Body Beautiful : Wraps and Firmers Are Among the New Below-the-Neck Skin Treatments
AMERICANS’ desire for body perfection has given rise to a new cosmetics category: products that claim to firm, tone and smooth the skin from the neck down.
Skin-care salons have offered “body facials” for years, at prices ranging from $30 to $150 per treatment. But only recently have cosmetics companies begun to offer products designed for at-home use. All-over skin care is a popular practice in Europe, but American consumers have been slow to catch on. “We don’t try to convince people that the products work. We have to work to get them to try them,” explains Nancy Werner, West Coast training director for Clarins, a 30-year-old French firm that sells one of the largest collections of specialized body products. “In France it’s a much more accepted practice. In fact, when a girl turns 13, her mother buys her bust cream, not a bra.”
In 1976, Elancyl, one of the first French body products--a green rubber-and-plastic massage appliance and an accompanying ivy-extract soap--appeared in prestigious American specialty stores. Promising to smooth the dimpled “orange-peel” skin that accompanies the fat called cellulite, the product at first attracted relatively few customers. Today, it is sold in 800 department stores across the country, says Jim Smith, vice president of marketing for Elancyl’s U.S. distributor. Now other lines such as Ultima, Biotherm and Lancome offer similar massagers.
Clarins’ Multi-Mass is the newest. Sold in a $32 kit with trial sizes of body-care products, the Multi-Mass self-massage appliance is meant to be used all over the body, not only dimply areas. “Using these appliances takes the same sort of discipline as diet and exercise. You don’t see results overnight,” Werner says. “You can’t buy it and then give up. If you use it, you see results.” She says smoother, firmer skin will be apparent in about four weeks.
But massagers aren’t the only answer, manufacturers say. Biotherm’s Stomach Firming Cream, Prescriptives’ Body Conscious and Orlane’s Body Slimming Cream all claim to smooth and firm body skin. Some firms have advertised that their products will reduce cellulite. But those claims, like those of so-called anti-aging creams, have come under fire from the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA says that cosmetics cannot purport to affect the structure or function of the body. Breaking down cellulite-type fat means altering the body’s structure and is thus a cosmetic no-no.
One of the newest products is Princess Marcella Borghese’s Contorno Herbal Body Contour Wraps, which are individually packaged gauze pads soaked in moisturizers. Designed to treat different areas--breasts, throat, hips, stomach, thighs and buttocks--the pads “produce visible firming results after 10 minutes,” says Tom Carroll, vice president of research for Revlon, which owns Borghese.
Dermatologists advise consumers to be wary of products that promise to reduce stretch marks, firm thighs or flatten tummies. These products are really only moisturizers, says Dr. Norman Orentreich, a New York dermatologist. “If they did more than moisturize, they would be considered drugs,” he says. But Clarins’ Werner counters, “We don’t promise miracles, just results.”
Photographed by Davis Factor III; model: Lisa Hampton/Elite
