Lab Muffin Beauty Science

Why are skin cancer rates rising with more sunscreen?

DeAnna Creel — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 11:44:04 +0000

Sunscreen use is increasing, but skin cancer rates are also rising. Does that mean sunscreen doesn’t work, or – even worse – sunscreen might cause skin cancer? This was one of the common sunscreen myths I debunked in this video. Here’s one example, from @TonicHealth on TikTok: “Why is nobody talking about this? All these sunscreens are not doing the ...

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How to Reapply Sunscreen Over Makeup

Michelle Wong — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 01:45:21 +0000

Today’s video is on one of the more commonly asked questions I get about sunscreen. You put your sunscreen on in the morning, apply your makeup over it… but you’re meant to reapply it every 2 hours. So how do you reapply it without messing up your makeup? And do you really need to reapply it? Here’s the video on YouTube, including a ...

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How Much of a Sunscreen Stick Should You Apply?

Michelle Wong — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 21:30:14 +0000

Sunscreen sticks are really convenient, but it’s difficult to measure out how much you need to apply, or whether you’ve applied enough. So I decided to put them to the test! I recently did a few investigations of sunscreen sticks. I tried to work out: How much protection you’re getting with reasonable amounts of sunscreen sticks How much you would ...

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Hair porosity tests are a lie

Michelle Wong — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 06:04:15 +0000

There’s a lot of haircare advice based around the idea of “hair porosity”. This is a pretty complex term that can mean a lot of different things in different contexts (this might become a longer deep dive one day!). A lot of the advice does lead people to products that suit their hair better, but this is mostly just coincidence ...

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Does water damage hair? The myth of “hygral fatigue”

Michelle Wong — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 04:36:06 +0000

How water interacts with hair is one of the biggest sources of myths about hair. One of the biggest myths is the idea that wetting and drying hair over and over again inherently damages hair – common referred to as “hygral fatigue”. This isn’t true! Let’s dig deeper into this… This article is adapted from my video on hair hydration. ...

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Hair, hydration and water: the real science

Michelle Wong — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 01:42:40 +0000

Should you hydrate your hair? From all of the hydrating hair products out there, you’d think the answer is obviously, yes. But quite a lot of hair experts (including scientists) say that water is bad for hair, and causes damage. Neither of these are entirely true! Water is one of the most confusing topics in hair science. It’s a huge ...

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“Plastic-free” is the new clean beauty: a treatise

Michelle Wong — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 04:58:47 +0000

I recently came across a Threads post from @idea.soup that said: “I don’t have any evidence for it but I have a weird feeling the anti-polyester movement is about to become a right-wing pipeline” This was a lightbulb moment for me! I started doing scicomm in 2011 because I realised the “non-toxic” clean beauty movement could be a pipeline to ...

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What is hyaluronic acid and how does it work in skincare and makeup?

Michelle Wong — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 04:28:19 +0000

What Is Hyaluronic Acid? Hyaluronic acid (HA), along with its cousin sodium hyaluronate, is an immensely popular ingredient in skincare and makeup. It’s also naturally found in the body. Most of it dwells in the extracellular matrix, the scaffold which holds up the cells of your skin. Hyaluronic acid is found in both the epidermis and the deeper dermis, where ...

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Ulike red light mask overview and experience

Michelle Wong — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 00:45:27 +0000

This post is sponsored by Ulike. I did a deep dive into the science behind red light a little while back. Since then, I’ve been trying out more products and the Ulike ReGlow LED mask (use code MUFFIN for $100 off) has been one of my favourites so far. It has great specs, along with really user-friendly design features that ...

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Investigating the viral heat protectant test

Michelle Wong — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 09:16:11 +0000

There’s been a lot of people testing heat protectants on receipts lately. You spray a heat protectant on a thermal paper receipt, then use a flat iron hair straightener on it. Since receipt paper turns black with heat, the receipts that stay white have the more effective heat protectants… … Or so the logic goes, anyway. But does this test ...

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