On 14/11/2010 06:06 PM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> And it /really/ irritates me when they pretend to be all scientific.

"New Pantene with amino-peptide serum *nourishes* hair from root to tip."

Well, what a lot of sciency-sounding words. It must be science! Right? 
Right???

1. "serum" refers to a component of blood, or more generally any clear 
bodily fluid. I would be very surprised if hair conditioner contains any 
such thing.

2. "amino" refers presumably to the amino acids, the building blocks of 
life. Quite why these would be useful for making your hair look nice is 
entirely unclear.

3. "peptide" is a short chain of amino acids. In other words, a 
mini-protein. (Actually the distinction between a protein and a peptide 
is somewhat arbitrary.) Again, it is not clear why this is useful.

4. Hair is provably dead. You cannot "nourish" something that isn't 
alive. (Although people do sometimes speak of shoe polish "nourishing" 
the leather and keeping it supple.)

In short, all the sciency words are really there just to make it sound 
more impressive. Since you don't actually /eat/ hair conditioner, the 
manufacturers are not required to state what is actually in this stuff. 
I highly doubt it contains anything as expensive as amino acids or 
peptide chains. And if it did, I'm not sure what useful purpose that 
would actually serve.

I especially like the advert for the shampoo enriched with vitamin-D (I 
think) which promotes healthy hair. And then one of the chemists pointed 
out that /actually/ it's there to make the shampoo emulsify nicely. They 
just use a vitamin because it's naturally occurring and hence easy to 
get hold of. ;-)

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> "New Pantene with amino-peptide serum *nourishes* hair from root to tip."
>
> Well, what a lot of sciency-sounding words. It must be science! Right? 
> Right???
>
> In short, all the sciency words are really there just to make it sound 
> more impressive.

IIRC Panthenol actually does something useful regarding hair.

> Since you don't actually /eat/ hair conditioner, the manufacturers are not 
> required to state what is actually in this stuff.

AFAIK they are required to put ingredients on the label.  And as there is a 
real possibility it could go in your mouth there are strict controls on what 
they can and can't put in there (same as why you can only use certain 
approved materials and inks for food packaging).

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On 16/11/2010 01:01 PM, scott wrote:
>> "New Pantene with amino-peptide serum *nourishes* hair from root to tip."
>>
>> Well, what a lot of sciency-sounding words. It must be science! Right?
>> Right???
>>
>> In short, all the sciency words are really there just to make it sound
>> more impressive.
>
> IIRC Panthenol actually does something useful regarding hair.

Who mentioned panthenol?

>> Since you don't actually /eat/ hair conditioner, the manufacturers are
>> not required to state what is actually in this stuff.
>
> AFAIK they are required to put ingredients on the label. And as there is
> a real possibility it could go in your mouth there are strict controls
> on what they can and can't put in there (same as why you can only use
> certain approved materials and inks for food packaging).

Oh, I'm sure they aren't allowed to put anything really toxic in there. 
But, as far as I'm aware, they're not required to *tell* the consumer 
what they actually put in. (I'm sure Phil could tell us...)

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>>> "New Pantene with amino-peptide serum *nourishes* hair from root to 
>>> tip."
>>
>> IIRC Panthenol actually does something useful regarding hair.
>
> Who mentioned panthenol?

Isn't that where the brand name comes from?

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>>>> "New Pantene with amino-peptide serum *nourishes* hair from root to
>>>> tip."
>>>
>>> IIRC Panthenol actually does something useful regarding hair.
>>
>> Who mentioned panthenol?
>
> Isn't that where the brand name comes from?

Apparently Pentene's original shampoo product did contain panthenol, 
yes. However, their current advertisements make no mention of it. 
Instead they waffle on about "pro-vitamins" and "amino-peptide serum" 
and so forth.

Interestingly, if you check out their website, they conspicuously 
refrain from making any statements about what's in the product. And they 
carefully use expressions like "healthy looking" (as opposed to 
"healthy"). One wonders if the website is complying with a different set 
of advertising standards or something...

