Sugar, marketing and non-comedogenesis

I took a few faltering steps into the world of consumerism yesterday. What did I see?

Well, the sign in Sainsbury assured me that some new product from Pears (for the cleansing on one’s body) is non-comedogenic. New word to me –what’s that mean? No comedy will grow here? No comedy genes? Cannot be mocked on Mock the Week? I assumed it was this week’s latest attempt to sell beauty products with made up science. However, I did turn up this definition from www.skincareguide.com

Non-comedogenic cosmetics are products which have been tested on the oily skins of human volunteers or inside rabbit ears. These products are less likely to cause blackheads (open comedones) or whiteheads (closed comedones) in patients. However, no single product is non-comedogenic for everyone.

So there you go. Zit-free. Probably. Why didn’t they say?

I had a look at the ingredients of some lemonade (the stuff for secret lemonade drinkers everywhere). 3 artificial sweeteners and sugar. Why 3 – does each one taste so awful that it needs to be masked by the equally awful taste of 2 others to form some vaguely satisfying sweet taste. I had a can of tango orange a few months ago – the 1st one I’d ever had with artificial sweeteners (it’s been a while) – the once reliable intense orangy taste replaced by generic, cheap and nasty sweetener cocktail.

In fact on the subject of sugar, our bottle of still lemonade had this ingredient list

Water, Freshly Squeezed Lemon Juice (16%), Sugar, Lemon Pulp (5%).

No artificial stuff here, but note that they don’t draw your eye to the percentage of water in case you feel conned, or to the percentage of sugar (clearly somewhere between 5% and 16%). In fact the presence of water and sugar is understated by the shorter phrases. Fortunately there is a big red bar over the amount of sugar in the Nutrition information table to remind you that you will instantly die of diabetes if you buy this product.

On the subject of sugar, wouldn’t it be much easier to lose weight on a low calorie diet if they actually took the sugar out of Special K cereals.

Anyway enough food bashing. Cool sign in Pets at Home. It’s an advert that tells me to look out for their TV adverts. And the sign is up at the checkout. So they look to the people who have become customers to do some of the hard work of marketing the shop to themselves.

All that and a trip to Trago. Readers in Devon and Cornwall will understand the Trago mantra – if you want these low prices you won’t mind us treating you like criminals. Yes, they still check your bags and receipts when you leave. In fact, compared to everything else today, that strikes me as the most honest.