Education, no emollients
Posted by Women with something to say on Feb 8th, 2008
By Susan Ager - Detroit Free Press
Standing naked in the warm waterfall of the shower, I counted on the wide ledge of my sister-in-law's tub 27 containers and tubes of shampoos, conditioners, gels and scrubs.
One was mine, my generic plastic 3-ounce container of shampoo.
Annie admitted six were hers.
The other 20 goops belonged to two young women visiting for the holidays: my nephews' girlfriends, one almost 18, the other almost 21.
That's 10 shower emollients for each young woman. And it doesn't include post-shower emollients and cosmetics each had packed into vanity drawers.
Yes, they began each day looking fresher and more supple than Annie or me.
But is all that goop about beauty or gullibility?
More, more, more
Here's a basic fact about the American economy: No company grows if people keep buying the same shampoo, squeezing out its last drop, then buying another. The economy grows only if consumers can be persuaded to buy more than shampoo, or to abandon one bottle, half full, for another that promises better results.
I, for example, am not a moneymaker for the beauty industry.
I grew up with Zest soap and Prell shampoo, which stood alone in the corner of our tub. My mother's bottle of Jergens hand lotion worked on my paws and my face.
In my 20s, I let my insecurities make me vulnerable to emollient merchants. I believed they had my beauty in mind. I squinted over labels and compared chemicals I couldn't pronounce. I bought scores of products to improve my fine, limp hair. I squirted on oily revitalizers.
And, I started buying scrubs for my complexion and soaps at the cosmetics counters of department stores that cost 10 bucks a bar.
Then, I stopped.
I can't remember why. About 20 years ago I just said, "What the hell am I spending my money on and does this crap make any difference?"
Just the basics
I'm back to a bar of soap (Lifebuoy), inexpensive Udderly SMOOth Udder Cream that's great for dry winter skin, and a shampoo called Nexxus Diametress. It costs about a buck an ounce more than Prell but I reorder it by the jug online so I don't have to stand in the shampoo aisle at CVS and feel my chest tighten to hear the seductive calls of hundreds of alternatives.
The other day, as I waited for a prescription at an Ann Arbor, Mich., CVS, I stepped warily into that aisle of magic and promise and started counting. But I only hit 60 varieties of shampoo and conditioner before my drugs were ready.
I had counted only one of six shelves.
Women of America, let's take back our pride, our self-confidence and our fortunes. Better to spend money on tuition for ourselves and our daughters. Better to donate dollars to strong political candidates than to profit-driven beauty corporations. (Burt's Bees, I was shocked to learn, is now owned by Clorox, which also owns Liquid-Plumr.)
Our legacies matter. Let's make them more memorable than big, shiny hair.
at 6:51 a.m.
oh, this is timely. With both daughters living at home, the shampoo and face/body product bottles have proliferated like nukes before the arms treaty.
Insecurity + marketing makes the bathroom cabinets of women in America very full. One hears a lot of lip service to "beauty is what's inside," but our culture of fear and rejection of natural aging is really what rules us. We have to try to fight it, if we can.
Excellent column.