Beauty
From the lifestyle
section of the Portland Oregonian
by Doug Hawley
The
advertising blitz for Beauty started eight years
ago. It was claimed to be an amazing
product available in both aerosol and lotion form
that made anyone who used it appear far younger
and more attractive. The testimonials
came from average citizens and fading celebrities. It
seemed a bit odd at first that there were no
“after” pictures, but the responses to
those who had used it were glowing. “Your
wrinkles and wattles are gone”, “you
look so much younger”. At the end
of the ads, it was made clear that the product
changed the viewers, not the viewed.
Only after buying the product, did early users
find out the details of how it worked. Chemicals
from either the lotion or the spray permeate the
atmosphere around the user with various effects. Some
chemicals blurred the vision of those around the
user making fine lines invisible; others were
mood enhancers causing the viewers to be pleased
with what they saw.
Beauty not only had huge penetration (advertising
talk for sales), but provoked a huge national
debate as illustrated by an interview with two
neighbors in a Michigan park.
Clara Simpson angrily stated “I don’t
care if it doesn’t change me or others, I
like that when we use it we think that we are all
more attractive. I’m a good
person and a smart person, but my crooked nose,
thin hair and fat ankles kept the men away before
now. I’m not lonely now and it
isn’t just the dates I get, people want to
get to know me and talk to me now.”
Her neighbor Jean Heslow responded “OMG,
Beauty is worse than padded bras and corsets, it’s
totally fake. What’s so wrong
with being natural? Beauty is nothing
but technological beer goggles”.
Simpson responded “You’ve gotten by
with your looks ever since you we were in high
school. Everything was easy for you;
you never had to work for anything. Are
you afraid of competing on a level field with
your advantage from your looks taken away?”
After the interviews, a brawl broke out between
Simpson and Heslow leading to assault charges,
suits and countersuits.
Pro and con Twitter threads got so big, that
Twitter was down for three days, after which any
tweet about “a product, which will be
unnamed” was banned. A Busybody
Survey’s poll with an accuracy within 3.5%
stated that 22% of Americans approved of Beauty,
48% disapproved, and 30% didn’t respond. Because
35% of Americans used Beauty, the results were
viewed with some skepticism. The
results did not vary by political party, but
white people and older people were more likely to
approve of Beauty.
Many states passed laws to make it illegal for
those under sixteen to use the product, because
it was thought that they were too young to handle
the effects. Those laws were as
effective as those against underage drinking and
smoking.
The American Love League, ALL, an organization
whose goal was to “Make People Happy”,
started an anti-Beauty campaign with the stated
purpose of seeing beauty in everyone. It
was an unfortunate decision to use the song
“Everything Is Beautiful” by Ray
Stevens of “Ahab The Arab” and “Guitarzan”
fame as its theme song. The theme song
was a bad choice because it made most of the
target audience nauseous. ALL did
lower the user rate of Beauty by 2%.
Early testing of Beauty did not reveal that four
to six years after exposure to Beauty, people
became immune to its effects, which dampened its
use much more than the ALL campaign. Coincidentally,
divorce rates doubled six years after it was
first marketed. Despite the statistics,
Clara Simpson and Jean Haslow are still together. After
they cooled down following their fight, they
decided to talk it out over coffee. They
married a year later and are still going strong.
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