What’s the worst beauty tip you’ve ever received?

[Paniconthedancefloor]

Inspired by the “what is the best beauty tip you’ve received” thread, I wonder about the opposite….

What is the most useless, unhelpful beauty tip you have ever received?

I’m torn between being advised to sit in the sun with tomato ketchup in my hair years ago to bring out the highlights (it didn’t and was v sticky), and the first time I fake tanned but didn’t know to wear mitts when applying and ended up with conker coloured palms for 2 weeks.

Mayonnaise to repair split ends. Smells very bad & very hard to wash out.

I had a friend freelance write for several woman’s glossy mags. Used to write the types of: “5 essential things to take on honeymoon” “fitness tips for beach bod” etc. Her boyfriend used to write a lot of her content. She was NO expert in anything and her BF even less qualified. She was not in shape, or healthy, her hair wasn’t nice, she dressed badly and not even her makeup was nice. 100% fiction writer.

A big eye opener for me, the people who wrote most of the magazine content were like my friend, just making it up. They just needed to fill the pages between the adverts & I think the pay was like £1 a word.

@ExcessiveNumberOfNinjas yes, I read Jackie religiously in the 70s and can confirm that I did take that advice and no, it didn't work. They also recommended TCP for virtually everything, to the extent that I wondered if they were share holders.

I did. It does sort of work, so long as you don't mind having the thick white residue of Anusol on your eyes. You definitely can't put make up over it, that's for sure. If feels weird and tight and gloopy. You can't blink properly.

Perhaps people may wonder why you smell like that product 😯

I used to live by mine! Trying to use more traditional hair dryer and barrel brush and am not having the same results!

Who remembers picking chamomile flowers and pouring hot water over them to make a hair infusion?. It was supposed to lighten your hair and was the cheaper alternative to SunIn. Except we didn't know how to get hold of chamomile flowers and just used daisies and you still had to sit in the sun to "activate" the daisy water! Oh my, the 70's were a real blast!

Thanks for that @ExcessiveNumberOfNinjas

I'll give it a try.

Avon lady recommended making a tube
of mascara last longer by spitting on the brush when it was starting to dry out 🤢. No thanks, not keen on eye infections.

8 hr cream is a bit like Marmite, you either love it or hate it.

I am with you though, but it's not something I use all the time. In winter you can't beat this for dryness or dry patches , but I really rate it for scar treatment. I had skin cancer removed from my collar bone, so as you can imagine quite a tricky spot and prone to scarring. I used 8 hr cream as scar treatment after the stitches came out, and I barely have a scar to show for it.

To me it is not an everyday type of cream, but if some area of the skin needs some tlc, chances are this is going to do the trick.

Bathrobe belt curls for hair - lots of people recommended it to me. It did nothing to my hair and my hair was a bit of a frizzy mess the next day.

"You'll look lovely with a bob."

No. I looked like a hamster in a wig. Chubby little faces do NOT look 'lovely with a bob'.

@FenellaFeldman the Tollund Man!! There's a flash back to year 9 history!!

I have one and I LOVE it! I call it my own personal hairdresser 😂

😂😂
The Body in the Bog!

I have two of them, one for mid length hair and one for long hair, best product I have

Remember that giddy anticipation of opening a brand new copy? It would get pored over all week and we'd read every page three times over, hanging onto every word. It was like a bible for teenaged girls on fashion, pop bands, make up and beauty, agony aunt advice.... And then when the photo-love mags came along with actual real people in the stories instead of hand drawn characters, Oh My Word it was like we'd died and gone to heaven. I remember seeing Leslie Ash appearing in those before anyone knew who she was.

The internet, the TikTok age and the instant gratification of a constant stream of information has killed all that. Quite sad really. Simple, innocent times.

My dd (almost 16) uses this technique sometimes - probably saw it on tiktok 🤨😆 The curls are lovely but last as long as the walk to school according to dd!

My sister used to do that! She said she read it in a magazine!

I have to say, I feel inspired to give my Big Hair another go after reading all these endorsements. It’s probably my technique; I’ve always been a bit cack handed!

Ah, happy days. No internet, constant strikes and inflation at 30% . But we had great magazine advice!

Just in case you're now living in fear about getting outed, I am nobody's MIL yet, got a lot of years before that happens!

Just remembered something I recently found in TK Maxx for everyone reminiscing about the horrors of semen facials 😁

Once heard of a couple of girls who heard raw egg was a great conditioner.
They used hot water to wash it out 😂
Luckily looked good with short hair.

What do you use it for?
It just seemed very thick and greasy to me.

Another vote for Eight Hour Cream - it’s little more than Vaseline. I read that it was good for burns so put it on sunburn. Bad idea, it just covered my skin with gloop and did absolutely nothing for the burn.

And home waxing sets. It’s just not the same and I ended up with a hell of a lot of ingrown hairs.

I just can't cope with the smell 🤢