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Today I Learned

Everyone has their quirks. We are all unique individuals, so we're bound to come up with little things that we do that work for us but that aren't necessarily common. In my particular case, I tend to get very curious about things. If you say something that I've never heard before, I'm going to either ask you about it or look it up myself. There's no real explanation for it, since there's no requirement that I get more information about the topic at hand. It's just how my brain is wired.

The interesting thing about this is when my quirk coincides with someone else's quirks. In this particular instance, we're talking about the Mild Wife. She likes to watch YouTube videos of some women in the beauty industry, so I've overheard lots of commentary about things like foundation. It's not immediately applicable to my person, since I don't wear make up. Also, I am entirely ignorant about the finer points of foundation or brushes. However, given the quirks of my brain, I do try to understand what the Mild Wife is talking about. It makes for some amusing conversations.

The most recent one that comes to mind involves the term "pH barrier." I'd never heard the term before when the Mild Wife mentioned it, so my curiosity was immediately piqued. I asked her what it meant, and she explained it had to do with the pH of the skin. Well, I didn't have nearly enough of an understanding of the chemistry of the body, so I didn't quite understand what she was saying. Ultimately, I resolved to look it up.

Using the magic of the Internet, I was able to find a couple of useful tidbits of information. First, the pH of the skin has been the subject of several studies. I didn't understand all of the words in that abstract, either, but I did understand enough of them to know that changing the pH of your skin can have actual medical benefits. Secondly, and far more usefully, I found a blog post about skin care and protecting your "acid mantle." The blog is not at all my usual cup of tea, but the lady did a pretty good job of explaining why you don't want to mess with the pH of your skin. Basically, bad things happen to your skin that way.

As I was reading that second blog post, it occurred to me that I was reading a beauty blog. I'm not sure I would've ever guessed that would've been the case several years ago, or even several days ago, for that matter. Still, everyone's got their quirks, and today I learned something pretty interesting about skin chemistry.

Quirks can be fun.
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