Beauty Products That Flopped: 7 'Sounded Good At The Time' Ideas
With beauty being more of an obsession than ever, it's natural to be curious or even intrigued by flashy ads proclaiming that 'this product will change your life! Turn back time! Make you a whole new person!' But please bear this thought in mind: No amount of advertising will make up for the fact that some of the products that will inevitably catch your eye just don't work. Your best bet is to stick to ones that are proven effective -- there are plenty of favourites that experts, celebrities and beauty junkies alike swear by. But just for fun, check out these recent beauty flops ... and by all means, stay far, far away.
Lip Plumper
Sure, we'd all love to have Angelina Jolie's enviably luscious lips, and while lip-plumping glosses might give us the illusion of adding a boost to our pout, here's one product that certainly won't do a thing besides cause pain: The Cynthia Rowland Luscious Lips Lip Pumper. People who've tried it tend to say the same thing -- not only does it not work, it also hurts to use. And, at $60 for the kit, you should probably give this one a miss and instead invest in a nice lip liner/lipstick/gloss combo to boost your smile without the pain.
Vajazzling
Jennifer Love Hewitt and Kathy Griffin may have done it, but that doesn't mean you should follow suit. Vajazzling is a procedure in which you add bling -- Swarovski crystals, to be exact -- to your recently-waxed nether regions to the tune of around $50. It's supposed to be fairly safe as the crystals are guaranteed to stay on for at least five days, but the real question is: Why? As Gawker points out, it's not really something that men would be interested in (unless it's in the shape of the Batman logo, as one guy says,) and it seems like a fair bit of money and time to spend on something that no one's interested in seeing.
Fish Pedicure
How far would you go to get perfect, soft skin on your feet? Would you let a bunch of fish nibble away at them to clean off all the dead skin? That's the premise behind fish pedicures, a beauty treatment that became popular in spas around the world a couple of years ago. Don't worry though, it's supposedly painless as the fish don't have teeth. Interested? You might want to think again -- Fish pedicures have been banned in three provinces and fourteen states because they're considered unsanitary and unsafe. If you really want to take care of your tootsies, spend your money on a regular pedicure instead.
Latisse
Wouldn't it be great if we all had naturally long lashes? Then we wouldn't have to fuss with fake eyelashes, curlers and expensive mascaras. Enter Latisse, an eye-drop product that can apparently help your lashes grow longer. The downside? It's messy, it causes itchiness and it can lead to hair growth in places other than your lashes. Even more frighteningly, it can permanently change your eye colour. Hmm, mascara and fake lashes don't sound too bad now, do they?
Joey New York: Line Up
Touted as "botox in a bottle", this product can supposedly reduce wrinkles on your face without a visit to the dermatologist. Reviews on this one are mixed -- some claim to love it while bloggers at The Frisky insist that it doesn't work. At $48, you might want to skip this one and instead focus on skin aids that have been proven to work -- water, sleep and plenty of moisturizer.
Frownies
Frownies is another so-called miracle product -- these anti-wrinkle adhesive strips that you're meant to wear overnight work by "relaxing" the muscles in your face so that they settle into their natural, slackened state. Of course, the downfall of this product is that it essentially freezes your face -- not exactly a "natural" look, huh? They're expensive, they don't seem to really work and what's worse, it peeling them off hurts. Stay away.
Leeches
Demi Moore made headlines when she admitted that she uses blood-sucking leeches as part of her beauty routine. And while the world is usually quick to take any beauty tips from the gorgeous 49-year-old mother of three, thankfully this is one treatment that hasn't become too mainstream yet, though it is approved in Canada and the States. It's not entirely clear whether this kind of treatment is safe or effective, but here's one factor that will probably dissuade you from trying it: It hurts. A lot.
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First Posted: 03/ 4/2012 9:22 pm Updated: 04/ 2/2012 2:24 pm