Pay big bucks for tap water

How businesses fool men, women and children

THOUSANDS OF WOMEN around the world are buying a hot new cosmetic called Deep Wrinkle Filler, which they apply to their faces. “The trouble is, if you keep slapping it on, your head eventually becomes twice its former size,” said Danielle, a reader who uses it. “I can’t get my t-shirt off.”

I peered closely at her head, which didn’t seem THAT big.

“Well, okay, I’m exaggerating a bit,” she said. “But my face definitely feels like a football covered in plaster.”

Women’s cosmetics are becoming increasingly weird. On a recent visit to Europe, she spent US$6 on a bottle of something called Boots Expert Sensitive Refreshing Facial Spritz (pictured below), which was billed as being "specially formulated to refresh and hydrate".

She showed me the bottle.

Honest to God, it was a can of tap water.

Now here’s a question. Since the product is just plain water, how can they claim it was “specially formulated”? Who formulated it? God? If so, does He get a share of the royalties?

Talking of ingredients, a shy reader whom I shall refer to as Mr Chemist pointed out that Pacific Coffee branches around Asia sell drinks labeled on shelves as “100 per cent Mango”, “100 per cent Kiwi” and so on.

But an in-depth probe by Mr Chemist revealed that the main ingredients are actually water and sugar. He reckons that the Pacific Coffee Company must have fooled him and thousands of others so often they could all take out a class action lawsuit against the company.

I asked him whether he was really sure about his findings. “How do you know for sure that it’s really mostly water? Did you analyze the constituents of the drink?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m very sure of my facts,” he said. “It’s written in small print on the back of every bottle.”
*
TALKING POINTS
*
THE BAD IDEA award goes to a pair of girls aged 10 and 12 who got lost in a large drain in Adelaide, Australia a few days ago. Instead of calling the police, they used their mobile phone’s 3G function to update their Facebook status line.

Luckily someone saw the page and called the emergency services. Rescue co-ordinator Glen Benham told ABC News that the girls’ belief that updating their webpage was the correct response to danger did not augur well for further rescues of young people. “It’s a worry,” he said.

Commentators were wondering what to call this phenomenon. “Stupidity” works for me.
*
JO LUSBY, a top executive at Penguin Books in Asia, was shocked to discover what the world’s bestselling books were. “The IKEA Catalogue is the third most printed item in the world, after The Bible and Harry Potter,” she told me.”This is distressing on many, many levels.”

Maybe the movie will be better.
*
WISDOM OVERHEARD at the bar last week: “The karaoke bar combines two of human society’s worst evils: people who shouldn’t drink with people who shouldn’t sing.”
*
A SAD DISCOVERY was made by reader named Priya. “If you are what you what you eat, I’m fast, cheap and easy.”
*
AFTER READING GOVERNMENT announcements, I realize that somewhere there must be a ministry called “The Department of Unnecessary Words Department.”

Have a wild weekend!

Comments

[Nury]

While everyone is swimming to Bangladesh to meet Farah, let's not forget one REALLY important question.

Is Angela going to see the Tall Guy again?

The suggestion that she is going to get some high heels implies that she is.

I can't wait to find out.

Also, I met a sad balding guy who thinks he has a really weird head shape (like an alien) so I wanted to ask you knowledge ones (especially sej and Christy) do you know whether adults can change their head shapes? Or is it just babies? I need to advise him on this issue.

[Jason]

"Rescue co-ordinator Glen Benham told ABC News that the girls’ belief that updating their webpage was the correct response to danger did not augur well for further rescues of young people."

It's called...thinning the herd.

[Leo]

lol, I don't even know a brand name of any cosmetics till I got into university (just kidding). But all I know about cosmetics is that particular indutstry is ALWAYS making more MOENY than any other industries.

Pretty Women are DUMB, and usually WOMEN WHO WANT TO BE PRETTY are more dumb (I don't mean they are dumb in study, you'll see what I mean).

Most of the "Pretty Women" buy cosmetics that are advertised on TV, magazines or newspapers once it has been promoted, without considering the facts that they are already BEAUTIFUL (the only down side is that desire for cosmetics is making them UGLIER).

In fact, one of my university classmates is really stunning, but her desire for BRANDS and COSMETICS...she eventually became sort of a bitch...

