This Post Will Use Heat and Vibrations to Melt Away Wrinkles

If you have sex with men, feel insecure about anything, and have a little bit of money, then chances are high that you have bought your fair share of beauty products. Beauty products are amazing in that they promise you just about anything you could want for yourself: smaller pores, a slimmer body, fewer wrinkles, bigger hair, whiter teeth, [add any other adjective ending in -er followed by a random part of your body here]. Some of these things actually deliver on their promises, but I'm pretty certain that most do not. Below are some egregious examples of what I believe are exceedingly stupid beauty products that someone will still buy.

The secret to getting an otherwise rational person to buy your snake-oil beauty product is to make your product sound sciency. Sprinkling words like ion, ultrasonic, penetrate, magnetic, lipids, phyto, alpha hydroxy, etc. throughout your ad triggers a part of consumers' brains that causes them to think and buy irrationally. No matter how crappy your product, no matter how ridiculous your claim, some desperate person is going to buy your stupid product. These people are beauty junkies, and they do not think like a normal person when it comes to beauty products. See below for an example of how this thought process works.

Exhibit A: New Ultrasound Ultrasonic Weight Loss Beauty Massager
Normal Person Thought Process:
Wow, this is obviously a lie. This thing looks like a travel-size back massager: there is no way it can melt fat. In fact, I'm not certain that anything can really "melt fat." The pictures for this product aren't even trying to convince me -- it's just a picture of this massaging thingy with circles pasted around it. WTF, this thing costs $50?!

Beauty Junkie Thought Process:
Holy crap, this is amazing! I absolutely must have this. The heat and vibrations are going to penetrate my deep-seated skin and increase my body's metabolism. This graphic shows me exactly how this massager works -- the vibration lines are going to penetrate through my true skin and shake up my fat and then somehow melt it. Sounds true to me. And I can't believe that it only costs $50 -- it's supposed to cost $99. What a deal!!

Now that you've seen the madness that just a few random words and a stupid graphic can cause, I want to show you the Mayor's Must-Have of the week Beauty Care Face Roller Microwave Oxygen Massager.

There are some obvious language issues here as the seller is from Hong Kong. For example, this little Face Roller Microwave Oxygen Massager (which looks like a mini-paint roller) is supposed to perform such miracles as "promote face blood circulation," "make skin shinning and firm," and "remove dirt which jammed pores." This product is my must-have of the week because even though the product pictures and description are half-assed (there is no explanation of how this face roller uses microwave and oxygen), an  attempt was made to use some of the sciency words that trigger idiocy. That means that someone, somewhere is going to shell out $10 to help them hide the secrets of their age.    

 

The Mayor normally writes "E-Bathing" for the Bathtub every Tuesday morning. For more information click here.

Comments

[Lauren]

I own a lot of useless products, but even I don't have these

[Andrea]

I read the title of this post as "This Post Will Use Heat and Vibrators to Melt Away Wrinkles." When the first sentence started talking about having sex with men, I was suddenly like, "WHAT is this week's theme?!?!"

[Former O.O.]

Yeah, I second Andrea's comment. Usually people sugar coat their sexual orientation a little more than by opening paragraphs with "if you have sex with men." Haha, well played, Mayor.

[Andrea]

O.O, I hadn't even thought of that.

I just saw "vibrators" and "sex" and thought "Oh my stars and garters, it's sex week at The Bathtub!"

Sex Week: like Shark Week, only toothier.

[Tori]

In honor of Sex Week, the Discovery Channel building will have an enormous shlong coming out of it . . .