By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
June 4, 2000
My mission, should I choose to accept, was to test a new product being touted as a spray-on “bra.”
I went to grad school for this?
The “bra” in question is in quotation marks because Yves Saint Laurent’s Haute Tenue doesn’t really squirt a brassiere out of its glossy, silver can. Nor does the nice-smelling lotion (retailing for $69 per 3.5 ounce aerosal can) alleviate women from wearing the actual undergarment.
What it does claim to do is provide a lifting action on women (and, I suppose, men) who show visible signs of breast sagging. Two squirts a day, the brochure promises, will create a bustline that will look instantly lifted, smoothed and toned–more firm, full and shapely.
This is possible, the instructions continue, because Haute Tenue contains gluco-amino-phosphorus complex with purified yeast extract.
Not sure that yeast extract is a good thing to slather on the body, I convince a colleague that she wants to try this first. She reports back that she followed the instructions and applied the lotion to her upper body.
However, she found the process to be distateful and felt sticky afterwards from the lotion, which took a while to absorb into her skin.
Me? I thought that Haute Tenue left my skin feeling softer than the $3 lotion I buy at Target. But I didn’t see a remarkable change. Granted, I only used the product for three days.
Suspicious that the only people to actually benefit from this product are boyfriends and husbands who may want to watch during its application, I contacted a doctor.
“Skin firming lotions in general do a little bit of good in improving the tone of the skin temporarily,” says Dr. Victor Lewis, a professor of clinical surgery at Northwestern University Medical School. “Anything that you apply to the skin that’s a mild irritant will make the skin look firmer. For instance, light acid peels make the skin swell and temporarily make it look smoother ’cause it’s swollen.”
So what about those skin firming lotions, such as Nivea’s aimed at reducing body dimples, or Clarins Body Lift 2000?
“If a product claims to get rid of cellulite, don’t believe it,” Dr. Lewis adds. “Cellulite is an anatomical variation in which there are little fiber bands between compartments of fat. Nothing you can put topically on the skin will loosen those bands. They might create an improved surface appearance, but they’re not going to affect the amount of fat underneath the skin.”
Still, women buy these products. The fact is, these cosmetics might not do any long-term good, but they can have a pleasant placebo effect.
But then again, so can a shopping spree at Victoria’s Secret, where $69 will get you two bras. Full price.
*****
1860’s: L.L. Chapman gets a patent in 1863 for what is believed to be the first brassiere.
1940’s: Jayne Russell stretched her sweaters to their limit with her pointy bras.
1960’s: Playtex advertises Cross Your Heart bra that lifts and separates!
1970’s: Forget the bra. Burn it, toss it, trash it. Just don’t wear it.
1980’s: Madonna makes it fashionable to wear underwear as outwear. The lacy bras of the ’80s gave way to her infamous conical bras during her 1990 “Blonde Ambition” tour.
1990’s: Introduced to America in 1994, the Wonderbra supplies cleavage to those who are needy.
