Episode 468: Copolymers, Microbiomes, and the Future of Fragrance with Dave Campanella

00:00:00 Susy: Hello, groomers. You found the groom pod. Welcome to our virtual salon. My name is Susy and I'm your host. I'm a mobile groomer from Seattle, Washington, and anybody who knows me will tell you I love to talk, especially about my job in. One of my favorite people to talk to is my friend and mentor and the co-star of the show, the curator of ingredients, Miss Barbara Bird.

00:00:36 Bbird: Hey, Suzy. And I'm excited about the opportunity to talk with one of my favorite people to talk with. Dave Campanella from Best Shot. Hey. Hey. So cool. It's cool. And, uh, let's get started.

00:00:55 Susy: All right. Welcome to the groom pod. Episode four hundred sixty eight. I'm Suzy, the groomer, as you guys know, and I'm joined by my fabulous friend, co-host and mentor and the curator of ingredients, Miss Barbara Bird. And we've got with us Dave Campanella from Best Shot today. And we are going to talk about Co-polymers microbiomes. It's going to be really great. So what's new today is brought to you by Groomer Software.

00:01:21 Speaker 3: Is your mobile grooming business running? You ride good. Stop zigzagging across town and start scheduling smarter with groomer are smart route scheduling and automated waitlists. Keep your van moving and your table full. From intake forms to QuickBooks. Sinking. Groom or handles the boring stuff so you can focus on the fur. Join thousands of groomers who've leveled up. Visit groomer dot com to start for free. No credit card required.

00:02:11 Susy: And that's how AI writes an ad. That was so much fun to create, you guys. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I'm not sure if I'm going to roll with that one every week, but I will be throwing that in occasionally. So this week I didn't do anything. What's new? It's just been crazy holiday grooming. So instead we're just going to jump right on into our first appointment, which is trends in liquid products. Ready groomers. Here comes our first appointment. Please welcome back to the show. The man who believes that better grooming starts in the tub Dave Campanella. Dave, it's been a minute since you've been on the show, but you are our most frequent guest and we enjoy talking to you so much. And lately, you've been doing a little writing that's going to show up in our groomer to groomer magazine, I hear. And we're going to talk about that today because I think we might be working way too hard and, uh, not embracing all the new technology out there. So today we're going to talk about the latest articles that Dave has written, which include The Future Trends in Liquid Products.

00:03:26 Dave: All right. Well, thank you Suzy. Hi, Barbara. How you doing?

00:03:30 Bbird: Hey, I'm doing great. What's up?

00:03:33 Dave: Like Suzy said, there's an article that's coming up, uh, in Berkeley, and, uh, I deal with the lovely people over there, and they give me kind of a calendar or editorial calendar for the year. And, uh, I was scrambling back in November to get something together for the January issue because they're talking about trends in the industry. And I'm thinking, well, there's there's some trends in in grooming liquids out there and some future ones and even some ones that we're familiar with. But they they're trying to force them. And I had an arrow down to three. And my top three trends that I see that I wanted to weigh in on were, of course, silicone copolymers. What's up with all of those? And, uh, the other thing was there's still a lot of talk about the skin biome. Biome, which, uh, I think is great. It's important, but there's, uh, some things that groomers and savvy business owners and as a shopper, you need to know. And then, uh, there's just some. The thing that I think's the funniest is there's I'm seeing all sorts of exciting things on the horizon for fragrances, and it's worth talking about because I think it's important and and fun to, you know, I totally support where some of the, uh, sum of the directions happening there. And of course, there's many other things, as I'm sure you probably got some good ideas of some trends that are coming our way as well.

00:05:03 Bbird: What are your most prominent trends as you see it?

