Would you sell an at-home product to consumers knowing that it doesn’t accomplish what it’s promoted to do? That’s what stuck in my mind after reading an article in Monday’s Los Angeles Times health section using one example: ionic footbaths that claim to remove toxins.
As a trade beauty editor, a Type 2 diabetic and a strong believer in natural products, I see these footbaths all the time—and have even skeptically tried them. You know, you soak your feet in them for a while, and then murky, disgusting brown stuff starts twirling around in the water around your feet. Have I felt better? Yes. Did it do what it was supposed to do? Honestly, I never knew.
I’ve even used a closely related cousin: the foot patches to be used while you sleep. Boy, were my patches dirty in the morning. (My dog Spirie was very interested in them too!)
And I’m told by Beauty Store Business managing editor Shelley Moench-Kelly—who doubles as our magazine’s lead products editor—that she has now seen another derivative of all this: hand patches. I expect that our staff will see some brands, likely from China or somewhere in Asia, at Natural Products Expo West 2010 on March 11-14 inside the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California.
The excellent piece by Chris Woolston in my local daily—one of the best newspapers in the world—has a deck that states: “Users say they draw poisons out of the body and even promote weight loss. Scientists say that’s bunk.” Read it by clicking here.
See you next Wednesday,
Marc
