The Ugly Truth about Cosmetics’ Claims

Last month, during a brief stay in Italy to visit my family, I noticed a disturbing new trend in advertising: creams designed to “lift” breasts and buttocks.

The last time I had seen a print ad for a similar product, I was in my early teens: in the back pages of all the popular teen magazines, I would see ads for X-ray glasses (destined for boys, to see through the clothes of women) and various “miracle” creams designed to accelerate puberty and turn a flat chested girl into a Pamela Anderson-like bombshell. My friends and I would dismiss this as utter rubbish (with the exception of a hopeful pimply faced boy in my class who once purchased X-ray glasses and brought them to school. Sadly, they didn’t work).

Fast-forward to today. Imagine my shock, when, while sitting in my dentist’s waiting room, I see that ads for creams to “increase breast size” are peppering the pages of virtually all the women’s magazines I pick up. Even more surprising? These creams belong to major (read: well respected) cosmetics companies.

Some examples (note: one of the photos below is a bit graphic, showing a nipple, so NSFW for those of you in the United States. Us Europeans are used to a lot worse)

The Title: “Dalla Ricerca COLLISTAR” (“from Collistar’s Research Team” – thus legit, no?)

“La rivoluzionaria novità che rassoda e solleva il seno” = “The revolutionary new product that firms and lifts breasts”

“più alto 2,7 cm” = “1,1 inch higher”

“più voluminoso +1cm” = “1/2 inch more volume”

“più sodo per il 90% delle donne testate” = “firmer breasts for 90% of women tested”

And now, let’s look at the pretty little asterisks that accompany each claim. Mind you, you may need eyeglasses to read those teeny tiny scribbles at the bottom of the page:

“Test clinico-strumentali” = gibberish? Well, let’s say clinical tests conducted on 20 women at an important Italian university. “An important Italian university”? WTF? Also: “maximum values reported after 60 days”. Whatever that means.

Let’s look at another ad, this one from Pupa, a cosmetics company that usually targets teenage girls and women in their 20s-early 30s:

This ad uses a similar language – as well as outrageous claims:

Firming effect = 94%

Rounder breasts (whatever that means) = 97%

Higher breasts = 88%

An interesting tagline, bottom right: “+ volume – chirurgia” (+ volume – plastic surgery)

And now, a quick look at the asterisks:

* Maximum value found in 3 subjects out of 35. Median value: 1 cm.

*** Tests are self-evaluations of 35 women during 8 weeks.

The self-evaluation part is what interests me. Because, whenever you see claims about anti-wrinkle creams, or anti-cellulite creams, or any other potion on the market (creams to increase breasts, buttocks, make your hair fuller, etc.) the percentages the ads refer to are not objective scientific findings. No. All beauty companies – big and small – use the results of self-evaluations in their marketing campaigns.

I once saw a documentary on TV that featured a French lab where they test 90% of cosmetics on the market. Women who participate in the study are given loads of free samples and usually return to the lab after 2 months to fill out a questionnaire about their satisfaction with a given product. A smiling lab attendant asks questions about one’s satisfaction (with yes/no answer) and then the results are compiled. In the documentary in question, a turtle-faced woman in her 60s say that the anti-wrinkle cream she had used had shown positive results. I couldn’t believe it. It’s ALL SUBJECTIVE: no scientific tests are carried out to confirm the claims. After all, if creams could actually reduce wrinkles, lift breasts, eliminate cellulite, why would women resort to expensive and intrusive procedures like Botox, breast implants and liposuction?

What these cosmetics companies are actually selling is HOPE.

After all, Charles Revson, founder of Revlon once said: “In the factory we make cosmetics; in the drugstore we sell hope.”

For an insightful article about the misleading marketing practices of cosmetics companies, click here.

It’s the same with the breast creams above. A few more examples:

What to do about this? Send your complaints to consumers’ associations.

Annals of Cosmetic Surgery: The Sweet, Sweet Smell of Money

According to news site News.co.au, Australian consumer group Choice sent three women to thirty clinics in the Brisbane and Melbourne areas to investigate cosmetic surgery practices. The women, passing off as prospective patients, would inquire about treatments such as liposuction, breast augmentation and Botox.

The results were quite shocking. The article reports:

Choice spokesman Christopher Zinn said the most remarkable statement to any of the women was that she would have an improved chance of finding a partner if she had her breasts enlarged. 

“It’s incredibly surprising that a doctor would say that. Talk about playing to people’s insecurities,” Mr Zinn said. 

Most concerning was failure to explain the dangers, such as leakage and scarring. 

“Given the known risks and the unwillingness of some cosmetic surgeons to discuss them, there needs to be stronger regulation,” Mr Zinn said. 

Money, money, money.

Original article here.

Oprah to Kate Winslet: “God Bless Your Real Breasts”

Yay! For once a positive spin on real breasts.

From Jezebel.

“I love the fact that you have real breasts,” Oprah gushed to Kate. Kate took this as a compliment. Oprah went on to describe the difference between what happens to real breasts when a woman lies on her back and fake breasts when a woman lies on her back.

OttawaCitizen.com : Mommy Makeovers Inspired by Celebrities

“Forget facials and pedicures. Today’s new moms want tummy tucks and breast lifts.”

Excerpt:

The fact that more women are turning to plastic surgery worries Shari Graydon, author of In Your Face: The Culture of Beauty and You.

“Apparently, the pressure on new mothers to care for the every need of a completely incompetent and utterly defenceless newborn while stumbling around in a perpetual state of sleep-deprived hormonal overload isn’t enough,” she says.

Giving plastic surgery a name like “mommy makeover” is just clever marketing to women whose body image is suffering, Graydon says. “Calling cosmetic surgery, whether it happens two years or two decades after a woman gives birth, a ‘mommy makeover’ is a cynical attempt to normalize medically unjustified radical intervention.”

Graydon also says mothers who have plastic surgery send a mixed message to their children.

“You can’t convincingly tell your kids, ‘You’re beautiful just the way you are,’ if you’re risking major anesthetic yourself to remake your body after it does what it was biologically designed to do.”

Full article here.

Yet Another “News” Report about MyFreeImplants.com

… which sounds more like a commercial promoting the site… leaving out all discussions of potential side effects and additional costs…

My favorite quote:

The website was a testosterone-, alcohol-fuelled idea hatched by two Bay Area buddies at this bachelor’s party in Las Vegas.

Breasts. Then and Now.

The number of breast augmentations performed in the United States has skyrocketed in the past two decades. Statistics from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery show the following:

Number of breast augmentations performed in 1992 : 32,607

Number of breast augmentations performed in 2007 : 399,440

That’s an increase of 1225% !

As Naomi Wolf explains in The Beauty Myth,

Culture screens breasts with impeccable thoroughness, almost never representing those that are soft, or asymmetrical, or drooping, or mature, or that have gone through the changes of pregnancy. Looking at breasts in culture one would have little idea that real breasts come in as many shapes and variations as there are women. [...] Since beauty censorship keeps women in profound darkness about other women’s real bodies, it is able to make virtually any woman feel that her breasts alone are too soft or low or sagging or small or big or weird or wrong.”

This sense of shame and inadequacy fuels the cosmetic surgery industry. As Wolf explains in her book,

“Modern cosmetic surgeons have a direct financial interest in a social role for women that requires them to feel ugly.”

For pictures (and stories) of real breasts, visit this site: 007b.com (NSFW, obviously)