Do we really think the models and actresses are using the $3.99 shit they're advertising, ever? they're using some bottled bull semen from france distilled with german beer piss in gold bottles and rinsed with virgin cow milk and wrapped weekly with squirrel placenta. Plz, like this Goodwin girl has ever seen a bottle of L'Oreal.
It's plain WRONG, as are most, if not all, beauty and hair product ads. The ridiculous mascara ones that obviously feature models wearing falsies, or hell, simply drawn-on lashes in the print ads; the flat-out LIES disseminated by all 'anti-aging' moisturizers. My particular favorite is when you get some multi-millionaire celeb hawking do-it-yourself hair dye - as if Beyoncé or SJP ever dye their own hair at home! It should all be illegal, frankly.
if one really believes (sorry Vivelafat says!) that any make-up, hair or skin product commercial is showing the real deal, well, then one is much deluded.
that said, I DO think ALL commercials such as these SHOULD come with a disclaimer.
and, as a sidenote, most commercially made products for your hair are, ironically, terrible for your hair, despite what you are told. but I shall
spare that diatribe.
@Scout: If you're buying anything from the drugstore, forget the pomegrant natural oils on the front of the lable and just get something that doesn't list alcohol in the top three ingredients (Suave).
@Mrs. Stephen Fry: Christmas is coming soon, if we're good we may see her disappear forever, ideally swallowed up by her L'Oreal enhanced hair extensions.
Putting either half of Greedy and Tweedy on something is guaranteed to make me shop for another brand.
I am a little appalled by all of the commenters defending this commercial by saying "Of course it's not real, does anyone actually think it is?" Well actually, yes, call me insane, but I expect a product to do what it tells me it will do. And if we let hair products off the hook and allow them to use a model with extensions, than why do we require diet pills to disclose that results are atypical? Why do we complain about photoshopping?
These commercials are part of a bigger problem. Our rational mind might understand that extensions are used but these commercials just add to an unrealistic beauty expectation.
@Vivelafat says Sweep the leg, Johnny.: But this isn't about making advertisers use the real results of their product's use in the ads, it's just about having a disclaimer before presenting those unrealistic results. Which seems pointless, because disclaimers for prescriptions and breakfast cereal and whatever haven't stopped those industries from making shit up all over the place. And because people can know full well that something is fake and still feel pressured to fulfill those standards. I think most of them already do, actually, and it doesn't change much.
@Vivelafat says Sweep the leg, Johnny.: Thank you for saying this. People! They're calling out a beauty advertiser on false fricking claims! That's a GOOD thing. That means women are being taken seriously as consumers. Goodness sake.
@kemperboyd: Yeah, I've now seen it twice since this article came up and I cannot see the extensions bit.
The Garnier(?) adverts with Davina McCall state that she wears natural extensions very clearly, including stating what shade was used in the ad. I don't see why L'Oreal can't do that.
@gherkinfiend: I've seen it a couple of times and never noticed the extensions warning, even though I was looking for it. Cheryl manages to get hair that giant on every episode of X Factor but I bet hours go into it and PLENTY of fake hair. It makes me so sad that my otherwise ass-kicking medic sister practically worships at the altar of Cheryl Cole's hair. She spends so much time backcombing and sticking fake hair onto her own to get that effect (though not, I am assured, while she's on the wards!).
@rah29: Well, let's face it...Cheryl's hair is the best bit of her. I can't really understand that kind of fascination as I spend my entire life trying to make my hair less thick...
It always mystifies me that we, as a society, were all able to figure out that pro wrestling was fake-- but that when the lady on TV whips her head around and her hair ripples across the space-time continuum and a rainbow comes out, well, that could totally be real.
@Everything MidnightBikeRide does is a balloon.: To be honest, when I was younger (my early teens) I truly thought their was awesome from the shampoo. I could never understand why mine didn't look like that, I kept trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.
Yes, it took me awhile to realize how much fakery is in advertisement.
As much as I'd like to think most people are aware that ads are, in one or another, enhancing (read: lying) a products effects...I'm not sure a lot of people are.
We don't really teach media literacy. Not at home and not in schools. If parents don't know, why would kids? We're well-informed here, because I think feminists tend to be much more sensitized and educated about media effects on gender and sexism. But your average person? How much do they really know about that? Or to what degree? I think we've become fairly anesthetized to the amount of alteration, digitally and otherwise, going on.
So while yes, these people should know, and they should teach their kids this...I don't think we should let the advertisers off the hook just because some people didn't get it/didn't know. They're still falsely advertising and should be accountable.
I wonder if our lack of sympathy has anything to do with the fact that it's a beauty product. When ads suggest that women have the equivalent to a romance with their cleaning products or mops, we're not so thrilled. But if it's beauty related, which is therefore vanity related, and people don't know what we think they should...seems we focus more on the people than the product. And I'm not sure which we have a better likelihood of changing.
