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Antioxidants II: the shampoo

Recently I had a little rant about antioxidants and how much they were misused as a selling tool by making it sound as if a product was better for you than it really was. I thought the way antioxidants were being pushed in food and drink was the limit of such dishonesty. Silly old me.

I often find the rest of the family has borrowed my shampoo, so I sometimes get my revenge by borrowing theirs. Imagine my surprise when I discovered this morning I was washing my hair with a product that boasts antioxidants as its main selling point. Yes, it's Alberto Balasam antioxidant shampoo. How do they justify this? Here's the bumf:
Pomegranate, the "superfruit" packed full of anti-oxidants, is now great for your hair too. This Pomegranate shampoo deeply cleanses and strengthens your hair and leaves it smelling "superfruity"!
Oh, wow. Now, to be fair they don't make any claims for benefits from the antioxidant (or should I say anti-oxidant), and they even qualify the cringe-making term superfruit with "embarrassment inverted commas". Even so this is one of the most extreme examples of taking a word that sounds if it should be good for you, and making use of it in a way that has no relevence at all (even if it worked in the first place, which it doesn't). This is surely one step better than all those products that claim to 'nourish' your (dead) hair. 

What's next? Homeopathic shampoo? Now there's a thought...
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Comments

  1. laurasdad29 June 2011 at 13:30

    Brian
    Matthew Parris is a great advocate on the non-use of shampoo; in the attached article he has turned his attention to moisturising creams and suggests that engine oil should be just as effective.

    http://www.spectator.co.uk/politics/all/9833/part_3/forget-defence-spending-and-concentrate-on-moisturising-cream-shampoo-and-petroleum-jelly.thtml

    Ian

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brian Clegg29 June 2011 at 14:24

    As I have mentioned previously, shampoo manufacturers totally miss the point with shampoos you can use every day: we want to be able wash our hair as infrequently as possible: http://brianclegg.blogspot.com/2010/09/inventing-better-shampoo.html

    ReplyDelete

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