Shitty Beauty Hacks & Bad Advice You've Seen Online or Heard IRL - How do I make my hair grow faster? How do I get rid of stretch marks? How do I whiten my teeth naturally? Etc.

[Character from a movie]

I suppose this is more of a "bad advice" than a crappy beauty hack, but drinking more than 2 litres of water a day isn't good for your health. It turns out 2 litres is the maximum of water the body requires, unless you live a place with a hot weather, then I guess drinking 3 litres won't harm you. There's this diet where you have to drink 3 to 4 litres every day to "cleanse" your body, but I call bullshit.
I read about a woman who died from drinking like 5 litres of water every day.

 

[Jaded Optimist]

I read about a woman who died from drinking like 5 litres of water every day

Her kidneys must have been fucked if that's true.

Water intoxication can be prevented if a person's intake of water does not grossly exceed their losses. Healthy kidneys are able to excrete approximately 800 millilitres to 1 litre of fluid water (0.84–1.04 quarts) per hour.[12] However, stress (from prolonged physical exertion), as well as disease states, can greatly reduce this amount.

 

[Character from a movie]

Her kidneys must have been fucked if that's true.

Yes, I think she died from kidney failure. And it seems drinking too much water actually dehydrates you.

 

[NoReturn]

Yes, I think she died from kidney failure. And it seems drinking too much water actually dehydrates you.

It's because you lose all them electro-ma-lytes.

 

[neverendingmidi]

Yes, I think she died from kidney failure. And it seems drinking too much water actually dehydrates you.

I remember back in the Navy, they mentioned the main risk of drinking the water used for reactor coolant wasn't the potential radioactivity, it was that it was so pure it would strip salts out of your body, and cause a sodium imbalance.

 

[Character from a movie]

I remember back in the Navy, they mentioned the main risk of drinking the water used for reactor coolant wasn't the potential radioactivity, it was that it was so pure it would strip salts out of your body, and cause a sodium imbalance.

You mean like distilled water?

 

[neverendingmidi]

You mean like distilled water?

Pretty much, except the distilled water you can get in the store is hilariously "dirty" in comparison. They keep it as pure as possible because water itself isn't radioactive, it's the particles in the water that carry the radioactivity, plus it minimizes the amount of sludge that could possibly build up in a closed system.

 

[Jaded Optimist]

I remember back in the Navy, they mentioned the main risk of drinking the water used for reactor coolant 6wasn't the potential radioactivity, it was that it was so pure it would strip salts out of your body, and cause a sodium imbalance.

You mean like distilled water?

Distilled water is very safe to drink, the dangers are a myth unless you are crazy deficit in minerals like sodium.

 

[admiral]

Not so much a 'hack' as a beauty scam: It's probably been mentioned here before, but I am incredibly pissed off by those 'femfresh intimate care' washes and cleanses. My housemate has them and I think theyre so stupid and a waste of time and money, for a number of reasons.

1. Using normal bodywash and water on the outside of your labia and gently on the inner labia is absolutely fine. If you're scrubbing your shit with exfoliator then yeah, that's a problem, but a mild soap and warm water is literally all you need to keep your genitalia clean, so there's no point buying a fancy wash and cleanse just for your cooch.
2. The implication that your vagina is somehow wrong and bad if it doesn't smell clean and fresh at all times and therefore must be flushed out (???) at regular intervals. This is not only untrue, but also leads men and women to have unrealistic expectations.
3. The stupid flowery euphemistic language on the bottles. 'Intimate care'. 'Personal areas'. 'Private areas'. Just say Vagina! It literally says nowhere in the main packaging, except in tiny letters, that the product is designed for use around the vagina. We're all adults here, we should all know by now that the vagina isn't some embarassing thing that you should never talk about or even say the name of in public. I actually think that having a bottle with all this coy language on it is worse than just having a big bottle with 'Pussy Soap' written on it.

(We live in a house with three girls and five men so I'm a little impressed at my housemate's brazenness leaving such embarassing things lying around. It's basically an admission that she thinks her muff stinks.)

Literally no one should be using these things. They're a complete lie and a scam, not to mention generally not good for you since the vagina is self-cleaning. If you actually have a problem like a yeast infection or vaginosis then you need a doctor, not a bottle of overpriced soap-less scented water.

 

[eternal dog mongler]

Not so much a 'hack' as a beauty scam: It's probably been mentioned here before, but I am incredibly pissed off by those 'femfresh intimate care' washes and cleanses. My housemate has them and I think theyre so stupid and a waste of time and money, for a number of reasons.

Lysol was originally marketed as a vaginal douche. 'cause what you really need to do to prevent vaginal odor is to turn your vagina into a blistering hellscape where no life survives.

At least people seem to be wising up that it's all a scam now.

