If you don’t understand how the cosmetics industry works—the good, the bad, and the ugly—you will be a victim of its advertising manipulations, exaggerations, and deceptions, and that isn’t good for your skin or your budget.
What most women
don’t realize is how everyone in the cosmetics industry knows that the
marketing and advertising for cosmetics is either meaningless, hypocritical, or
dishonest. That fashion magazines are hamstrung by their advertisers and can’t
report “beauty” information objectively. They can’t disagree with their
advertisers. The reporters, producers, and editors all know it. They all talk
about it and then shrug their shoulders and say, well, it’s a living. Or they
laugh about it. Ultimately, they all know women are being suckered into
products that can’t possibly perform as the claims on the label assert.
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, silky
hair, 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 the 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. One of the most beguiling aspects of the
cosmetics industry in the U.S. and Canada is that the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA), Health Canada (HC), and most regulatory boards around the
world—with the exception of the European Union (EU) member countries—don’t
require cosmetics companies to prove their claims. “Neither cosmetic products
nor cosmetic ingredients are reviewed or approved by FDA before they are sold
to the public.” (Sources: Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, www. cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/cos-206.html,
March 3, 2005; and FDA Authority Over Cosmetics and Health Canada,
www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/prod/cosmet-eng.php). That means cosmetics
companies, whether they call their products cosmeceutical or otherwise, get to say just about anything they
want about their products without any substantiation or proof whatsoever.
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 only
fundamental FDA restriction on cosmetics companies’ claims is the legal prohibition
of phrases that directly state or promise a permanent change in the skin or
hair. Of course, there are a million ways to make something sound like a
permanent change to consumers without sounding permanent to the FDA.
What about
federal regulations concerning truth in advertising? That issue generally falls
under the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC), but it doesn’t take much to get around these
guys either.
For example, I
can describe at great length how miraculously my product works as long as I
throw in phrases such as “appears to,” “seems to,” “feels as if,” “looks like,”
“you may experience,” and lots more variations on these themes. All of these
phrases invalidate any promise about a product’s performance. A company is not
considered to be lying to the consumer when these kinds of terms are used
because the purported results are subjective, not actual. It may “seem” like
your cellulite has disappeared, or you may “appear” to look younger, or you can
“experience” a clear complexion, but nothing has happened except that you may
be convinced something has taken place.
Better Than
Botox? That question mark poses a question, not a statement, so the FDA is
happy, and meanwhile what the consumer hears is that the product is better than
Botox. It doesn’t take fancy terminology to keep within regulatory guidelines
while still misleading the consumer because reading caveats doesn’t get our
attention. That’s how most cosmetics advertising gets around
truth-in-advertising restrictions every time.
Another game in
the industry happens when companies step way over the line in their advertising
campaigns, either on television or in fashion magazines, and mislead or lie to consumers.
They do this because they know that by the time the FDA or HC can take action
the advertisement has run its course and made an impression on consumers.
Mission accomplished; the company is on to its next product launch. Also, many
cosmetics companies know that the FDC and HC are just so overloaded with work
and underfunded that their deceptive ads can easily slip under the radar of
these agencies and continue on, safe and sound, without any fear of
repercussions. And beyond the lack of regulation, the language and images are
manipulated to create a veneer of scientific authority in advertisements that
promise everything from younger skin to smoother thighs. The problem here has
to do with the studies the cosmetics companies claim are backed by actual
research that proves their assertions to be true. This is the wide open world
of claim substantiation, a whole industry of its own that has given the word deception
an entirely new meaning.
Watch
Top Documentary Film: The Story of Cosmetics (2010)
The Story of
Cosmetics, released on July 21st, 2010 at storyofcosmetics.org, examines the
pervasive use of toxic chemicals in our everyday personal care products, from
lipstick to baby shampoo. Produced by Free Range Studios and hosted by Annie
Leonard, the seven-minute film reveals the implications for consumer and worker
health and the environment, and outlines ways we can move the industry away
from hazardous chemicals and towards safer alternatives. The film concludes
with a call for viewers to support legislation aimed at ensuring the safety of
cosmetics and personal care products.
The film was made in
close partnership with The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics a national coalition
working to protect the health of consumers and workers by securing the
corporate, regulatory and legislative reforms necessary to eliminate dangerous
chemicals from cosmetics and personal care products.
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