty from within, well, not only beauty from within, but also understanding what the components are of having beautiful and more youthful-looking skin. So, there's a lot of research being done there to understand the genomic, you know, what's part of your genome is controlling how you're aging. So, there will be eventually products to forestall that, even to reverse it. But then, we talk about how are those going to be marketed? Will they be medical devices? Or will they be cosmetics? Or will they be topical drugs? Or even ingestible drugs? So, there's, you know, a lot of interesting things coming up in the future, all coming out of that skin biology.

• 42:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the long term?

• 42:29Speaker 03

  The long term, I think, is really the manipulation, maybe, of your genes.

• 42:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Long term is a face transplant.

• 42:36Speaker 03

  Well, that's a possibility too, but, you know... The face transplant, it's been done already.

• 42:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I thought I remembered a news cycle where that was the case.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 42:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. That would be the ultimate of cosmetic surgery, I guess.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  If you want to change the way you look. I mean, there was a Humphrey Bogart movie that was the whole thesis of changing the way he looked in order to escape prosecution. And, so, you know, they thought about that all the way back in the 40s. But now, you're right. It is a reality, but would you really want to change your face? Or you really just want to have...

• 43:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Given how much surgery, given how much surgery some people have on their face, that's what they're doing. They're changing their face. Look at Michael Jackson. Talk about surgery. Lynn, you're friends with Joan Rivers.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  I am.

• 43:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've got to love her because she's just so upfront about all that goes on with her looks.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  She really is. She actually came to one of my shows and she said, "Listen, whenever I laugh, I'll hit the table, so you know."

• 43:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is this the botox that's in her face and everything?

• 43:37Speaker 01

  He was making me laugh. She's one of the funniest, most wonderful people ever.

• 43:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been listening to StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, and as always, I bid you to keep looking up.