 

[Fialovy]

That does remind me of the whole craze of coffee enemas. I don't really see the point. Do they think you absorb the caffeine through your butt faster or something?

 

[Jaded Optimist]

We're all adults here,

Have you seen vagasil's latest products? It's a whole line marketed at teens called OMV!

 

[Din Djarin]

Have you seen vagasil's latest products? It's a whole line marketed at teens called OMV!
View attachment 2762808

Jesus Christ, that's terrifying. I'm kind of surprised that there hasn't been more of an outrage/trying to get this stuff at least marketed differently. (Unless there has been and I just don't know about it).

 

[NoReturn]

Jesus Christ, that's terrifying. I'm kind of surprised that there hasn't been more of an outrage/trying to get this stuff at least marketed differently. (Unless there has been and I just don't know about it).

iirc it has to do with who actually uses these products. There was a hubbub a while back re: black woman using them more than other ethnic groups.

 

[Miss Misery]

I had a medium-level acne problem in my 20s and tried everything; Cetaphil made my skin worse (CeraVe is great stuff though), Proactive is a joke, and even the prescription topical stuff from the dermatologist didn't work (clindamycin, Retin-A, etc) - I refused to even consider Accutane but did try a course or two of antibiotics. Turns out the solution was turning 30, taking spironolactone (specifically for acne, not a troon), and leaving my skin the hell alone.

Um, except for that one time I was trying to lighten my perceived acne scars and bought a bunch of acid peels online. Now I have mild but persistent post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation; however, it did work on the acne scars? (I am about to start using this stuff to try and lighten it, but I'll probably just make it worse lol - https://www.admiremyskin.com/)

None of the hacks for minimizing a zit work, but those Korean hydrocolloid patches are pretty great (for the maybe one or two pimples I get a year now).

Also I have wavy, sometimes slightly curly, hair that likes to get frizzy so I tried the whole co-washing thing...yeah, no thanks. I've also put some absurd things in my hair that were extremely difficult to wash out - olive oil, coconut oil, mango butter, shea butter... if it's a potential DIY lotion ingredient I've probably put it on my head.

 

[admiral]

Have you seen vagasil's latest products? It's a whole line marketed at teens called OMV!
View attachment 2762808

The 'fresh wash' is pointless, but something to soothe your bikini line after shaving makes sense, I guess. When I first started shaving I had no idea what I was doing and made myself miserable with the itching due to a cheap razor and no shaving foam, plus shaving hadhazardly against the grain. OFC you could just buy some shaving foam, moisturiser and a decent razor made for women, and save yourself the trouble of getting special soothing oatmeal cream for your taint and bikini line, but then how would companies sell girls the notion that their bodies are inherantly unmanageable??

How do you even use the fresh wash, anyway? Is it for external use only or do you have to scoop it up in there like you're cleaning a drainpipe? Has anyone invented pussy deoderant yet?

 

[Cheesegirl78]

Lysol was originally marketed as a vaginal douche. 'cause what you really need to do to prevent vaginal odor is to turn your vagina into a blistering hellscape where no life survives.

At least people seem to be wising up that it's all a scam now.

The old ads for Lysol are nuts.
"Husband ignores you? You've ignored one important thing!"

Health teacher in high school told us that the ads were more aimed at using Lysol as a spermicidal douche, than vaginal deodorizer. They just couldn't come out and say it back then.

 

[eternal dog mongler]

Health teacher in high school told us that the ads were more aimed at using Lysol as a spermicidal douche, than vaginal deodorizer. They just couldn't come out and say it back then.

I have no idea if it was a reading between the lines thing where it was marketed as a contraceptive or not.

 

[Cheesegirl78]

It's been over 40 years ago, but she showed us one ad that said to use Lysol before to be "fresh" for him, and to use it after to be keep feeling "fresh". Teacher told us that was sort of a code to use it for a spermicide, they just couldn't come out and say that back then.
And that we young ladies were lucky to live in a time when we could get proper birth control.

 

[NoReturn]

View attachment 2766407

I have no idea if it was a reading between the lines thing where it was marketed as a contraceptive or not.

It's been over 40 years ago, but she showed us one ad that said to use Lysol before to be "fresh" for him, and to use it after to be keep feeling "fresh". Teacher told us that was sort of a code to use it for a spermicide, they just couldn't come out and say that back then.
And that we young ladies were lucky to live in a time when we could get proper birth control.

I FIGURED IT OUT!
I have a silent-generation woman in my life who I can ask almost anything, and she explained it to me.
It's the "douching" part. Apparently at the time douching wasn't as common as we assume it was when we look at these ads. From mother to daughter it was taught as "You only need to douche after sex (so you don't get pregnant)." The ads presented it as "staying fresh" because it was illegal to advertise contraception.
Kinda like glass pipes and rolling papers for "tobacco".