Cosmetics and other abominations

If a cosmetic industry isn't busy throwing up smoke and mirrors to disguise the fact that they spend millions of dollars in research to basically scam people, they actively assault their audience's intelligence in hopes to dumb them down a little. The skin rejuvination product Amatokin apparently uses stem cells for skin restoration. At first, Tom and I gagged about the idea of spreading fetus byproduct all over your skin to replenish it - the ultimate moral bankruptcy in science - until we realized it utilized existing stem cells in the skin. Okay, that's better.

But they don't really clarify. After their tagline "Stem cells...the future of skin rejuvination," they describe how it works with a lengthy quote from a scientist explaining just how stem cells work. It then follows up with:

"What does that mean in plain English? Stem cells are hot...really hot."

Amazing. You just distilled years of controversy and debate over the use of stem cell research in the political dialogue into a three second Paris Hilton-esque sound bite. I hope you're happy now.

And for a last example, a missuse of some vocabulary. The pregnancy care product line Magia Bella claims their bust support product maintains "essential skin elasticity – so when you return to your pre-pregnancy shape, your breasts have the elasticity to regain their firm, tight, translucent appearance." (emphasis added)

Tom, Troy and I all agreed that translucent pretty much means transparent, which is not the kind of breasts I would want my lover to have. Giving them the benefit of doubt, I went to yourdictionary.com to look up the words. Here are the definitions:

1. Obsolete definition - shining through
2. Rare definition - transparent
3. letting light pass but diffusing it so that objects on the other side cannot be clearly distinguished; partially transparent, as frosted glass
4. easily perceived; lucid; clear

And to erase all doubt of this definition, the etymology of translucent comes from the words trans which means "on the other side of", and lucere, which means light.

Ew. If you use this product, your breasts may look like the ones in anatomy books, where you can see all the veins and tissues and glands through your now translucent skin. Way to go, advertising department.