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On 11/16/2010 7:35 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>>>> "New Pantene with amino-peptide serum *nourishes* hair from root to
>>>>> tip."
>>>>
>>>> IIRC Panthenol actually does something useful regarding hair.
>>>
>>> Who mentioned panthenol?
>>
>> Isn't that where the brand name comes from?
>
> Apparently Pentene's original shampoo product did contain panthenol,
> yes. However, their current advertisements make no mention of it.
> Instead they waffle on about "pro-vitamins" and "amino-peptide serum"
> and so forth.
>
> Interestingly, if you check out their website, they conspicuously
> refrain from making any statements about what's in the product. And they
> carefully use expressions like "healthy looking" (as opposed to
> "healthy"). One wonders if the website is complying with a different set
> of advertising standards or something...
Hair care products: The first "altie medicine" product. Pretty much all 
of them work alike, with minor differences, blind tests find the "cheap" 
ones may even work better, without all the crap in them, in many cases, 
but unless you dump useless stuff in, or put "healthish" on the bottle, 
the "I want the $30 bottle!" people won't buy either the product, or 
the, basically, scam.

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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And lo On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 18:06:06 -0000, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull>  
did spake thusly:

> "Fact: Germs [including the flu virus] can live on surfaces for up to  
> two days.
>
> Fact: Dettol kills 99.9% of gems, including the flu virus."

What I dislike is it makes no distinction between harmless and harmful.  
Congratulations you've just removed the competition for the .1% that's  
resistant to this stuff better hope it's not something potentially harmful.

As for claims I do love the creams that boast X% more oxygen. Easily  
achieved - just add water :-)

Ah I knew I'd seen this somewhere  
http://www.cracked.com/article_17606_7-high-tech-products-their-cheap-ass-ingredients.html
 
NSFW

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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On 18/11/2010 11:20 AM, Phil Cook v2 wrote:
> And lo On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 18:06:06 -0000, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull>
> did spake thusly:
>
>> "Fact: Germs [including the flu virus] can live on surfaces for up to
>> two days.
>>
>> Fact: Dettol kills 99.9% of gems, including the flu virus."
>
> What I dislike is it makes no distinction between harmless and harmful.
> Congratulations you've just removed the competition for the .1% that's
> resistant to this stuff better hope it's not something potentially harmful.

Fact: Dettol kills 99.9% of bacteria.
Fact: 99.9% of bacteria have NO EFFECT on human health in either direction.

Gotta love the way the advert used to talk about how Dettol kills 
/bacteria/, and lately they suddenly changed it to "germs, including the 
flu virus". Every few syllables is "flu virus". Like it's really 
important or something.

> As for claims I do love the creams that boast X% more oxygen. Easily
> achieved - just add water :-)

"NEW! Walkers Crisps, now with 50% less salt."

I look on the back of the package.... aaaaaand what's this? Potassium 
chloride? Hmm, I *wonder* why that's in there? :-P

> Ah I knew I'd seen this somewhere
>
http://www.cracked.com/article_17606_7-high-tech-products-their-cheap-ass-ingredients.html

...your source is cracked.com? Uh, right. ;-)

Hey, while you're here... In the UK, all food products are required to 
list their ingredients, in descending order. But are products such as 
shampoo required to do so?

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On 18/11/2010 11:20 AM, Phil Cook v2 wrote:
> Ah I knew I'd seen this somewhere
>
http://www.cracked.com/article_17606_7-high-tech-products-their-cheap-ass-ingredients.html
> NSFW

The ones that get me are shampoos. For the last 10 years I’ve been using 
hand soap and my head hasn’t fallen off yet.

I would like to agree with the Audio ones but from personal experience 
some of them do make a difference. But if you have a crap HiFi then 
nothing will help.


-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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> The ones that get me are shampoos. For the last 10 years I’ve been using
> hand soap and my head hasn’t fallen off yet.

Proper shampoo probably goes on and rinses off more easily. But yeah, I 
wouldn't bother with the expensive ones.

> I would like to agree with the Audio ones but from personal experience
> some of them do make a difference. But if you have a crap HiFi then
> nothing will help.

More amusing are the expensive HDMI cables. The entire point of HDMI of 
course being that it's digital, so it *does not* matter how poor the 
cables are. (Just so long as they're not /utterly/ hopeless...)

I'm told for analogue audio interconnects it can sometimes make a small 
difference. It's not worth £3000 though. My ears aren't that good. :-P

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