Do you feel like a chain store? Practically floored.

[venta]

Funniest thing on the news today: M&S anti-cellulite knicker claims 'misleading'

...contains the wonderful paragraph:

"The £29.50 Anti-Cellulite Firm Control Waist and Thigh Clincher pants contain vitamin E, aloe vera and caffeine."

Caffeinated pantsI appreciate that cellulite blights some people's lives but really... who thought caffeinated

Comments

[huskyteer]

I've just been reading the highlights out loud to my colleagues :)

I thought the title was fairly hilarious too, especially as in the Most Read Stories box it just says 'M&S knicker claims 'misleading''.

[strange_complex]

Also, what happens when you wash them? Doesn't all the caffeine etc get washed out? Are these actually incredibly expensive single-wear disposable pants?

[huskyteer]

I would like to point out that I bought a pair of M&S 'Outstanding Value' jeans yesterday for less than half the cost of said pants.

[venta]

According to the website, they're both machine washable and tumble-dryable. I guess the millions of micro-bubbles which hold the caffeine in place are waterproof :)

I also note that M&S sell the pants as "cinchers", not "clinchers" as the BBC called them. Which makes slightly more sense.

[strange_complex]

Thanks for the link - I was wondering what they looked like. That's more than a pair of knickers, really, and I can understand the price a bit better now. I'd still say they look more like they should cost £10-15, though, rather than nearly £30.

[beckyc]

Does that mean people's bottoms will never sleep again? If so, what does that even mean?

[venta]

Worse, constant contact with these pants all day might give people's bottoms the jitters...

[huskyteer]

Eventually they might go psycho.

[rosenkavalier]

And I notice from the article that cellulite is apparently caused by that favourite of the health/diet/cosmetics industry - unspecified, mysterious 'toxins'...

[valkyriekaren]

That made me cringe too. Seriously, unless you have heavy metal poisoning, your body is pretty good at NOT hanging on to toxins.

[bateleur]

I feel I must defend M&S here. Nowhere on the product page does it say that any of the measures are effective.

For example, when they say "caffeine to slim and tone" they're describing the reason why it was included, not making a claim that it will actually accomplish this goal.

(I are srs blogger. This is srs comment.)

[venta]

I think I'm willing to consider that "misleading", if not actively wrong. They may be within the law with their claims, since the "independently proven" part may just apply to the structure of the garment rather than the three natural ingredients. But I'm happy for the label to be called misleading.

Then again, I'd be happy for massive numbers of products which claim to reduce cellulite / help you lose weight / make you look younger to be described as misleading, so I don't know why these pants are being singled out for vilification.

[bateleur]

When you put it like that it's almost worrying. If the pants are being picked on because they're obviously bobbins, does that mean all the other products have the assessors fooled?

[venta]

I dunno, maybe the BBC just thought (correctly!) that a caffeinated pants story would be funny.