Small rant about cosmetics' ads

[bbennett at joymail.com]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Neil Ward" <neilward at d...> wrote:
> She looks like a rabbit trapped in headlights at the best of times, 
but, to me, this conjures up an image of two mutant tarantulas 
nestling in her eye sockets.  Does anyone else think, '100,000,000 
"outrageously" full and soft eyelashes - that's way too much eyelash 
for one human head!!!'?>

You know, if I had my own airbrush artist to re-touch all my 
advertisements, I could also look like I have 100,000,000 (or as yael 
pointed out - 1,000,000,000 ;*)

> I'm sorry, I just have this niggly thing about ridiculous science 
in advertising.  How stupid are people to fall for this?

A lot of people fall for it, especially if they hit you early enough. 
I just turned 31, and I'm still pissed over some of the issues that 
lodged in my psyche when I was a teenager, thanks to Seventeen 
Magazine. Want to feel unfashionable, unsuccessful, undesirable, and 
overweight? Read a fashion magazine. There may be a few decent ones, 
but not many.

I bought two books that I recommend to everyone (well, everyone 
female, although there are sections in both for men) - Don't Go To 
the Cosmetics Counter Without Me and Don't Buy Haircare Products 
Without Me. The author tests products that are on the market, looks 
at the ingredients, tells you if they can possibly do what they claim 
(about 85% of the time, the answer is a big NO), and makes 
recommendations on the best products to use (pay $50 for the bottle 
of Lancome cleanser, but the $8 bottle of Cetaphil will probably do a 
better job). If you wear makeup, it's obvious that some companies 
exaggerate their claims, but I never realized how often they outright 
lie until I picked up these books - they're very interesting.

I'm going back to my vacation now, but I just had to comment on 
Neil's interesting post :*)

B