@tiredfairy: I consider myself fairly media-literate with a feminist's hyper sensitivity to anything bordering on promotions of sexism, rape culture, unhealthy beauty ideals etc. But I can be terribly naive about what the ad execs can get away with in these beauty commercials. I think I have the idea that someone out there must be stopping them from outright lying to us. So yeah, I know a freaking rain forest isn't going to grow in my bathroom if I use Herbal Essences, but it is a little disappointing to find out that not only is hair digitally added strand by strand to give that full, thick mane effect, but the hair that's being altered isn't even natural? Why is this allowed?
"My daughter, aged nine, has been saying, ‘Please can we buy the shampoo because I want to look like Cheryl Cole'."
You know, that sounds like a really good time to talk with your daughter about tricks in advertising, photoshopped models, and how you can't always believe everything on TV.
@Zombie Ms. Skittles: Word. My mom told me that she wouldn't buy me the Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine b/c it would be too hard for my 4 year-old hands to crank, even though the commercial made it look easy. And she was right (as I discovered at a friend's house several years later).
@Zombie Ms. Skittles: And remind her that Cheryl Cole has a criminal conviction for racially aggravated violence for battering a black toilet attendent a few years ago, so really isn't a great role model in so many ways...
@RedLantern: No, no it's not. But it's a problem that can be fought on two fronts: the macro level and the micro level. She's definitely got the macro thing down by complaining loudly about the false advertising, but I think it's incredibly important to explain to children how the images they see are created to teach them to be smarter consumers.
@Zombie Ms. Skittles: I just really, really can't imagine that a mother who feels this way would neglect to have a conversation with her daughter about it. I suppose there's an outside chance, but I have a strong suspicion that this woman IS fighting this fight on both fronts.
@Kivrin: Ha! Your mom was smarter than mine! My grandmother used to covertly tape (audio) us when we were kids. My favorite is a five year-old winner commanding my mom to "crank it!"
@gherkinfiend: No it was proved not to be racially motivated. It was just plain old assault. Anyway her husband is black so she can't be racist. He's a massive bastard but that's another point entirely.
@kemperboyd: Ah, my mistake. I didn't realise she'd been cleared of the racially aggravated assault.
I do know she called my friend from Ghana 'a bald black bitch' when she was visiting a club where my shaved headed female friend was showing her to a a table and made a monkey gesture at a male waiter, so she might be married to a mixed race man, but she seems pretty racist to me. I don't get the 'national treasure' tag at all.
@gherkinfiend: Yes, the nation's sweetheart apparently showed no remorse when she was convicted of assault; between that, her endless weeping, and her marriage to professional knobhead Ashley Cole, little girls may want to look up to someone else instead. Lovely hair though.
@gherkinfiend: the comment about CAshley was sarcastic. She married a massive cock so she can't be good in my book. Also nice to know she is racist. I trust Jezzie sources above lmost all others.
@sequined: But...I was under the impression that L'Oreal was manufactured by fairies! What do you mean it's not magic? What else has the world been lying to me about?
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if one really believes (sorry Vivelafat says!) that any make-up, hair or skin product commercial is showing the real deal, well, then one is much deluded.
that said, I DO think ALL commercials such as these SHOULD come with a disclaimer.
and, as a sidenote, most commercially made products for your hair are, ironically, terrible for your hair, despite what you are told. but I shall
spare that diatribe.
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
Putting either half of Greedy and Tweedy on something is guaranteed to make me shop for another brand.
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11/23/09
She's just so . . . vacuous.
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These commercials are part of a bigger problem. Our rational mind might understand that extensions are used but these commercials just add to an unrealistic beauty expectation.
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The Garnier(?) adverts with Davina McCall state that she wears natural extensions very clearly, including stating what shade was used in the ad. I don't see why L'Oreal can't do that.
11/23/09
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11/23/09
Yes, it took me awhile to realize how much fakery is in advertisement.
11/23/09
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We don't really teach media literacy. Not at home and not in schools. If parents don't know, why would kids? We're well-informed here, because I think feminists tend to be much more sensitized and educated about media effects on gender and sexism. But your average person? How much do they really know about that? Or to what degree? I think we've become fairly anesthetized to the amount of alteration, digitally and otherwise, going on.
So while yes, these people should know, and they should teach their kids this...I don't think we should let the advertisers off the hook just because some people didn't get it/didn't know. They're still falsely advertising and should be accountable.
I wonder if our lack of sympathy has anything to do with the fact that it's a beauty product. When ads suggest that women have the equivalent to a romance with their cleaning products or mops, we're not so thrilled. But if it's beauty related, which is therefore vanity related, and people don't know what we think they should...seems we focus more on the people than the product. And I'm not sure which we have a better likelihood of changing.
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advertising! lying to us since the dawn of print media...
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You know, that sounds like a really good time to talk with your daughter about tricks in advertising, photoshopped models, and how you can't always believe everything on TV.
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I do know she called my friend from Ghana 'a bald black bitch' when she was visiting a club where my shaved headed female friend was showing her to a a table and made a monkey gesture at a male waiter, so she might be married to a mixed race man, but she seems pretty racist to me. I don't get the 'national treasure' tag at all.
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@kemperboyd: Don't worry, I assumed you were being sarcastic! I feel she and Ashley Cole deserve each other. Do you remember the Lottery ads they did?
[i.dailymail.co.uk]
#tips
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Wait.
Elves make cookies, right? RIGHT?!