Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

November 13, 2015 There are 37 ingredients in each jar. The first one listed is water and the last one listed is fragrance. The 35 in between, with the exception of radish root, are ingredients about which I know nothing and cannot pronounce with any degree of certainty. With regard to the radish root, it's not that I know anything about it, it's only that I'm pretty sure I know how to pronounce it. I have now done a little research on the one ingredient that's in the very name of the product, hyaluronic acid. WebMD, which might or not be reliable in this instance, says this: "There is also a lot of interest in using hyaluronic acid to prevent the effects of aging. In fact, hyaluronic acid has been promoted as a 'fountain of youth.' However, there is no evidence to support the claim that taking it by mouth or applying it to the skin can prevent changes associated with aging." * At today's price of $78.97 for one ounce, this is an expensive product. Very expensive. My guess is that the jar it's in cost as much as the ingredients in it. Although I used the product according to the instructions for six days, I neither saw nor felt any change in facial wrinkles. No one I asked saw any changes either. * As to my Shar Pei, that's a whole different story, believe you me. After only two applications of Beauty & Truth Erase Repair HA 2% Hyaluronic Anti-Aging Cream 1.0 Ounce her wrinkles completely disappeared, and now I can't win any more cash prizes for what used to be a very prize-winning specimen of a Shar Pei, for which I intend to sue the manufacturer a whole lot. * Here's what I think explains why anyone would buy this product. It's good old Leon Festinger's Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Leon, whose theory applies to many diverse situations in life, says that if you suspect (the cognitive part) a contradiction (the dissonance part) in benefits versus drawbacks of a decision you made, it is natural to assume you made the right decision. If you decided to buy a car that everyone else including the experts says is a POS, and even in the face of your own dreadful experiences with the car, you might figure out ways to rationalize your purchase decision. You might be so unwilling to admit to the dissonance -- that you paid good money for a bad car -- that you invent reasons to believe you did the right thing. You manage to ignore the frequent breakdowns and the costly repair bills and things all the time falling off the dashboard and the backseat catching fire way too often because you can't face the fact you made a bad decision. You find ways to value the car more than it maybe deserves. The same is true of a wrinkle cream that costs $78.97 per ounce. You refuse to believe that you would spend any money and time (twice a day after washing) on a product that doesn't work, so you imagine that you see fewer or shallower wrinkles. It's all too easy to imagine that, especially since your judgment is so subjective anyway. What before and after photographs would reveal to be no change might look to the buyer to be an improvement, just because of Leon. * Of course, the manufacturer doesn't claim that the changes are anything but subtle. The manufacturer wisely stays away from making any claim that using their product would produce dramatic improvement. That would be foolish because people generally don't like manufacturers that overstate the benefits of their products. Oops. I just now saw that on the Amazon site the manufacturer plainly says, "Use morning and night for dramatic results." Not barely visible results, not results one might expect, but DRAMATIC results. To me that means the results will be not merely noticeable but impossible to miss. "Dramatic results" are just a step below miraculous. And yet, as I say, I've seen no changes at all after 12 applications, for which I subtract all the stars I can. * Back to the price, $78.97 an ounce. That's some pretty darned expensive wrinkle cream. Some things are more expensive: As of this writing gold is roughly 13.75 times more expensive, saffron is approximately 1.6 times costlier, and beluga caviar will run you 2.5 times as much per ounce. But many more things are cheaper, such as all other foods unless you count white truffles, gasoline, uranium (yep), silver (yep again), sand, and AB3 gravel, not that you'd want to use any of these products on your face, but you get the idea. This stuff is exPENsive. Whether it really works on your particular face to your satisfaction depends on how high your expectations are at $78.97 per ounce, and maybe on how willing you are to lie to yourself in order to relieve your cognitive dissonance. In addition to being expensive the product under review is a partial or total failure as a substitute for many, many things, including hair gel, flea dip, chocolate sauce for ice cream, caramel sauce for ice cream, and pretty much any salad dressing. And a bowling ball; it makes for a terrible bowling ball.