Anyway, most cosmetic products are not effective and the lack of regulations makes cosmetic industry boom. Easy money from easy preys; and since the MASS MEDIA has been promoting the image: Handsome, pretty = Powerful and Popular, this negative effect is going to take us down sooner or later.

Nury, I actually did hear of a case where you could mould your head sharp permanently, but your friend is not going to like it cause the person who RECEIVED the "surgery", died right away after that. By the way, the new sharp isn't any better (Flatten).

Jason, I just had a female student getting her books snatched from a boy. She just sat there and did nothing until I came and took a look at the boy's book...

Kids are just helpless these days, they just submit themselves to whoever is stronger and more powerful than them. Worst thing is, they never submit their homework to their teachers on time...T-T

[fardel]

Looking at a link mentioned in these columns (worms in man's face ), I ended up looking at a video about the effect of a famous poisonous drink on a egg;
Leave an egg for a year in it , it is cooked AND the shell is gone.
Nury , if you dip your head long enough in this wonderful mixture your skull should be soft enough to take any shape you want.
If your brain is not cooked , that is...........
By the way ,this same famous company now sells bottled water ( not spring water ) at 1.50 Euro a bottle ( 16Oz)
On the back, it does not say if it is tap water or Sky Juice
It sells like hot breads... oops!like cold water in the tropics

[fardel]

""specially formulated to refresh and hydrate".
Yes it is
My orchids love it

[TS]

If anybody needs it, I can sell you powdered salt water. It's usefull for boiling potatoes and pasta and it's very easy to use just put a bit of my specially formulated powder in pot and add tap water. I call it Sodium Chloride.

How come that the personal care and cosmetics industry will not admit to using water in their products?
Take a bottle of shampoo and look at the alarming long list of chemicals that few people would be able to pronounce or even identify.
Wouldn't it be comforting to see a familar word like water rather than aqua there?

[Angela]

Nury, you and the gang have to wait a month as I am flying to Europe (land of the tall guys) tonight and won't be back til mid October.

But the tall guy did sms (very high tech dating protocol) that he wants to catch up when I am back and that he thinks I look very cute in my little green dress on the artificial lawn where we lay down to stare at the cloudy skies. Can't believe we did that actually.

Having second thoughts about high heels though as I like my height - barely 5' and really can't think of a good reason to want to be taller, except to avoid getting stiff neck :)

[Izzy]

Good point, Nury.

I once replaced the contents of somebody's toner bottle with tap water. They used it for a month or two and didn't notice a thing.

Also, apparently those protein drinks that many guys around here drink to build muscle are about one amino acid away from being called 'skim milk'.

[Angela]

Hey Fardel, I saw the boiled egg in coke video clip on youtube too. I stopped drinking that stuff since my dentist told me she had seen lots of patients with coke mouth :(
But now and then I still give in to temptation would steal a sip from my friend's cup.

TS - very true. is it like advertising euphemism to say aqua instead of water?

[Samson]

Nury went away for a month earlier and now angela is going away for a moth, at least you guys coordinate your holidays so that this place doesn't get too quiet.
angela, lying down in the grass with someone looking up at the sky, that sounds pretty romantic to me, it sounds to me like this could be THE ONE

[Christy]

A prank shop in the US sold bags of water as "invisible fish".

The saddest thing was, it sold out and the whole town wanted some.

Nury, try getting a sculpture artist to help your friend...let him work around his skull instead of marble ;p

[Jason]

Nury, I think you need to create a dating section on this site.

[Leo]

Angela, Good Luck with the Tall Guy!!! He seems to be quite a good man to fix an eye on!!!

TS, you sell me a bottle of Sodium Chloride, I will sell you a bottle of Carbon Dioxide too!! It comes in orange and lemon flavours so you will find it quite refreshing!! I have added in a few drops of fresh-made lemon juice, so it has Vitamin C.

Leo's Carbon Dioxide, your best friend against H1N1. Buy one get one free!! While stocks last.

(Cost only HK$15 for a refreshing day!)

Christy, did you study Biology? How did you know that the marble and skull share some of the most basic elements? I guess you are probably one of the serial killers on the loose. Probably an expert on DISSOLVING BONEs...
EEEEEEEEEK!

