Lush/Body Shop/Botanics/et al...

[cat]

This is a constant gripe of mine, and so I am going to share it with all of you.

How is it that cosmetics/toiletries companies are allowed to get away with claiming their products are 'natural' and 'organic', or whatever, when in fact they are the exact opposite?

Today, for instance, I bought Boots Honey and Ginseng Shampoo.

How much honey does this contain? Practically none, and even less ginseng. The only reason it smells of honey is because of the tonne of artificial perfumes they plonk in it.

Lush are even worse - trying to pass themselves off as being amazingly natural, when in fact they just contain the usual bunch of chemicals.

Body Shop, in fairness, sometimes gets it right, but it's still a fine line.

It is one big fat con that they're tricking consumers with, claiming to have all these lovely natural ingredients in whilst containing less than a trace and having no impact whatsoever. Though, I can't really understand how covering my hair in honey would much help it.

Just needed to get that off my chest.

[Katnap]

Given that Boots HQ is located next to a small sewage works, a Household Waste Centre (i.e. a rubbish tip) and also that lovely fresh stretch of water called the river Trent, who knows what might actually be in their products.

[cat]

I've long thought their oceanic clay face mask was just mud from the River Trent.

With all the guns flying around Nottingham, prizes for the first person to find a bullet in their vitamin C pills.

[russnet]

I was in Lush the other week buying sommat for Mothers Day and the aroma in there was so bad that I thought I was going to get high on the stuff. How the people who work in there manage to get through the day.

[Cheese Head]

We have alot of the botanics stuff sitting in our bathroom because my dad worked for boots as an engineer in one of their factories. . . You've enticed me to look at the ingredients of this crap, like the eccnachia (however its spelt) skin revialtising stuff or the natrual body mask.

Youll probably find that most of this shit is avalible in online stores (not ebay...) that sell to this niche market. they might actually sell/give away information on what stuff does what. better than buying shampoo with more chemicals you can shake a blunt syringe at.

I think that orange juice, walnut and tea tree oil work really well... better than honey prolly would... never tried of course, pure word-of-mouth. or hand-to-keyoard as the case may be.

all this talk of face masks and hair treatments reminds me of the weird stuff that looked like human playdoh in the counters at asda today... hmm...

[rdobbie]

I couldn't agree more, cat. It's absolutely outrageous how they describe these products.

They've only been required by law to put ingredients on toiletries for a few years, and I find it really amusing to read through the list of industrial effluents which get no mention on the front of the pack or on the glossy advertising.

Funniest of all is how they describe water as 'aqua' in the desperate hope that some people won't actually realise it means water.

[cat]

'Parfum' is my favourite.

Original Source are pretty good - in that they don't contain any fake smells, but still plenty of chemicals - and as Cheese head points out some things are ok... I use tea tree oil now and again when the odd rogue spot says hello and it's excellent; the Body Shop are great for things like that.

They really need to be held to account for such nonsense though.

Botanics really are the worst. Sure, they contain some natural ingredients, but 99.9% of the effect of the product comes from the chemicals in it, not the drop of garlic oil they put in... and then they go and charge you more for it.

[Lorns]

If you have the time you could always try making your own beauty products.

Try this website: http://www.momscape.com/articles/natural.htm

[marksi]

What I find more distasteful is when cosmetics companies make up words which sound scientific but which mean absolutely nothing.

"Now with added photomarksichromiums".

[Gavin Scott]

It's that fabulous new skin toner with "boswellox".

One or two additional letters in there, I suspect.

[cat]

Or the wonderful Pantene shampoo, named after Panthenol, or Pantothenic acid, which as a wonderful website tells me:

"Panthenol does not "nourish" hair. It coats it to make it slippery."

But... from Pantene's website comes the news that:

"Enriched with an Amino Pro-V Complex, the Classic Care collection nourishes hair, keeping it healthy, protected and shiny, all year long"

Bless 'em.