00:05:10 Dave: Well, I think the industry is finally changing, changing its attitude, number one, to their view on, uh, silicones, more importantly, silicone copolymers. There's so much vagueness out there, and it trickles down from the human care industry. And they love to talk about the past. They'll say silicone free or I think I've said before, my favorite little story is when I'm watching TV and I see cute little Drew Barrymore in her bee outfit dancing around for Garnier on TV. And at the end of the commercial, you know, she's holding her little stuffed bunny rabbit, which signifies cruelty free. And she. And she says. Paraben free, silicone free, cruelty free. And I'm like, okay, can you expound on that? And they never do. But the the thought out there is that silicones are heavy. Yeah, they were they the old silicones were heavy. They were slippery. They were oily silicone oils. But they it's been forty years, folks. There's so much that's happened, you know. But yet you still see that as a common theme. And they want to tell you that everything's all natural. You know, that there's natural alternatives to silicones. And that's not true. There's some natural things out there that can help with mobility. But when you dig a little deeper, they're highly refined, naturally oriented products. Uh, and when you talk to more people today and you talk to serious groomers, which that's our audience at best Shot, you know, people who want to get results. You know, the serious groomers know that there's new silicones out there. There's stuff out there like our the Max, which Susie does a great job promoting. Uh, you know, pretty much weekly. You know, people are starting to see that these things are life savers or game changers. They're not, you know, they're you know what what what's Drew Barrymore and all the other people out there in the cosmetic industry griping. So we'll start with silicone copolymers, you know, and just what they can do and everything. I think we're opening up to them.

00:07:17 Susy: They're not the same thing they used to be.

00:07:19 Dave: No, not at all.

00:07:21 Bbird: And you know, they're popping up. They're they're these ingredients are popping up without fanfare that nobody's saying, oh, hey, by the way, we're using silicones. No, they just they're just there. And a good example of that is the funky poodle shampoo that we recently reviewed and checked out. And it's got a very innovative, difficult to pronounce silicone vinyl dimethicone copolymer that's known as the industry name is as hydroxy shield. The guy who's kind of naive, Christopher, didn't even realize he had that in shampoo, because I started raving about it. Well, because that, you know, like, excuse me, but that's what turns me on is a, a nice complex silicone polymer that I can't pronounce. And, um, this was definitely that. So I, you know, I said this is very forward thinking and very innovative of them. And I think we'll be we'll be seeing more of that. And also, there's a mix that's popular emerging that has amodimethicone heparin, sodium chloride and one other thing that I'm forgetting right now, and it's always these three ingredients. And these three together are are an advanced approach and an and offer advanced features, particularly protection. Um, so, uh, you know, I'm very I'm always very happy when they're concerned about their protection. And I think that that's going to be a trend that we'll see, as well as a little more savviness about skincare, um, and focus on skincare, which also excites me as a person interested in canine aesthetician work being, uh, skin forward or, you know, like concern about maintaining the healthy balance of the skin as well as the skin microbiome is, um, I think something that we're going to start seeing more of, and it's the influence of Korean beauty on our beauty industry that's filtering down into our pet grooming industry. And that's very true. You know, it used to be ten years before you would see a new ingredient that you spotted. Well, I would spot on the human shampoo or human cosmetic. It would be seven to ten years before it showed up in the grooming industry. And now it's like two years, maybe one year. It's more like a sieve and less like a tough membrane to break. Formulas are getting more complex in some ways, in good ways and in other ways in ways. So.

00:10:56 Dave: Yeah, yeah. That's the you bring up the slippery slope. Yeah. And the slippery slope is, you know, sometimes the claims that marketers make go far beyond what the chemistry and what the science is, where it's currently at. Or someone sees an opportunity like I'm, I'm all excited about fragrances, which we'll talk about later, but I'm real careful not to over emphasize that because it's too tempting to start greenwashing. You know? I mean, all you have to do is, uh, and I'm getting ahead of myself, but all you gotta do is say, mention skin, uh, micro ohm on your label and probiotics. And that implies good things. That's what we're talking about. skin care, the direction where we're going. But, uh, I'm getting ahead of myself. But still, I think it's pertinent to what you're saying is, what ends up happening is, um, the science isn't quite there, and we can go into the details of of why it's not quite there in a shampoo. You got to look at the applications, you know, and and what makes sense. Um, but as a groomer, we do need to know the science. And we do need to know a little bit about what we can do. Um, you know, with it, if I can kind of backtrack back into silicone copolymers, here's one for you to, to look up. It's nothing too fancy, but, uh, it's one worth learning more about. And it's called caprylyl. Methicone. That's the simple name. There's actually a much more complicated name. And I wish I could have said that because I really would have impressed you, Barb, but I'm just not I. It was a little too complicated. Name the version. But but Caprylyl Methicone is, uh, essentially there's been a big evolution in those. And that was one of the pioneers in dealing with those. And the reason we did was because they worked so well with water. They do such a nice job of doing a light, you know, let's just call it a barrier over the hair holding in the moisture. But they're also multifunctional because they'll they work well with other proteins and other things they're great for as a carrier for essential oils. Um, there's just so many cool things you can do. And if your listeners ever want to have some fun and and look up things, look up. Caprylyl CA p r y l y l methicone. That's the basic. But but that's a good start because it's so different. So contrary to the polydimethylsiloxane of the past, you know, uh, which is what everybody, I think in all these commercials and anybody who bashes silicones, I think they they lean on the past and they don't look to the present because the past stuff was so horrible.