[Christy]

What?! I'm a science idiot. I had no idea! So my head is like marble?! I only mentioned marble because that's what sculptors work with a lot of the time...

Hmmm. A teenage serial killer. That sounds like the title of a porn movie?!

Oh, speaking of porn movies, my friend told me about this Chinese title she stumbled upon in a DVD shop: Jabbing Around.

[sej]

Nury, adults actually do have some head moulding done, but more often during their teenage years. Many kids wear braces to re-arrange their teeth. Anything more significant than that though, and it's either a fight with an iron bar which leaves you in intesive care, or plastic surgery - actually, speaking from experience, they're much the same, just minus the intensive care bit.

Christy & Leo, according to Wikipedia (what a reliable source that is), marble is made of mostly calcium carbonate, whilst bone is mostly calcium phosphate.

Fardel & Angela, coke rotting teeth just because it's coke is a myth. What dissolves the teeth, is when you drink or eat sugary stuff and then don't clean your teeth. The acid in coke is far too weak to do much.

Dentists also are misled as to the effects of coke, and it's the sugar and the resulting bacteria which actually does all the damage, not the coke.

Whilst we're on the topic of stuff that does you damage... consider a chemical called dihydrogen monoxide. It's found in many, many different foodstuffs. What's important, is it has been connected to a surprisingly large number of diseases including cancer and heart disease. A few groups have tried to ban it's inclusion and use in food, but have so far failed. Food manufacturing companies simply won't listen. Perhaps this is the ingredient in coke which actually does all the damage?

[Karuna]

there are lot of places in the city that offer the service required by your "sad balding guy" friend.

The service is called "head job"..for sure after that he will no longer be a "sad balding guy"...he will just be a "balding guy"

[farah]

i once drank 7Up to 'melt' the fish bone stuck in my throat. i think it just dislodged itself but i recommend the power of 7Up to anyone with the same problem.

[mourning mucus]

@ farah

Shame on you!!! You should promote Bangladeshi brands like '(e)uro cola' instead of 7Up.

Where is your patriotism?

*Sigh* globalization is killing us.

[farah]

hey in my defense even cough syrups taste better than that!

but to the rest of the world you're more than welcome to swim to Bangladesh and have a taste of uro cola/ black horse/ shark energy drink.

[sej]

uro cola?? There's something wrong with that name... I know it sounds like "Euro" for Europe, but the spelling gives a completely different conotation... The first thing I thought of when I saw the spelling?? Urinals and Urinary Tract Infections. Urrggghhhh...

[Leo]

sej, sorry, I am refering to the FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTs, and one of them is Calcium (Cal). I do know marble is mainly CaCO3 and bone is a different one.

farah, 7Up can't dissolve bones...and tooth decay is normally caused by active bacteria in our mouth. According to Handbook of First Aid, if you are choked by anything, someone should grab you by you waist and pull you inward from your back. Anyway, since the 7Up saved our beautiful farah, I guess we should give 7Up a salute and start buying 7Up for the rest of our life!

Cheers for 7Up!

[sabrina]

I had just realized when figuring out the formula for "dihydrogen monoxide" that it is actually H20 (that's water!)

[sej]

Leo, you are indeed correct, Ca is common to both, however don't forget the elements' compounds will have wildly different chemical properties to the base elements themselves. And whilst you have "families" or "groups" of elements and compounds, why the periodic table exists, I think the makeup of marble (CaCO3 + quartz + silica + other impurities) and bone (predominantly Ca5(PO4)3(OH)) are sufficiently different enough to prevent you from drawing any conclusion on there being many similarities between the two.

Take NaCl as an example. NaCl we use to help the flavour in our food come out. Cl2 on the otherhand is a highly toxic gas, whilst the metal Na is highly explosive/flammable when exposed to air.

But, it's this dyhydrogen monoxide that got's me worried now!

[Christy]

Wow, what a chemical lesson we have here...Sej, are you a closet terrorist?! It's okay, you can tell us and we won't tell :P

[Vaibhav]

Nury:- Your friend could try landing on the head. The prescription clearly says try from higher up than last time.
Will give you a head as flat as Supandi.

[sej]

Sabrina: :-)

Christy: Hmm... I think that depends on who you talk to... :-)

[mourning mucus]

@ sej
Urinals and Urinary Tract Infections....

