Oh, the skin care scams….

I was walking along NW 23rd Avenue the other day and stopped by a new business offering free soap samples. (I didn’t want soap samples, but I do like to support my fellow small businesses, learn about them, meet the staff, etc.,.). Before I knew it I was ushered inside, seated, and a sales guy was dabbing a cream on my eye area. He went on about collagen production, making skin look younger, getting rid of bags and sags and wrinkles without surgery, blah blah blah blah, while holding a little electronic fan up to my eye to dry the cream he’d applied. Then he put a mirror up to my face. Voila! He insisted the eye area he put the cream on looked better than my other eye area. And maybe it did a little? However, this is of course not the result of collagen production (which takes weeks and more likely months to manifest), but can only be a temporary firming product. (There are many ingredients now that can temporarily make our skin look firmer and smoother.)

In the old days, egg white masks were used to make skin appear tighter temporarily, but now we have a host of ingredients (seaweed and algae extracts, silicates, etc.,) that will temporarily make our skin look tighter. They don’t permanently make improvements, though. The product that salesperson was angling for me to buy is of course is several hundred dollars (and needs a companion product, also several hundred dollars). Its worth noting that temporary firming products don’t need to cost this much- you can choose a pricy one if you want, but less expensive ones exist. I can understand though, in the heat of the moment, seeing what looks like maybe instant improvements, how such a purchase could be tempting.

Here are a few clues that you are encountering salespeople who are husting to meet a quota (and not skin care professionals who know what the hell they are doing and have your best interest at heart):

1) Not using sanitary gloves or not washing their hands before touching your face;

2) Not inquiring about allergies before putting products on your skin;

3) Making unbelievable promises about what the product will do for you, especially promises that fly in the face of science as we know it (one declaration made to me was I only needed to use this product once per week for six months, then, like magic, I would never need to use it again and all the benefits would maintain forever after…).

4) Telling you to follow some generic protocol that is supposed to work for everyone, without doing any skincare or health intake specifically with you;

5) Showing you incredible before and after pictures that are impossible to verify.

It was both a hilarious experience (oh, the amazing skin care promises!) as well as disturbing (not super cool to be pulled off the sidewalk to have my eye bags and wrinkles focused on, unasked).

This reminded me of another not super cool skin care experience I had a few years ago but have never forgotten. I went to an open house for a colleague’s new business (she was an MD in the medical esthetics field and I wanted to support her) and there were several other medical esthetic businesses also having open houses in the same building. Somehow, I ended up in a room alone with the Botox salesman.

He (a man clearly in his 50s with a face full of Botox, which gave him sort of a flat, expressionless, juvenile face on his 50-something year old body) freely pointed out where my face was aging, and told me what I needed to do about it. (Have Botox injections, obviously.) I felt crappy for several days after his unasked for assessment.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with having facial injections or any other cosmetic treatment if you wish! But if you are with a salesperson that is using shame to push you into paying for treatments or products, you are in the wrong place. The staff at a reputable location will ask you what you are looking for, will listen to you, and will give you honest information about what any procedure can reasonable achieve. There should be no shaming, and no outlandish promises involved.

Reputable practitioners follow the “under promise, over deliver” protocol, meaning: They will be very realistic and modest in a consultation about what can be achieved, but also will work very hard so that you are truly pleased with the results. This is the hallmark of businesses that earn solid reputations over the long haul for both honesty and client satisfaction. (More info here on medical cosmetic treatments and how to find a reputable practitioner).

If you somehow end up with a practitioner or staff member that freely points out your flaws (when you did not ask them to!) or makes unbelievable promises about what their medical treatments or skin care products can achieve (to coerce you into paying up right now) this is not a place that deserves your business.

You are smart and savvy and quite beautiful already, and I just want to remind you that you don’t have to pay the charlatans out there any mind. They are desperate for your attention and money, but you don’t need them at all.

Carry on, Beauty.

xoxo marna

ps: more scams to avoid here.

“If you are sad, add more lipstick and attack.”

~ Coco Chanel

"You are good enough, smart enough, beautiful enough, strong enough."

~ Lolly Daskal

"Just exactly as you are, this minute, right now, without changing a thing… you are beautiful. Beautiful enough to take God's breath away…"

~ Neale Donald Walsch

“You know what? I’m not young. And I’m OK with that. ... I feel so much more comfortable. It’s like I’ve taken off a mask.”

~ Andie MacDowell

"Yes, you are beautiful! You are magical because of all your flaws, quirks, and weirdness! Yes, you are beautiful in your own unique way."

~ Avijeet Das

"How many years did I waste worrying about the way I look? I'm almost 60 and it has taken me all these years. Don't wait until you get to my age to realize that you are beautiful."

~ Shirley Ballas

"When I tell you that you're beautiful, I don't just mean your appearance. I mean all of you; who and what you are, is beautiful."

~ Steve Maraboli

Blog written by Marna Herrington with Rich Earth Organic Skin Care Studio
Blog copy editing and polishing provided by Karen-Eileen Gordon (MsGordonLovesWriting@gmail.com)

This blog is not intended to take the place of in-person consultations with qualified skin care and health care practitioners. This blog is for the purpose of education and fun only.

All images and text in this blog are under the legal ownership of Rich Earth Organic Skin Care Studio or are unambiguously in the public domain. Permission is not granted for this text or these images to be copied and used out of the context of this blog, or for commercial purposes. If any part of the text is quoted in an article or other blog for educational purposes, a hyperlink to this page must be included.

How to Spot a Scam~