00:13:52 Bbird: Well, the past is so past. Exactly. It it it just run away from there. I mean, just in terms of molecular size, the lightness of silicones. Nowadays, we recognize silicones as one of the lightest weight options for covering the surface of the hair, um, and offering substantial protection from grooming implements. Boy, and I just want to say, that's why you gotta use the spray as well as the conditioner, because I think that the liquids In the conditioner segment of the industry is going to be last open. And I agree. And we're going to have serums and treatments and all kinds of individualized protein depositing ingredients. We're going to have a whole lot more conditioners. They're foaming them now are taro is foaming them so that you can put the foam in your hand and run it through the coat. It's taking different forms. And there again, a lot of that reflects the influence of Asian beauty on our beauty industry. And it's how our beauty industry is keeping up with the Asian beauty trends without quite so much Which of the naturals the Korean cosmetics are. Botanically, they use a lot of kind of strange botanicals. They use fermented ingredients. They they use fungi. They use stuff that you would never think of as an ingredient. And it's because it's so available to them. And so they've been using it for years. And so now they are, you know, like rice water. Then now they are discovering the science behind the effectiveness of some of these botanicals and using them to focus a product into a certain target result.

00:16:31 Dave: Mhm.

00:16:32 Bbird: Yeah.

00:16:33 Dave: And to your, to your point what's happening now to for the serious Companies out there that are, you know, selling to professionals. I'm going to stay in my lane and talk about professional groomers here as opposed to pet parents, because the marketing is night and day, because there is a trend for towards education, a trend for transparency in ingredients. Along with that too, is understanding there's more and more understanding of how shampoo works, how conditioners work, and then it's a matter of, uh, determining the best methods of application. And what I'm getting to is the serious companies, you know, we spend a lot of time getting stuff out in the field and having, you know, and talking to people and seeing how they're using it. And even looking back over twenty years and seeing how our customers, right or wrong, used our products and what worked, what didn't, uh, you're seeing more research, um, because what what happens is, um, we can pretty much determine unequivocally that the quality of surfactants and ingredients, silicones, conditioners, you know, are so much better now. But because of that, there's a responsibility of the manufacturer to really look at how to apply these and what are the best methods. Because if you didn't if you don't know what these ingredients are, you're back to the same old problem of pouring your money down the drain because you're not using them properly, you're not appreciating them for what they are. And you're and the amount of testing going on is so much better.

00:18:19 Bbird: We're beginning to have a much better understanding of the limitations of shampoos, cleansing systems as a delivery mechanism for actives, for skin and coat care because they are grabbing stuff and taking it off and flushing it down the drain. And they're rinsed off faster than lightning, especially if you're using a recirculating system. There are a lot of ingredients that have proven action that are not active in a shampoo system that's quickly rinsed off a, you know, like, first of all, a diluted system. That's another thing. Groomers now expect twenty five to fifty to one dilutions, and you're going to any additives that are in a fifty to one dilution of a shampoo are just like down to negligible value in the diluted product because it's just not conceivable that zero point oh oh one is going to do much of anything except some a little bit of silicone is all it takes. That's a good thing about silicone is it doesn't take up much room in the formula. It is effective at very modest amounts.

