Reporters all over the world constantly ask me why cosmetics companies mislead and often out and out lie to women, and how they manage to get away with it. The simple answer is that women like to be lied to. We want to believe that the products we buy can get us what we want. We prefer the promise of eternal youth (or some approximation) and clear, flawless skin to reality. No matter how many thousands of products there are, often dozens of them from the same companies, and all guaranteeing some degree of a miracle, it still happens—we just don’t seem to have a learning curve. We want the next one we buy to be the answer. Using either scientific mumbo jumbo or concoctions said to come straight from the earth, or a mix of both, they tell us exactly what we want to hear. Most cosmetics companies need to lie just to gain a consumer’s attention because the truth is never as enticing as deception.
While women want to find hope in a jar, regulatory agencies do what they can to protect us. However, the official limitations provide no real protection from truly misleading information or lies
Why CosmetiCs Companies Can mislead legally
Reporters all over the world constantly ask me why cosmetics companies mislead and often out and out lie to women, and how they manage to get away with it. The simple answer is that women like to be lied to. We want to believe that the products we buy can get us what we want. We prefer the promise of eternal youth (or some approximation) and clear, flawless skin to reality.
No matter how many thousands of products there are, often dozens of them from the same companies, and all guaranteeing some degree of a miracle, it still happens we just don’t seem to have a learning curve. We want the next one we buy to be the answer. Using either scientific mumbo jumbo or concoctions said to come straight from the earth, or a mix of both, they tell us exactly what we want to hear. Most cosmetics companies need to lie just to gain a consumer’s attention because the truth is never as enticing as deception. While women want to find hope in a jar, regulatory agencies do what they can to protect us
Pharmaceutical and over-the-counter drug regulations are infinitely stricter than those dealing with cosmetics. If a drug company makes a claim about what an antihistamine can do to prevent sneezing, the product must contain particular ingredients in specified amounts to win approval from the FDA. The same is true for aspirin and other analgesics, antacids, decongestants, anti-inflammatories, and all drugs across the board in the world of pharmaceuticals. The same is not true for cosmetics
The BesT IngredIenTs for skin?
The question women and reporters worldwide always ask me is: Which ingredient or ingredients are the best for skin? The good news is the same as the bad news because there isn’t just one or even a few—there are hundreds of brilliant ingredients for skin. While that means there are great options to choose from, it also makes the selection process exceedingly difficult. Everyone wants a magic bullet, and the world of cosmetics has nothing even vaguely resembling a single-ingredient miracle. A cosmetics company may showcase an ingredient and make it sound sensational, but the truth is there are lots and lots of sensational ingredients. The next time a salesperson, infomercial, or advertisement wants to convince you of some miracle ingredient, ignore it, they are lying through their teeth.
A cosmetics chemist has access to thousands of ingredients that can go into a formula, and trying to translate them all into a format a consumer can understand is impossible. In the cosmetic ingredient dictionary on my website at www.cosmetics-cop.com, I have included over 3,000 ingredients, yet that is only the tip of a rather big and continually growing ingredient database. I spend endless time analyzing what the research says about the formulations and contents of each product I consider.
