Items the advertisers try to convince us are essential

ALIBOBSY

Charis wrote: »

My teenage son's deodorant (the brand named after a big cat) literally takes my breath away. I find myself gasping for breath if it wafts near me from his room when he puts it on. I hate to think what it's doing to him as he absorbs it through his skin.

I just did a quick Google and it seems I'm not alone http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2006/mar/24/schools.uk3 Of course the firm producing the stuff is deaf to complaints.

LOL loved that article, Ds is almost 13 and if he and his mates walk past you literally start choking. They are worse than girls of my generation were. They layer up the scents as well-shower gel then spray with aftershave on top.Then out comes the hair gel and jewellery :eek:.

My son and his best mates are in a band so we get them singing and palying away composing songs etc-they already look (and smell I assume) like that one direction.

ali x

Ben84

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

yeah alot of those cleaning ads get my goat. A few ads recently seem to imply you are a bad mum unless you use a particular product. I remember one where the child was sad in a fleece washed in ordinary powder/conditioner, but happy and smilely in the fleece that was oh so soft from comfort (or simular).

The focus on children in advertising is more than just appealing to parents, these children will soon enough be doing their own shopping and this early exposure will be profitable later.

As for fabric softener itself, the huge popularity of it and the marketing it for children's clothes is concerning. It makes fabrics a lot more flammable. It's basically oil which coats fibres and fluffs them up increasing the surface area. I saw a few studies suggesting that the flammability and rate of flame spread goes up maybe 5 or 7 times and that was for one wash with the recommended amount. They didn't account for people using more than suggested amounts which happens a lot, or for product build up with repeated use. There should really be a warning on these products.

Alison_Funnell

meritaten wrote: »

MY John McEnroe moment was spotting 'Lite' Water!

Mine was many years ago when either Mr T or Mr A started to sell spag bol sauce - think jar sauce + mince - pre cooked in large chilled 'bags'. !!!!!!, buy the time you've cooked the pasta you can brown mince and add a jar of sauce. I can remember being complete agog at that.

rosie383

'lite' water???????????????????? That is really pushing it! I think a lot of it is peer pressure that goes along with the ads. My 12 yr old has a mobile, only so that we can contact her if necessary, but so many of her friends have the latest phones that do everything, and she is just not cool because she doesn't have the latest things.
As for proms for 16 yr olds????????? Schools here now have proms for 11yr olds leaving primary school. Honest!!!!! Thank God we were on holiday last year so my daughter 'missed' hers. Some of the parents hired limos for their little ones!

GreyQueen

FatVonD wrote: »

I've never cleansed, toned and moisturised in my life and (at 51) I don't have any wrinkles at all. Sadly the jowls give the game away even if you're wrinkle-free :rotfl:

Kitchen roll, just don't understand why you need it

Loo brush (who wants a brush with poo on it sitting in a little puddle of pooey water in their bathroom?)

Posh toilet paper (we use Value baby wipes as toilet paper ourselves but always have some Value toilet paper for guests )

Scented water for irons?? Seriously, why???

Antibacterial anything

Surface cleaners

On the subject of small print on TV ads, the one that gets me at the moment is for the fish fillets shot with the fishermen of Port Isaac (I think) with small print that says 'cod sourced outside the UK'. :rotfl:

He he, we're approximately the same vintage and I do soap and water and am wrinkle-free too but I'm starting to find the jawline descending a touch. Gravity is rubbish sometimes.;) Shall we elevate our chins together to hide the dreaded jowls.....:rotfl:

rosie383

Can I join in? I made the mistake of looking into a mirror which was lying flat on a dressing table. :eek:Never again!!!!!! Mind you, it's made me realise why my 4 yr old told me the other day, when I was leaning over her tickling her, that I had a scary face.:o

Austin_Allegro

LOL where to start!

The basic rule is, if it’s advertised on TV, then you don’t need it!

I laugh at all the weird new methods to ‘fragrance your home’ (I hate this on so many levels...the use of ‘fragrance’ as a verb...I don’t even much like it as a noun, what’s wrong with ‘scent’? ) all the daft gizmos like fans, touch sensors etc they use, which are all changed every couple of years or so so that you have to buy new ones...and all the stupid artificial scents like ‘ocean breeze’, ‘april meadows’ etc when they’re all just chemicals from a factory in Peking!

All car adverts. They always show somebody driving their new tin heap on a completely empty road on the Riviera or somewhere, blissfully enjoying the sun and scenery...instead of sitting in a traffic jam on the A309 Smethwick bypass trying to get to an office park on a wet Monday morning, which is where most of them will actually end up. I also hate all the ‘safety’ stuff about how you need to drive a 4x4 tank to protect your little darlings from...er...other 4x4 tanks!

Shower gel and Shampoo adverts and all that BS about science with diagrams that make Crick and Watson’s DNA model look simple. It’s just liquid soap, you idiots!

Razors: every week they come out with a new type of blade. I know...this week let’s make a razor with SIX blades instead of FIVE! Etc. Razor blades haven’t improved in any way since the GII blade came out in the eighties. Just keep it going for years by hand-stropping or buy a cutthroat razor that will last for ever – or just grow a beard! Similarly with shaving foam in a can – ultimate example of how a poor quality wasteful item is promoted over a better one (a brush and soap) as being more modern, convenient etc.

quintwins

whats hand-stropping?


no matter how much soap i use i get a rash if i don't use shaving foam, i also get a rash if i use shaving gel or really smelly foam, so i buy the cheapest one

Bitsy_Beans

rosie383 wrote: »

As for proms for 16 yr olds????????? Schools here now have proms for 11yr olds leaving primary school. Honest!!!!! Thank God we were on holiday last year so my daughter 'missed' hers. Some of the parents hired limos for their little ones!

Dear me I remember when it was just a school disco and you wore your best outfit......now it's hiring limo's and the like :eek: What's the big deal? You're finishing school.......then perhaps heading on to college......then to Uni. So why the need for a big party, it's not as if your education is coming to an end <rollseyes>

FatVonD wrote: »

Posh toilet paper (we use Value baby wipes as toilet paper ourselves but always have some Value toilet paper for guests )

Hmmm having watched the Life of Grime programmes people not using proper degradable loo roll causes problems when the sewers get stuck. Not sure value baby wipes (which I know are thin as I use them at home) are really suitable for the loo.

Austin_Allegro

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

LOL loved that article, Ds is almost 13 and if he and his mates walk past you literally start choking. They are worse than girls of my generation were. They layer up the scents as well-shower gel then spray with aftershave on top.Then out comes the hair gel and jewellery :eek:.

My son and his best mates are in a band so we get them singing and palying away composing songs etc-they already look (and smell I assume) like that one direction.

ali x

Yes, I was the same in my teens. It was 'Insignia' in those days and you had to have all the different hair gels sprays etc all smelling the same, or the girls wouldn't fancy you, apparently. One man I knew back then who had a lot of luck with women rarely washed and smelled of BO - it was probably all those pheromones that helped!

I do like the ad for Specsavers where the geeky bloke is spraying himself with gallons of lynx-type spray and the women are flocking to him, until he puts on his nerdy 80s specs and they all lose interest...

However, I live abroad now and don't get British telly (and the telly here is all like the Fast Show's 'Channel Nine' sketch) so I make do with watching videos on youtube and free streaming movies on the computer. No tedious adverts!