00:19:57 Dave: And to your point, Barbara, um, the other thing is we don't look at silicones. We still have a problem of not classifying in our mind that a silicone is a conditioner and it's cationically charged, and it's not a matter of if it's going to bond to the hair and skin. It's the deposition method you have in place. You know, people, I always give this example when you're dealing with cleaning with a shampoo, with detergents. Yes. There's a point where you're going to dilute it and it's not going to clean worth a damn with conditioners. Yeah, there's a breaking point, but surprisingly, with conditioners, you can stretch them so much further. It's not a matter of if they're going to bond to the hair and skin, they will. It's the method of deposition. You know, how thoroughly are you getting it? All the way into the coat, down to the skin? You know, that's the key. And to your earlier point, when you were talking about ingredients and some of the actives that are at zero point zero zero, whatever, most of your good active silicones that are being used, the silicone copolymers are anywhere from one to one and a half percent of the total mixture. Okay. And that's not a lot, but that's a good amount. That's how powerful those ingredients are. If you dilute a product of fifty to one or you're stretching it even further, really the results you're seeing are more so the silicone than anything else. Uh, that's just a biased opinion. And, you know, and I have my reasons for thinking that way. When you get into the higher dilution products, it's the finish you get is all about what the what the conditioning blend and conditioning copolymers work better with other conditioners. Conditioners, as a rule, always seem to do better with other combinations of conditioners running alongside with them. That's something that we've all learned in formulary of, uh, and in haircare.

00:22:04 Susy: So would you say then going forward from here, my own personal experience is I no longer focus on the shampoo. I mean, I want to make sure I'm getting the dog as clean as I possibly can, but when it comes to affecting the coat. Thank you. Barbara. I now look to the conditioners to change the effect on the coat more than I do the shampoo. So that's a trend going forward.

00:22:28 Dave: Yes, people are starting to realize that. And I've written about this and I've always said cleaning is the easy part. I'm not saying it's easy, but in the big scheme of things, cleaning is the easy part. The finish effect that you want, the results, the fireworks, the magic. It all boils down to this silicone's hands down. And that was traditionally was the first thing to be sacrificed. Because guess what? Conditioners are expensive. Let me tell you, when you buy, when you're sourcing some of these raw materials, there's a reason, in my opinion, why a lot of companies Pooh Pooh silicones. They don't want to spend the money because it's an insane amount. If I told you what it cost, which I'm not at liberty to say, I'd get in trouble. But I mean. But it's expensive. It's prohibitive. Um. The technology, I mean, people can't imagine. And and thank God there's only one to one and a half ounces of salt in certain applications of of the silicone copolymers in there anyway.

00:23:25 Susy: So it doesn't build up anymore. But it is some of it. You say it's the depositing of the item on the coat. Then with a recirculating bathing system, the opportunity to pass the molecules past every bit of the dog because it's just getting down there deep. So that's kind of the key to the silicones, right?

00:23:47 Dave: Yeah. And when it comes to conditioning, in my opinion, and you can't change my mind on this, I'm sure somebody could try. But I believe that when it comes to conditioning, recirculating bathing systems are the bomb. When we're looking at the application, when when we're looking at the application of a of a dense coat and, you know, I can paint the picture simply this way. And you've heard me say this before on other episodes, but I'll keep it short. So many of us will use like a speed dryer or a coat release spray or whatever brand, uh, before we force dry and mist it and they'll get their hair dryer out and they'll see all the hair on the top blow out. But all this dense coat and the stuff impacted near the near. The skin is difficult to get out. That's not a product problem. That's a deposition problem. Had we gotten the product into the code and you do what I said earlier, conditioners, including silicones or cationic, it's not a matter of if they're going to bond to the hair and skin. It's the. It boils down to your method of deposition onto the coating the skin, period.

00:24:55 Bbird: Okay, so I one hundred percent agree with you on that. And I have always said that to to my amazement, I learned that the recirculating system is even better at dispensing conditioner. Then, uh, I mean, if anything, I would choose it for the conditioning value. Yeah. Um, because, yeah, I might be able to to bathe my Maltese by hand just as fast as I do in the recirculator. We're we're one hundred percent in agreement of that. I think there's no there's no getting around that. It's really the to to pressure the product through the coat with the aid of the water is just like magical. Every single hair gets coated, every single hair gets attended to over and over again.

00:25:56 Dave: Yep. And the and the new silicone copolymers are indiscernible. They're very water friendly.