Thanks for putting those horrible pictures in my head. Now, I can't drink Uro Cola EVER again!

I was merely pointing to the irony that a Bangladeshi brand is named Uro. Well, they could have named it 'Bangla', but that is already taken. :P

[Leo]

sej, I only study up to AL Chemistry, and I am only refering to ONE of the BASIC ELEMENTs in both of the substances......you don't have to explain to that far unless you are a master of chemistry......

By the way, I really want to know how you can make bombs from sugar, since my chemistry teacher told us thst it really can be done. So, I don't mind if you give me a lesson on that since I just can't believe bomb can be made from sugar.

[TS]

Oh yes. you can make a bomb from sugar, just follow recipe below:

1. Put 550g caster sugar, 550ml double cream and 75g liquid glucose (available from chemists and cookshops) in a pan. Slowly heat together, stirring continually, until the sugar melts then fast boil until the thermometer reaches 118C. Turn off the heat and add 150g melted milk chocolate, mix really well and pour into a 22cm square non-stick tin.

2. Leave the fudge overnight to set then turn out and cut into squares.

That's what I call a calorie bomb!

P.S. The chocolate is to lure women in, if you are lucky, she's a sex bomb.

[fardel]

Yes Yes !!!!!
She is a bomb!
You are the fuse!
And you u will end up with small pieces all over the place into pieces.
What kind of advice was that?

[sej]

Morning Mucus: I said there was something wrong with the name. Very wrong.

TS: That's my kind of bomb. Only problem is, the one I made last night backfired - it's now sitting in my stomach and around my waist, with no women in sight *sigh*

Leo: AL = A Levels? I would have thought what I explained was in fact at the very base of chemistry - one of the very first things you would have learnt. Can a bomb be made from sugar - I know it will spark if you hit it with a hammer - but I suspect it can't enough of it to release it's energy quickly enough to be explosive, so really, no idea.

[Chamin]

I have heard that in the US, there is one type of cereal called "Sugar Bombs". Given how much sugar they eat/drink anyway, I am scared to try that.

[Christy]

Yeah I know sugar bombs! Calvin in Calvin and Hobbes eats them all the time, I guess that's why he's always so hyper.

[farah]

today hopefully is the last day of fasting so Eid Mubarak everyone.
tomorrow there would be calorie bombs flying all around since after one month of fasting there would be a plethora of sweets and sweet dishes in each and every house.

[TS]

The "Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs" that appears in Calvin & Hobbes are fictional and is without doubt a sarcastic comment on many real brand that contains ridiculous amounts of sugar.
This is not just in the US, next time you are in a supermarket just check the sugar contents on the cereal boxes. Even "healthy" cereals like Kellog's K contains sugar enough to fuel a kid to run around on the walls and ceiling for two days non-stop.

[Leo]

Guys, I have been making quite a number of "Sugar Bombs" if you consider "cheese cakes" as one of most lethal ones.

I am quite sure that one of my "Sugar Bomb" is a serial killer. I think it did increase some of my friends' weight by 5% (mostly girls). I have to admit that it was one big failure and I should have added less sugar (I thought all girls enjoy the SWEETNESS).

Well, the sweetness turned out to be my bitterness...I think I just got charge with "increasing body weight of girls on diet" and "purposely getting beautiful girls out of sharp". I confessed, I am a sinful man (though I am quite sure some of them need to put up some weight).

[Carol]

Don't believe products labelled "No MSG" right away. Most of the time you will see "Flavour Enhancer E621 (i.e., MSG)" in the list of ingredients. Blatant misleading!

[TS]

Powdered Water

[fardel]

Can you explain how to post a picture?
what size?

[TS]

fardel,
You need to already have the photo on some sort of web storage such as flickr or picasa and then grab the "embed" link that the storage provide.
Uncle Nury does not provide storage for our pictures on his blog here, that's why it has to be done in a bit round-about way with a hot-link.

[uncle's nephew from the next galaxy]

Thank you

Dear uncle Nury
since you are family now, do you think that a good nephew of yours could post pictures on your blog?
Promise
I shall not tell everybody
Thank you

[Samson outraged]

Mr Jam is under attack. A really nasty letter was published in a newspaper complaining about the post above. Here it is below.

