Dirty Trick #1: Emotive Ingredients

In my opinion, the dirtiest sales trick in the health and beauty industry is the use of Emotive Ingredients. Those who use it have total disregard for their customers, and couldn't give a f**k.

What's an Emotive Ingredient?

An emotive ingredient is an ingredient that is put into a product at such a low percentage that it provides no benefit. In fact, an ingredient that makes up 0.001% of a product can be profiled on the label of a product. It's an unbelievably popular and disrespectful sales trick.

Here's an example of a product with an emotive ingredient. This is the ingredient list for a well-known brand of shampoo that claims to be a Vitamin E and C Shampoo:

Water, Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Ammoinium Chloride, Fragrance, DMDM Hydantoin, Disodium EDTA, Citric Acid, Butylphenyl Methylypropianol, Limonene, Amyl Cinnamal, Green 5, Polysorbate 20, Propylene Glycol, Cocomidoinium, Wheat Protein,
Hydrolized Keratin, Lemon Peel Extract, Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E), Panthenol, Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), Grapefruit Extract, Niacimide, Biotin.

Look at where Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E) and Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) are located…near the very end of the list. In fact, they are way behind Fragrance, and the artificial colouring called Green 5, which are usually less than 1% of a product. Since the vitamins are so low on the ingredient list, and way behind minute ingredients such as Fragrance and Colourants, we can strongly infer that Vitamin E and Vitamin C are useless in this product.

Yet…this brand chooses to pull a fast one on the public, and sell an empty promise. I guess consumers are not worthy of the respect and honesty they deserve. In my next post, I'll show you another example.