00:26:02 Bbird: Yeah. They're happy with other ingredients. They don't they don't play mischief with other ingredients. They don't affect the fragrance, you know, like they're hypoallergenic. Yeah. They're hypoallergenic. There's a lot of ingredients that affect the fragrances or, you know, like the the whole fragrance. And. Well, we could get on to your next article. Fragrance preservative, uh, system can influence the, uh, each other and cause a product crash.

00:26:40 Dave: Yeah. Here's a great segue. You know, when we talk about there's a lot of talk right now about the skin and the skin microbiome, and I think it's wonderful. And my opinion and I'm sharing this because I and I'm taking a chance because I want to make sure I well, I want to hear if you what you think of my thoughts. It's important. But at the same point, I'm seeing a lot of marketing and I'm seeing a lot of I don't want to well, I see a lot of borderline greenwashing going on to a lot of the younger people getting in. Skin microbiome is nothing new. It just it's taking I mean, theoretically, it's been around. It's always been there.

00:27:23 Bbird: Always been there.

00:27:24 Dave: Yeah, yeah. It just what's happening is because of the the success in human skincare and I'm talking the add on TV and the people with the, with the pimples and the, you know, proactive solutions and other things. You know, it got people looking at uh, the, the skin microbiome and that's important. And those are topical applications under the skin and their leave on applications. But then there's this tendency and I I'm still not I'm still fighting this in in shampoos. You know that the shampoo is supposed to do everything. A medicated shampoo to me I don't I think that's kind of dumb because you're putting in a detergent with a, with an active ingredient. And and the way people think, well, if it sits on the dog longer, it'll be better. And I'm like, not so fast. If there's a detergent in there, you're opening up a problem. Well, when we talk about the skin microbiome and Probiotics. There's one flaw that nobody can get around, and that's that these liquid grooming products, you know, the shampoos are mostly water, so it needs a preservative. And the preservatives can't tell the good bacteria from the bad bacteria. So the question of it is, is a lot of these things are inactive. They're nothing but a claim on a label that that's a fear. And the other point I say is we don't refrigerate our our conditioners and our and our and our shampoos. No, there are water based where they're depending on a preservative. When you get in the skin microbiome and prebiotics, probiotics, you know, postbiotics, you know, all the different things that are out there when you go down that rabbit hole. It's a noteworthy science. It's fascinating. The research is incredible. But to date, I don't believe that a shampoo method of application is your best bet for probiotics. I think there's more viable dietary options with with more proven clinical studies and and things that are definite, you know, that could give you results. So I'm just telling people, beware. Uh, I'm not dissing the skin microbiome. I'm this is what I'm afraid of with future trends is people see where it's going, but they jump the gun. We're not quite there yet, in my opinion, with putting probiotics in a shampoo.

00:29:57 Bbird: I, I totally agree, but probiotics not to confuse probiotics with taking care of the skin biome. Probiotics are worthless in my in my mind. But what they do in Korean beauty? I'm sorry, but I'm obsessed with it lately because I think there's a lot there.

00:30:22 Dave: It's a valid point you bring up.

00:30:24 Bbird: What they do in Korean beauty is that instead of trying to make one product that does it all, they break it out and you and you actually for your skin, have steps. Yes. And you do the cleansing first and then you do a toner and then you do a hydrator, and then maybe you do peptides or ceramides or, uh, you do some special ingredient to make it less skin shiny tight, you know, so they just break that stuff out and don't expect it all to happen in a shampoo.

00:31:13 Dave: And. Well, and it's beautiful the way you explain that, Barbara, because, yes, what we're talking about here is they're looking at the science. They're looking at the, the, the actives. But it's the method. They understand what it is they're using.

00:31:28 Bbird: And they sequence their sequence. You know, you don't put something that's going to be a barrier and then try to put something that's supposed to go inside the skin and have an activity. So there there's a, a method to their madness or you know, it's not so mad. I think that ultimately, uh, we'll get there more. I still respect the conditioning shampoos for dogs that are kept very short and, uh, have no skin issues. And, and, you know, the silicones are good for, like, staying in the applied Shampoo until the rinse, and then they break out and do their conditioning so they can be that today's. Conditioning shampoos are much better in conditioning than grandma's.

