A snippet I read in my favourite beauty trade magazine, www.cosmeticsinternational.net reports that Rodial is back on the agenda at the Advertising Standards Authority. They’ve recently been reprimanded for a misleading advert for Body Sculpture, only a month after being ordered to remove misleading testimonials for Glamtox Sticks and Glamoxy Snake Serum.
The ASA ruled in the case of Body Sculpture that Rodial implied that the product could change body shape but there was no concrete evidence to prove the claim.
I just don’t get it.. the rules are pretty clear about what you can and cannot claim a product can do, but also I’m starting to wonder if the ASA really have any clout at all. Rodial seem to have more than most in terms of against rulings, but they’re not the only ones imply that creams can compare in some way to surgery. They can’t and they never have been able to, so who is buying this stuff knowing in the back of their minds that it really isn’t a ‘cheaper’ surgery option? There genuinely is only so much a cream can do and to suggest any cream may somehow compare to a surgical procedure is just plain crazy. Simple biology will tell you the same.
Coming on the back of discovering that a product (I’ll keep in anonymous) sold for over £120 costs only £3.80 to produce (packaged but not distributed), I’m throwing my hands up in dispair. It’s great to enjoy good products and some are really very effective in keeping skin soft and therefore wrinkles softer and less noticeable, but let’s be 100% clear; there is no product in the world, anywhere, for any price, that will give you a facelift comparable to surgery. It doesn’t exist. As long as people keep buying into the myth, the stupid claims will just keep on coming, and with them, false hope and expectation, not to mention a hole in the pocket.
But you know what? As long as magazines keep featuring Rodial, they’ll likely keep on making the claims, in my opinion. When a brand has been up before the ASA as many times as they have (I think nine, six of which were upheld but forgive me if I am one out either way), there has to be some questioning going on amongst beauty editors about whether the women who buy their magazines need to be ‘sold’ or ‘suggested’ a brand that continually tests the boundaries of what is possible from a beauty cream and what is not. Rodial aren’t big adverstisers, so they’re relying on page space. Here’s the strange thing. The products are actually okay.. they’re really not bad products, but some claims are proven by the ASA to be inaccurate. Why do that to your product?
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