Beauty

[glam_girl]

Since we have an all day beauty event it's time for me to vent.  Not all vendors are the same, but it just boggles my mind when I see vague descriptions.  As a professional statistician I don't expect to see full details on TV, but in my line of work it is very rare to obtain an over 90% improvement and when I watch these beauty shows I see those all the time.  It is impressive to see, but most vendors don't show how many people they tested and where they found the subjects to test the products.  The size of the sample matters in a study.   It is not the same to test 9 people than it is to test 29.  The same goes for random sampling.  Are they picking subjects randomly to test the products or are they picking friends, relatives or fans of the line?  I just hope that in the future QVC shows more information or asks their vendors to be more strict when they do their clinicals.  

[kaydee50]

@glam_girl  I agree statistics can be manipulated to serve many purposes.  I love it when a company advertises "lifetime guaranty."  Whose lifetime??  The company that may be out of business next month??  Buyer beware.

[wilma]

@glam_girl 

I agree! Well said! 

If every product worked as well as they claimed, we would all have near perfect skin! 

I try to look at ingredients and read reviews of women with similar skin issues to mine before I try a new skincare product. I also understand that some products work better for some than for others. It’s a lot of trial & error to find what works for me.

[jackthebear]

kind of obvious that we don't need to be a genius to figure that one out,

[conlt]

I also feel perturbed about the "clinicals". For the most part, the results of these studies are the participants opinion on how their skin feels or looks. There are no scientific measurements most of the time. These studies are not the same as a drug test study or clinical trial where the subjects are chosen with a specific criteria in mind. There is no control group, only the participants. I would imagine that results may differ widely based on the subject opinion and the condition of the skin. I guess what I am really saying is that most of these clinicals are not true scientific studies. 

[conlt]

I was watching QVC the other day and the hose was 1 who has been with QVC for a long time and I thought to myself: She has access to all the fine skin care lines on QVC, yet she has aged just like anyone else. The skin care we buy is good but it is not going to keep or skin youthful. Maybe is will shave of 4 or 5 years worth of aging looks. Who knows. If we are lucky enough to live a long live, we will probably have the wrinkles to go with it. 

[SilleeMee]

I'm a scientist, a biochemist in fact. I know about these statistical things that are used to convince people into believing one way or another. It's all in the numbers. Personally I'd rather not look at those clinicals. I'd rather go by what the science tells me. I know about ingredients and how they work. I also know that most skin care ingredients don't do much in the way of wrinkle reduction...only Retin-A has been scientifically proven to do that. So that's what I use. All the other stuff is moisturizers, good and bad ones. None of them will do anything else.

[vsm]

I focus on user reviews (here and on other sites) and never give weight to so-called "clinicals."  They're all bought and paid for by the vendor and/or by QVC -- not independently done.  Pseudo-scince, pure and simple.

[tucsongal]

I’ve always thought that you could put Dollar Store lotion(or Crisco) on your skin to show the same “increased moisturization” in some of these before and after shots.

[Porcelain]

They're just perception studies. Sort of like focus group info. It's nice to know, but certainly not scientific. Also, if they did a perception study and people didn't report improvement, they wouldn't let anyone know.

And generally the comparison is the product vs nothing, not the product vs another product. Well..using any moisturizer will definitely give you more radiance and clarity yadda yadda, vs just washing your face and doing nothing.

Most of us are all already using something and we want to know if the advertised product might be better. The perception studies don't apply to us because the reported improvement is more applicable to people who haven't been using skincare at all and want to start.