00:32:32 Dave: Absolutely. And and the other thing people are beginning to acknowledge is that these conditioners are put in these shampoos for a couple reasons. In the industry we have a we'll refer to things as a defoamer, you know, uh, they'll use defoamers when there's too much suds. And we know suds don't clean, but suds are hard to rinse. So a lot of times these defoamers, they're nothing more than a conditioner, a basic conditioner, and, uh, they make it easier to rinse. They break down the bubbles. It's it's again, it's a multifaceted. These things are being used for multiple they're serving multiple roles in these formulations. And, uh, the one thing I wanted to sneak in earlier, too, is what we're talking about here is we're finally getting away from this thinking that shampoo is medicine. You know, shampoo. If we're looking at it in stages, it's getting them clean. That's what I mean when I say that's the easy part, you know, and the things we can put in there to make it rinse out easier and faster and dry faster and less irritating. Um, that's important. But then now, like, what they're doing in Korea is we're looking at what treatments, what can we do in steps and phases with some of these things to get the results we want. That is where I think the future is. But I just caution everybody we're in the early stages. There's going to be a lot of excitement, and the tendency when we see this excitement is people tend to jump, go a little overboard on the claims, which and the way you fight. That is, the more you know as a professional about the ingredients, but the methodology always be thinking in terms of cycles. And you know, think of, you know, on your washing machine there's different cycles. You know, when we're trying to do different things in our with the animal skin or coat or finish, there's cycles.

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00:35:50 Susy: So I'm going to say that potentially this is a great specialization in the industry to do something like taking care of the microbiome on a skin dog as a mobile groomer. This is killing me. I could there's no way I'm going to add another half an hour's worth of pretreatment before I'm going to wash and then condition the dog. Perhaps I can do something afterwards, but for me, as a mobile, it's got to be quicker than that. That seems like it's going to take forever. So bravo to the shops who can do this. Or maybe if you're a mobile and you charge enough money for it. Excellent. But this whole thing scares me.

00:36:30 Dave: Yeah, it'll become less scary as we all learn more and history and time. We're going to learn a lot. And it's going to it is going to get better. And at the end of the day, I will say this is for the probiotic shampoos out there. I'm not saying they're not safe. I'm not saying they're not going to clean. There's a lot of people who use them, uh, and they're happy with the performance. They like the way they smell, you know, use them for the for, for those reasons. But just look at the big picture. You know, you can't do it all with a shampoo. It's all about the conditioning.

00:37:03 Susy: Let's move on to some fragrance talk, Dave. Yeah, because I am the queen of fragrance. I like to become a walking air freshener myself by spraying on my dog Cologne. But we've been talking quite a bit about whether the dogs like it or not, and how offensive that can be. And you know, how are we dealing with that in the future?

00:37:23 Dave: Yeah. Well what's neat and it's some of it's been going on a while, if you recall, uh, if anybody who's familiar, for example, with Bishop, we've been promoting hypoallergenic fragrances for a while now, and a lot of people thought that that was, uh, greenwashing in a sense, you know, because when we hear the word hypoallergenic, there's a lot of skepticism towards that, you know, as far as those type of claims. But in fragrances, it is a thing. And what they do is, uh, and it's largely driven by the EU, the European Union, they've looked at fragrances, they've isolated the culprits that are the most common irritants.

00:38:09 Bbird: I think it's important, Dave, that we make a distinction between contact and contact allergens.

00:38:20 Dave: Thank you. And and because of that the fragrance companies there's there's two big culprits in our industry. If you're a groomer and you're dealing with that three or four percent of the market, either the owners or the pets that have these really serious, legitimate allergic sensitivities, whatever we want to define them as. It usually boils down to the foaming agents that we put into the shampoos or the fragrances. Those are the two. And if you talk to a veterinarian, dermatology and dermatologists, you know, for animals, people, those are the two typical ingredients in our topical or rinse off products that are the biggest culprits in aggravating, uh, these things. Would you agree?

00:39:07 Speaker 5: I would add.

00:39:08 Bbird: Preservatives, I would add preservatives because, um, some of the preservatives, not parabens, by the way.

00:39:17 Dave: Yeah.

