Click here to visit the Beauty Brains blog.
Welcome to the new Forum. Please feel free to start a new discussion.
Biggest Beauty Lie You've Ever Heard?
  • Janis
    Just curious what the biggest line of BS we've heard about beauty and fashion is.

    For me, it's a tie between "low rise jeans are slimming" and "cutting your hair makes it grow."

    Visually bisecting one's body at its widest possible point is just NOT slimming at all, and ... well, if I had a dime for every month I spent with my hair parked frustratingly at shoulder length because someone told me that if I wanted to grow it to the floor, I needed to get it cut every month, I'd be rich.

    So what are the biggest lines of fashion and beauty bull you've all heard?
  • mo
    Really ?
  • Left BrainLeft Brain
    I'd say the lie that natural / organic beauty products being better for you than regular products.
    Then there is the lie that health food supplements can improve the condition of your skin and hair.  Unless you're malnourished, they can't.
  • Ally E.Ally E.
    that sunscreen won't let you get tanned (that's a huge reason so many girls still refuse to wear it, despite the cancer factor and aging)

    that tanning beds are harmless (i fell for that one when i was a teenager)
  • JeffB31JeffB31
    Actually, I look at it more as brilliant copywriting. Isn't that the job of a copywriter, to promote something by describing it in the best light possible? Choosing words which sound great but have no actual meaning?

    I love the word "encourages".
    The best recent technique: Promotion of Hyallurantic Acid and creating the suggestion linking the internal HA will somehow find a benefit by its topical application.

    Every time I see a brilliant job of copywriting I wish I knew who worte it so I could congradulate them.

    I also agree with Left Brain. There are times that I would not want to go natural. Like the use of Allantoin. I remember reading in a cosmetic technology book a story about it's discovery. I can't speak for the authenticity of the story but it said that it was first discovered when doctors noticed during the Korean war found that soldiers wounded in battle who had maggets in the wounds (resulting from flys) appeared to heal faster than those which did not. The maggots would eat the dead tissue and excreted a substance with was developed into Allantoin. I think I would rather by the man-made, synthetic form.
  • Anne
    Pretty much any add for anti-aging creams, especially the very expensive ones, where they say their product penetrates deep into the layers of skin and communicate with the cells. Unfortunately, so many women hope that it is true, they make millions off of these products.
  • PurpleRulesPurpleRules
    The most persistent is probably that warm water opens your pores and cold water closes them. Or was it the other way 'round? I can't remember. I've been hearing this since I was a teenager, which was a very long time ago, and I'm still hearing it today.
  • JamiSingsJamiSings
    1: "Men care more about confidence then looks."
    Bullcrap. "Confidence is sexy." Yeah, that's why I keep hearing "Jami, you're a nice person, but you're too fat to be seen with in public" from guys.
    2: "Horizontal stripes actually make you look thinner, not fatter."
    Um, NO! VERTICAL stripes are slimming. Horizontal can make even Jack Skeleton look like he's ten pounds fatter then he is. Seriously, even though I think 99% of what Clinton and Stacy have to say is crap when it comes to fatties like myself, I agree with them when they say that women should not wear horizontal stripes. (And Tim Gunn says the same thing.) Because it makes you look BIGGER not smaller! (Same goes for big bold patterns.)
    3: "The tighter your clothes, the thinner/better you'll look."
    While my tent-like tops might make me look a little heavier, skin tight tops on fat women do not make us look thinner. It just draws attention to every lump, bump, and roll. When you can clearly see how deep a woman's belly button is you know her clothes are too tight. Clothing should flow over lumps and rolls, not outline them for all the world to see clearly.
  • Janis
    I'm not sure about the "no big patterns" for big women ... Some of the best outfits I've ever seen on big women have been outfits that looked like the woman decided, "Hell, if I've got the acreage, I might as well have fun with it," and wore some magnificent fire-orange-and-cranberry batik things that looked like a plasma explosion. Big women can get away with that stuff and look fabulous while they do it.

    I don't think a lot of places really know how to make clothes for bigger women, though. They do have to dress differently, but when you can't find anything in a store except a freaking skin-tight tank top, they're sort of stuck. :-P
  • JamiSingsJamiSings
    I know in bigger patterns I look huge. In fact, I've never known a fat woman who didn't add visually ten pounds by wearing the bold pattern, the horizontal stripes, or the white shirt.
    I can't tell you how many fat women I know who choose the skin tight tank top with their batwings and rolls all showing rather then something they actually look good in. They then claim that "the tighter your clothing the thinner you look." But I don't see how making your fat rolls clearly visible for all the world to see can make you look thinner.
    Of course, I'm not hip and with it. Nor do I want to be if I have to wear clothing like that.
  • mo
    Dermatologist Tested/Recomended

    All it means is that a few samples were sent to a few derms, whether they used it or not; god only knows.
    There are no controlled groups and nothing needs to be reported. Bull crap.

    The other thing is how some of the very good brands try to market themselves as natural/organic and a lot is lot in translation.
    For example, derma e is a brand that has a good balance of synthetic and natural ingredients blended well. But it kills me whe they claim a cleanser with 5 surfactants to be "natural".
  • Janis
    I have to laugh at your "dermatologist tested" comment. Hee. They don't tell you that the derms they sent it to gave it an F.
Add a Comment