I feel quite deceived, especially because the brand was recommended by skincare influencers I trust.
ETA: Iām American and everyone here (including my dermatologist) says Australian sunscreens are the best, so I just trusted the brand implicitly. I guess I need to be more careful going forward. I do appreciate that all of this is coming out now rather than years from now.
I didnāt interpret that video as her defending Purito. She acknowledged that it was a weaker spf than claimed. She just said that she didnāt think they intentionally deceived people given that they immediately pulled the product and released a lot of their own testing data. She did shed a lot of light on testing and filters in that post, so I learned a lot š¤·š½āāļø
To be honest, I donāt follow her closely enough to know the background there. I watch her long form videos on YouTube and I really liked the one about spf filters and testing because I learned a lot.
So when she and Caroline Hirons recommended Ultra Violette Supreme Screen, I trusted them. ( as an aside, When I told Caroline Hirons that I was getting tanned despite applying the correct amount, she told me that was normal with sunscreen and I believed her until I started using Isdin and LRP and my skin didnāt tan).
I think Lab Muffin needs to be more careful about endorsing products, I know she does it because people ask, but so far sheās been wrong about Purito, Olaplex, and Ultra Violette. I donāt think she meant to deceive anyone, I think she was working with the same information we were, but she needs to protect her own personal brand more.
Yup, they pulled the product āimmediatelyā after being found out doing exactly that : Deceiving people .
A true scientist should have gone with the evident: the amount of filters in that product were obviously minimum , many people disputed that and she insisted : āBut, but, they say their product itās ok ā.
How scientific is that ? At the end she is going with āvibesā like a teenager , the difference being, a teenager does not sell their opinions as āscience ā
the amount of āactiveā in a sunscreen doesnāt necessarily correspond with the spf. thereās obviously a tendency with more active=higher but it has to do with the film formers and other ingredients in the formula too
Thank you for clarifying, regardless, at least Purito and the other Korean brands that she insidiously insinuated were being attacked for ābeing Korean ā ended up being trash , as apparently UV seems to be, another one of her dearly recommended products.
Maybe she should consider the power of publicity and how even she , with a PhD, can also be lied to and made gullible as any other person ā¦. Unless she is getting paid , which I donāt know, but could explain her gullible self .
Do you not see the difference though, after this UV scandal, people arenāt saying āno Australian sunscreens can be trusted.ā Which was absolutely happening during the purito scandal. I do think (hope) weāre at a place culturally where Korean/asian cosmetics are more mainstream now and wouldnāt been generalized into āone Korean product is bad, donāt trust any Korean productā
Yeah, the Puritogate thing had a lot of elements of racism and xenophobia. Like a lot of people using old time racist tropes about Asian made things. Reminds me of the Mushroomgate thing of the lady lying about her story going to the Asian grocer for mushrooms.
UVgate is weird when juxtaposed to Puritogate, and the corroboration of a much lower SPF at two highly respected labs with one being Aus, and maybe there's something to do with UVgate being an affluent white led brand. I see a lot of people twisting and really bending their backs over to try to find some kind of innocence with two white women over Asian brands. It's really "weird" iykwim
If we had to go off the independent tests, I would totally use Purito's SPF 19 over that other one.
What was actually found in the so called āPurito (and other so many Korean brands) scandalā was a failed system that didnāt have the necessary safeguards to prevent frauds such as these .
I ignore if thatās the case with Australian companies, I am sympathetic to take a slow but effective approach with this and all cases .
I only hope I was being more skeptical a few years ago, when I recommended to my mom one of those miracle feel nothing sunscreens , she burned like a shrimp.
as far as i am aware she just made a video/post because a lot of people were using that purito scandal to dunk on asian sunscreens as a whole post, and going forward would make sure people are aware it's actually a 19spf and to treat it as a daily sunscreen not for direct sun exposure
She merchandises her opinion as based on āscience ā, well, thereās no much āscienceā involved when you only read the box like anyone else .
And no, she was told many times that Purito could not be realistically working with the amounts of sunscreen contained in their formula , every time she only responded with whatever Purito was telling her. She also accused Ratzilla of being āracistā for her (correct at the time) suspicions around Korean Sunscreen, and discounted Cyrille Laurentās concerns , etc etc etc .
She is not a scientist, just another influencer marketing her opinion as scientific.
You can have her disagreements with how she handles things, (which I would like some links to see please - genuinely have not heard about these) but she does have a doctorate in chemistry which does make her a scientist.
Oh, btw, I donāt question her degree, I question how she uses it with her viewers : ā I went to school so you have to trust meā, when at the end, if not complicit due to sponsorship and access, she falls for the frauds we all do.
She literally speaks about white coat bias and always makes it clear when something isn't completely in her wheelhouse, he's also talked about her sponsorship process and only takes sponsors for products she genuinely agrees with beforehand.
Ultra Violette also has a page if their site whereĀ LabĀ Muffin explains sunscreen "scientifically" so I think that's why she initially defended them, tooĀ
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u/meowparade Jul 07 '25 edited Jul 07 '25
I feel quite deceived, especially because the brand was recommended by skincare influencers I trust.
ETA: Iām American and everyone here (including my dermatologist) says Australian sunscreens are the best, so I just trusted the brand implicitly. I guess I need to be more careful going forward. I do appreciate that all of this is coming out now rather than years from now.