Miracle of the water that sells at €500 a litre

dmeehan

anyone who buys this deserves to be ripped off!


Irish Independent (26/08/2004)
Miracle of the water that sells at €500 a litre

SELLING ice to the Eskimos is not such an achievement after all. Two of Ireland's poshest shops are selling 'miracle' water to Irish women at the equivalent of €536 per litre.

While each 125ml bottle costs more than a vintage bottle of champagne, buyers don't get to drink it. The Mist, by Creme de la Mer, promises to hydrate and freshen the skin.

According to the skincare company, which is best known for its astronomically expensive face creams, this is no ordinary water.

They say it has taken their scientists years to produce the formula which will "relax dry lines" and "create a special negative ion-rich environment that instantly shifts skin's energy levels". Each bottle contains a magnet which is said to act as a "floating energy source".

Available exclusively in Brown Thomas in Dublin and Cork, one "handbag-sized bottle" (125ml) of the purple liquid costs €67. The "very popular" product sells particularly well during the summer.

However, the wonder water may take a backseat to the company's latest product, The Concentrate, which will hit Irish shelves in October. This cream contains "exclusive Lime Tea to help protect skin from a wide range of external insults, giving it the ability to focus energy on repair".

But one 50ml jar of the cream costs €385.

According to Deirdre Naughten, Manager of Therapie Beauty Clinic in Dublin, there is a vibrant market for expensive beauty products in Ireland.

"Our best-selling product is a cleanser that costs €75. Without a doubt, Irish women don't think twice about paying for their beauty. Many of the women we sell to buy expensive creams on the spot without trying them - they take our word for it," she said.

Creme de la Mer products were created by Max Huber, an aerospace physicist who was trying to find something to heal serious chemical burns he received after a routine experiment with rocket fuel exploded in his face.

Neither science nor medicine offered sufficient promise of help, so Huber decided to help himself. Twelve years and some 6,000 experiments later, Creme de la Mer was born.

The 'magic' ingredient is seaweed, which is picked only during certain phases of the moon, and combined with vitamins, minerals, sesame seed and sunflower oils. The resulting product is subjected to three or four months of sonic chemistry, exposing it to sound waves from the solar system which gives it healing and rejuvenating properties.

Estee Lauder bought the company from Huber in 1994. Each jar is still hand-filled to make sure Huber's formula is not altered.

The original Creme de la Mer face cream - known as a facelift in a jar - costs €125 for 30ml; it is claimed that just a small amount of the product will help skin achieve a healthy balance and feel smoother, firmer and younger.

Among its avid followers are Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Sharon Stone and Courtney Cox. Victoria Beckham says it is the one beauty product that she cannot live without.

Adrienne Sweeney (from todays Indo)

sceptre

dmeehan wrote:

seaweed, which is picked only during certain phases of the moon

Makes perfect sense

The resulting product is subjected to three or four months of sonic chemistry, exposing it to sound waves from the solar system which gives it healing and rejuvenating properties.

That's nice.

Gillo

The fact that people buy it again & again suggests to me that it actually does work, to what degree I don't know.

Has anyone actually used it? as opposed to I know a man who's wife's boss uses it.

I'd be curious to try it, bu don't think I could justify spending that much money ( I am already very good looking!!!!).

segadreamcast

Just because people are foolish enough to buy it repetitively does not mean it is having any kind of an effect on them physically. Perhaps the impact is more a mental one - a type of placebo effect - which convinces the buyer that this water is healing their skin, and thus they must continue to buy it.

The Evening Herald (a bit of a rag, I know) recently did extensive laboratory tests on each of these 'miracle waters'. I believe it included this, something else by the name of 'Silver' something-or-other and, naturally, our plain old Ballygowan.

Little or no difference could be found between any of the samples apart from slight fluctuations in sodium/potassium.

Really worth the money alright :rolleyes:

seamus

gillo wrote:

The fact that people buy it again & again suggests to me that it actually does work, to what degree I don't know.

Never heard of the placebo effect?

If you price something so high that you're taking the piss, then you'll convince people that it must work or else it wouldn't be priced so high, and Voila! It works because they think it will.

ixoy

Argh! I think what's more upsetting is knowing how any of us could spend the money more wisely.

Right, I'm going to get some river water and place it in a... lemme see.... wooden container (made of eh... beech. Because) and then place it in the ground to soak up the energies of Mother Earth. Then, after two days, I'll unbury it, add tinasane to it as a natural ingredient for bodily healing and flog it off for €75 a go. As long as we tell the customer about the laborious process involved we will, as NoelRock says, get our desired placebo effect and thus our even more desired cash.

rocky

dmeehan wrote:

exposing it to sound waves from the solar system

I like it, it has a sound scientific reasoning...
I thought sounds don't propagate in vacuum. duh!

(I know, it's not vacuum, it's ether ... right...)

spongebob

I remember when I worked in a company in Dublin the Marketing Dept all went on a diet after christmas. An integral part of this diet was that they all started to drink bottles of Low Calorie Ballygowan at lunchtime .

This product could only be bought in 250Ml or 333 M bottles and was never available in the larger 1.5 - 2 Litre sizes. I did once mention the obvious to them but they preferred to spend their money on the premium product they had bought.....it woulda been 10p a bottle more than Ballygowan non low cal .

I'd never hire any of them to do any marketing for me, never

M

Ripwave

dmeehan wrote:

Irish Independent (26/08/2004)
Miracle of the water that sells at €500 a litre

Creme de la Mer products were created by Max Huber, an aerospace physicist who was trying to find something to heal serious chemical burns he received after a routine experiment with rocket fuel exploded in his face.

Jaze, those routine experiments with rocket fuel are tough, all right!

Syth

I think part of the reson women buy it that it's a total penis size thing. They wan to be able to just take it out when out amoung other women and casually spray/drink/whatever it. It's the not so stuble* way of saying "Look at me I can afford to buy this fancy stuff.". A total penis size thing.



* = as subtle as a hammer to the head

the_syco

If its expensive, comes from a fashionable outlet, it becomes a must have.

Look @ the Atkins Diet. Great. People buy lotsa junk from them. It been proven to work by the (Atkins) scientists.

Same with this. Big words, add "it'll make you beautiful", and a big price + people will buy it. If this was a tenner, everyone would call it a scam, and not buy it. Go figure :rolleyes:

monkeyfudge

Max Huber, an aerospace physicist who was trying to find something to heal serious chemical burns he received after a routine experiment with rocket fuel exploded in his face.

Neither science nor medicine offered sufficient promise of help, so Huber decided to help himself. Twelve years and some 6,000 experiments later, Creme de la Mer was born.

This sounds like the origins of a comic book super villian.

Creme de la Mer should be the villian in the next Spider-man film...

Face cream people are all ready the villians in the catwoman film though...