00:39:17 Bbird: Surprising some of the preservatives that became popular after parabens were run out of Dodge. They have had issues with allergic reactions, fragrance components that by themselves are are going to cause like an immediate contact irritation. But there's many. And now the EU has a list of over eighty. Yep, fragrance components in which include a large number of essential oil components, as well as some whole essential oils that actually are sensitizers Which mean they start the cycle. Yep. And it depends on how it. Every dog's body, every human's body is different in the way they react to stranger danger. So some dogs alert to everything practically, and some dogs aren't bothered very much by that. But it it so happens because it takes repeat exposure to a sensitizer to build up the sensitivity. The sensitivity, the actual allergic reaction can happen the third time you bathe the dog with that contact allergen in it, or the thirtieth time you, you know, you can say, well, I paid them for four years and with this product and never had a problem. Okay. He was slowly developing. He was slowly beginning to recognize that ingredient as the enemy. Yep.

00:41:17 Dave: And here's the good news to that. And I'm not saying it it it's been resolved, but it's certainly reduced the likelihood we want your, your listeners to understand that we know the clear ingredients in these formulations. And we're talking typically in the zero point zero zero. You know, the hundreds to the thousands of the overall formula. That's how that's how potent these ingredients, these triggers, these they are. But we've been able to identify the ones that totally avoid and maybe use a synthetic alternative or something to those essential oils. Or we know pretty much the the level, the percentage overall and the overall formulation where it's it's in a safer, less likely chance of irritating in a rinse off product like a shampoo or conditioner. Fortunately, where pets are different than humans, there's a lot of lotions that we rub in our on our own human skins. You know that. That boy, these can really have an effect, you know? So what we've been able to do, I'm not saying we've totally eliminated, uh, these type of things. And we need to remind everybody that it's usually three to four percent of that audience of animals or people, you know, that that has that, you know, suffers from this and it can't be dismissed. I'm not saying, oh, it's only three, four percent. Hey, it's three four percent. It matters when that three or four percent is your customer, you know. But we've been able to, uh, identify these things and we're using fragrances now. More companies are using. uh, going out of their way. Mindfully going out of their way in their formulary to use more of these hypoallergenic type fragrances. So that's encouraging. But where I wanted to jump to, where it's really starting to get excited to what Susie had alluded to, you know, it's all about scents still for people and we and I and groomers, we still fall victim to that. And heck, when I'm at a trade show in the corner of our booth, I have twenty four different fragrance sprays enticing people to come in. Okay. Uh, so, you know, hey, I gotta be careful what I'm what I'm preaching because we're out there capitalizing on all those fragrances. But but think about it. We like it. But what does the dog think? There's a lot of these fragrances we're putting on animals, and, uh, it upsets them. It could depress them. It could make them an anxious, uh. You wonder why when you grab that bottle of spray at home, your pet parent and the dog goes running. It's not agreeable.

00:44:06 Bbird: Yeah. They go outside and roll in a dead thing, but they don't want any of that.

00:44:11 Dave: They don't want that on.

00:44:12 Bbird: Well, we we don't we don't know. We don't ask them enough. We need to ask them. We need to observe how your dog acts after grooming. If he goes under the couch. It could be he doesn't like the fragrance that got put on him.

00:44:30 Dave: Exactly. So what's start? What's already happening? And I'm really excited about this. And in the article I wrote, I called out and mentioned the company. It's called surmise. They're out of new Jersey and they're actually that's where their US offices, they're a foreign company, the big in Europe. Uh that's why. They have such an amazing program. And you can go on their line and look at what they're doing with with flavors, with fragrances, with other products, but they're looking for products that actually the animals respond well to, that calm them that that they want to be doused in.

00:45:15 Bbird: Yeah. Dogs don't want to smell like dogs. No, that's the that's the main thing. They like being clean because they don't smell like dogs, but they don't want to smell like other things that they they don't like all fragrances.

00:45:32 Dave: That's correct.

00:45:33 Bbird: And they don't like all level of fragrance.

00:45:36 Dave: So what I'm encouraging the listeners to do is check out it's a company called surmise. Uh, s y r m I s e uh, fragrance and flavors. Uh, check them out. They've just done some really cool things, and they're already marketing now. Pet friendly fragrances. So they smell good. And they're they've got a fairly I'm surprised it's a fairly wide variety, but they're coming out with more and more because if you can come up with something that we love, that we want to purchase because we're the ones purchasing it, you know, the one putting it on, but that the dogs are actually thrilled with or okay with. That's what's exciting. So we're starting to see pet friendly fragrances and that that is that is going to be cool. Uh, so you're going to see that those claims starting to be made over the next year or two on products that's outstanding. That's outstanding.

