LÉ Blog

Our podcast episode 20 covered the troublesome world of botanicals… and why we chemists have a tough time talking about this group. But in case our silly humor and amateur podcast style isn’t your style (we’re working on it! promise!), we took to a blog article to highlight some of the ingredients we covered in the episode! Why Botanicals are a Difficult Topic First of all, there… are… just… so many botanicals. Hundreds of ingredients and each promising to be “so soothing, with so much antiox...

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Probably stemming from a combo of the pandemic, staying indoors, self-care, there’s been a lot of different skincare trends on the rise. A recent trend that we’re fully on board with is tackling skin inflammation. A majority of people don’t realize how impactful inflammation can be on skin and happens to be the catalyst for a lot of annoying skin concerns like dry skin, angry acne breakouts, and aging. In fact, a big part of managing skincare conditions such as eczema and psoriasis is managin...

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We often remind people that regardless of what you read on the interwebs (yes! Even here), always remember to listen to your skin. Unfortunately, sometimes it feels like your skin is speaking pig latin. So how the hell do you really know your skincare is working for you? And real talk… how long is it supposed to take for you to see results? All great questions, and it turns out, different product types have different evaluation criteria. So let’s walk through some skin product evaluation guid...

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So you wanna get some niacinamide into your routine eh? Welp unfortunately in the past couple of years, this category has become quite the circus of products. So let’s take a stroll through the niacinamide landscape and see if we can find your next niacinamide discovery. But Wait! A Quick Recap Before We Explore If you haven’t already, we highly recommend going back to our niacinamide intro to recap what niacinamide can do for your skin. To sum up in one line, niacinamide has shown that with ...

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Whether you are a skincare newbie or skincare junkie, you’re bound to hear about peptides. It’s that exotic ingredient that shows up in your anti-aging creams and serums that usually comes with a stinging price tag. Yet even for this fancy, seemingly high-tech ingredient category you’ll still have to avoid some duds. The reality is as chemists, you can synthesize a gajillion different peptides out there but very few actually do anything for the skin. So how do you as a consumer know? We proba...

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Probably one of the first ways you get introduced to AHAs (alpha hydroxy acid) is an exfoliating toner. The only problem is that there are about a gazillion different exfoliating toners out there to choose from. And which one is going to be the best one for your skin type and how do you get the most out of your exfoliating toner? Let’s go through some chemist pro-tips shall we? *For a quick refresher on AHAs, check out our dedicated blog post. The who, what, when for exfoliating toners What a...

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For 2021, we made a goal to flush out our expert series. Let’s be real, we can answer all things skincare (minus pregnancy questions), but you’ve also got questions about hair and makeup too. For our first 2021 expert, we’re bringing out the big guns with our friend @cosmetic_chemist, haircare chemist and the cohost of the Beauty Brains podcast Valerie George. The Beauty Brains happens to be one of the OG cosmetic chemists blogs, and provides a wealth of knowledge on cosmetic chemistry, espec...

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Do thermal water sprays really work? Does spritzing that magical hot spring water provide any proven skin benefits? Should I go with Avene or La Roche Posay thermal water? These are just a few of the questions we have gotten about thermal water based skin mists. We’ll admit, before our friends asked about decoding thermal waters, it wasn’t a topic we really thought much about. Some of the concepts and outrageous claims that came with them felt like it had BS all over it. We even ran a quick i...

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There's an unbelievable amount of moisturizing products out on the market, each promising skin that is softer, plumper, and more dewy than the next. But sadly, more often then not, consumers are left wondering "why is my skin still so dry despite my decked out moisturizer routine?" The reality is that there isn’t just one “best” moisturizer for your face. Each of us has incredibly unique skin with its own quirks, and no one’s skin condition fits neatly into the dry/oily/combination skin type ...

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2020 was the year for stay at home self care, which pretty much led to a huge hunt for all things diet and wellness including collagen ingestibles. In fact, there’s so much collagen stuff out there that there’s even recipes like collagen cupcakes.... But seriously, as of Jan 2021, is there any data suggesting to give collagen a look? Strap in folks, we gotta try to organize a little chaos here. We’ll walk you through what data to look at, what products to avoid, and what to look for in your c...

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