Personal Hygiene

Shampoo and Dandruff

Clever marketing managers of the cosmetics branch have succeeded in converting normal bodily functions into revolting, near-diseases.

They sell "anti-dandruff", shampoo,knowing full well that the consumer wishing to wash his or her hair hasn't the foggiest idea what dandruff really is.
So they show us businessmen in dark jackets whose shoulders are powdered white beside elegant beauties who retreat in horror upon this sight. The running text goes something like this: "Schlampoo will give you security and dandruff disappears forever!".
If things really were like that, then I would prefer not to wash my hair with "Schlampoo" at all, for dandruff is nothing but the rejected top of your skin. In healthy humans, these epythelia cells are renewed regularly over all of the body, not just on top of the head.
Contrary to other parts of the body though, dandruff is caught by the natural fat film of hair and remains prominently visible there. More so in "greasy" hair than in "normal" hair. Washing hair removes the fat by emulsifying it in water as does any soap. People used to replace this fat film by rubbing "Brilliantine" into their hair. There is no need for any special chemical to "fight dandruff". Rejected epythelia cells also sit in the clothes and are removed from there by laundering. All quite normal processes, and nothing to be ashamed of.

And why do the marketers want us to believe that hair needs "nourishment" from the outside?
What function should proteins fulfil in shampoo rinsing? The building blocks of hair are a protein called kreatinin which is provided via the root. Adding protein on the hair is like spraying fertiliser on flower petals.
The same goes for the newer sales gimmicks like vitamins in hair care. If hair needs additional vitamins they would have to be administered over the blood stream. During 15 years of working in the vitamins/nutrition branch I have never heard of a pro-vitamin B5! Let's assume there is at least one benefit of all that "help to improve nature": the turnover of cosmetics companies.

A similar fate befalls...

Sweat

which we should "fight against", according to the cosmetics industry.

A wonderful and complicated system of chemical and mechanical control prevents our body temperature from rising and rising until we die a death of heat. Body temperature in warmblooded animals is a byproduct of the process of assimilating food.
An important step in this control mechanism is the normal excretion of sweat. It is proportional to the energy to be removed and cools the skin surface by "heat of evaporation". Anyone doubting this can easily experience this cooling effect by licking the back of a hand and then blowing on it.
If the air surrounding us is saturated with humidity, sweat can no longer evaporate. The result is that we feel uncomfortable, sultry as we call it.
Were the liquid excreted from the sweat glands pure water, the salt concentration in our body would rise during the sweating process and finally attain dangerous values. Nature prevents this poisoning by adding minerals and other solids. Sweat being inhibited from evaporation by clothes thus constitutes an optimal medium for bacterial growth which in turn favours the synthesis of smelling substances.
Of course, bacteria living in a moist skin cannot simply be eliminated with bactericides without endangering their host - us.
The only method left to "get rid" of this repulsive taboo is the method of the French "rois soleil": the masking of sweatty smell with perfume! This and nothing else is the function of all "deodorant sprays".
Deo-sprays, along with their halogen hydrocarbons, serving as propelling agents, hardly contribute to anything but global warming.
Fantastic progress since the time of Louis XV, isn't it? Of "sweat elimination" there can be no mention.

Whiter than White, Cleaner than Clean

Let us stay a moment with the soap industry and its ways of advertising.
I find it hard to understand
a) why its marketing specialists haven't made one single good tv-commercial in decades and
b) why their main customers - women accept to be made fools of in such a blatant way. With their hefty budgets for the production and airing of spots it should be possible to tie a good idea with the product that cleans. Alternatively, one producer could try cutting a piece off the competitor's cake by following the completely unexpected line of self-irony. They would certainly have more than the laughs on their side.
Reality, however is not so: Faked laboratory test are unrestrained in their stop-action tricks. Ridiculous plastic gadgets are praised as "breakthrough innovations". At one time the thing washes so clean because it smells of wild lemons, at another because it has blue points in it, or again because it can be thrown into the washer in a plastic sphere.
The script of the average tv-commercial invariably follows the same dull-wited pattern:
A woman gets THE GREAT NOVELTY for testing. Fade-over (=later). A neighbour is left speechless by the spectacular success. Neighbour sniffs at and repeats the name of the "new" product or gadget with an audible question mark, so the brand is better memorised by consumers. Heroine lovingly caresses her soft, white laundry. Final fanfare. Hard cut. The cash register of the clip's producer rattles to the melody of thousands while that of his client registers an increase in turnover. Voilà.
I simply refuse to believe that any woman is so stupid as to go buy a product with conviction after having watched such humiliating performances.

Another example where sales strategists count on a clientele which is probably less stupid than they assume is the malicious calculation of prices in certain consumer goods.
How can they arrive so often at a sales price of $ 9.99 or $99.50? Are there really any buyers left who, seeing only one or two digits before the dot, take the articles as "cheaper" than 10 or 100 dollars. Or are perhaps $ 10.00 and $ 100.00 seen as a pain-threshold that must not be exceeded? What can you do nowadays with one or five cents? To me this way of price calculation means only one thing, namely that pricing policy is probably not trustworthy and that somebody takes me for a fool.

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