00:46:35 Bbird: So fragrances are not going to go away. Don't worry Susie.

00:46:39 Susy: Well I was kind of a little worried, but I'm feeling a little better about it now.

00:46:44 Bbird: Don't worry. Okay. Fragrances are not going to go away, but the whole essential oil thing may ultimately go away.

00:46:54 Susy: I'm okay with that. That one. I'm not a fan. So because I have birds and cats, so I don't really want essential oils around my stuff, but I but I do love a good fragrance and I have always watched for the dog's reaction. So licking, sneezing, turning away. Those are things that are telling you that the dog does not like the fragrance. So watch for that stuff and honor their request. My question to you, Barbara, and to Dave as well, is if you've got a double coated dog and you spraying a fragrance on the outside of that dog, the exterior, the outside of the hair, and there's like a whole bunch of hair between where the fragrance lands and where the dog's potential skin biome and all of those receptors are. Is it still an allergen? Is it an allergen airborne, or is it an allergen contact, or how does that work?

00:47:49 Bbird: It's probably still an allergen, but it's way less likely to stimulate an allergic response if there's insulating hair between the application site and the skin.

00:48:06 Susy: So maybe be more cautious if you're spraying a greyhound with bad skin than if you are a husky with bad skin or. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

00:48:14 Bbird: Yeah.

00:48:14 Dave: And the the other part to that too. And I can't say this definitively or specifically, but if you're using good conditioning on the skin, you know, if you've got a good method, uh, sometimes these conditioners can help the skin as well. You know, sometimes in the past, we would just haphazardly put a product on there that might have been harsh or, you know, drying, and then now you're blow drying it and the dog's stressed out, and then you're going to add this foreign smell in, you know, all of these are moving parts. And what the good news is the, the there's less moving parts. And more importantly, we're beginning to understand the moving parts and the applications that are preferred. And that's what's exciting. I always tell people it's more than just a bath. You know, it all starts in the bathtub. But what's happening with all this technology is it's going to matter even more, and you're going to have happier dogs potentially coming to your table to be finished because you've used them in pet friendly products. Their skin's not aggravated from cheaper products or or maybe not following a mindful method. So all of this is encouraging. You know, the dots are beginning, beginning to be connected here, so to speak. The only other thing I was just going to mention is there's another company out there called Bel Air Fragrances. Uh, they're out of Chicago. They have a proprietary ingredient called Organon, which is a cyclodextrin type product that, uh, engulfs odors and disperses it. If you think of Febreeze, you know when you see those silly Febreeze commercials, you know, with the dumpster and all of that and you're kind of like, what's the point? But what these fragrance companies, more and more of them are getting into these, uh, excuse me, cyclodextrin type technologies where they can actually eliminate an odor and disperse it. And you're seeing companies, uh, various brands promote that proprietary technology they'll call out or known specifically on their label. And, uh, this is another example. Uh, you know, we've all had bad odors and skunk, and we're really with the right methodology. What's going to happen is now that we have this technology, just like what the Koreans are doing, you're going to have, uh, people coming up with ways of totally eliminating odors. That's my best shot. When we adapted that technology, we have a shampoo and conditioner and a spray. You have the ability to totally eliminate odors. So you're going to see more and more of that type of technology. And in our business it's shedding, tingling, smelly dog, you name it. You know we're dealing with all of that. So this is good news for us.

00:51:08 Susy: Absolutely. Well Dave, we really appreciate you coming on with us. We love our conversations with you. It's so much fun. And, uh, Barbara, do you have anything to wrap us up with or should we just head on out?

00:51:22 Bbird: Oh, I really enjoyed it as well. And and, um, thanks for listening to me go on about Korean beauty, because I think they're on to something awesome.

00:51:34 Susy: All right. Cool. Well, thanks for being here, Dave. Thanks for being here, Barbara. Thank you. Listeners, remember to support our sponsors like and click and share and do all the good things and happy grooming. See you next time on the groom pod. Buh bye now.

00:51:48 Dave: Bye, everybody.

00:51:49 Bbird: Bye. Take care of yourselves because we love you.