In regards to the published story in the Standard on September 18, 2009 titled “Forget the wine, now God turns water into US$6 facial refresher” in the Dissident’s Diary column written by Nury Vittach, we would like to draw your attention to a cited false accusation. Mr Nury Vittachi shared that one of his readers whom he referred as Mr Chemist pointed out that Pacific Coffee sells drinks labeled as “100 percent Mango”, “100 percent Kiwi.” After an in-depth probe, Mr Chemist revealed that the main ingredients were actually water and sugar which he consequently commented that Pacific Coffee has fooled him and thousand of others.

We would like to take this opportunity to rectify the misconception Mr Vittachi or his reader Mr Chemist might have about Pacific Coffee.

1) We have not labeled our juices as 100 percent Mango nor 100 percent Kiwi, but ‘100 percent natural’ given that no artificial flavorings, preservatives, or chemicals have been added during production and bottling process. They contain only natural products as stated.
2) All the ingredients we use at Pacific Coffee are clearly printed on the labels for all our juices. For flavors such as orange and grapefruit, they are 100% pure, thus they are listed as so. For flavors such as Kiwi and Mango, which are labeled as Nectar, these are also clearly listed with ingredients used (including water and sugar)
3) As a fresh natural product we would like to stress it has a limited shelf life of just 4 days

Furthermore, the size of the font that Pacific Coffee uses for the list of ingredients is in fact one of the largest sized fonts that can be found on the labels. We therefore would like to emphasize that at Pacific Coffee, we have the integrity to be truthful about our products and shall not run the risk of attempting to fool our valued customers. We understand that Mr Nury Vittachi is simply recapping a conversation he had with one of his readers and we would be appreciative if Mr Vittachi can explain to Mr Chemist that his in-depth probe might have led to some wrong conclusions.

Eugenie Kan
Marketing Director
Pacific Coffee

[Samson outraged]

The above is so so so so misleading. The shelf labels say "MANGO 100% NATURAL"
The print on the shelf labels is much much bigger than the print on the bottle which says it is water and sugar and juice.
Ms Kan if you are reading this, please answer this question and answer it honestly.
if you were given a drink and told it was "Mango 100% Natural" would you expect it to be 100% mango juice or would you expect it to contain tap water and white sugar?

[Nury]

I have to agree with Samson on this one. As much as I love hanging out at Pacific Coffee, I do feel cheated.
And if Ms Kan wants to sue me for saying that, go right ahead, you know my address.

As for the question raised by Nephew on posting photos in comments, TS is right, they have to be posted on flickr or somewhere and then the link put in the comment.

Alternatively, you can email them to me and I can add them by hand in the main body of the daily update.

[sej]

Is someone able to post an image of a Pacific Coffee Juice label so we can make up our own mind? We don't have that brand here in Ausrtralia.

[Anon]

Pacific Coffee is cheeky but perhaps not the worst. the very very worst is a drink called Qoo White Grape Juice. You look at the front of the thing and it clearly says Qoo White Grape Juice. In tiny writing on the back it says 3 per cent juice. the rest is chemicals and tap water.

The manufacturer is Coca Cola. This should really be illegal.

[TS]

In most western countries, it's not allowed to use the word juice if the drink is not 100% juice, otherwise it will have to be called drink.
It doesn't guaranty the quality though, it's perfectly alright to call reconstituted drinks for juice if the water added is the same amount that was taken out when the fruit was concentrated.

There is however a misconception about chemicals.
All you eat and drink is chemicals including natural products.
Artificially produced chemicals is not automatically a bad thing.
To get sea salt (NaCl) you evaporate water until only the salt remain, that's a chemical process. Sugar, (C12H22O11) is refined from cane or beet in a chemical process system that would put a mad professors lab in a horror movie to shame.

Remember that there are lots and lots of poisonous plants and venomous animals all of which are natural.

[fardel]

wow!
These post a taking a serious turn.
I believe that it is funny that our "jokes " are taken so seriously by business people.
Yes , post a label and let us be judge.
Where I live, nobody in his right mind drinks or cooks with tap water:when I run out of rain water i used tap water for a little garden of fresh herbs I was growing,they were burned in three days.
Chemicals are added ,but only occasionally (i.e; when, you sleep) to tap water against:
parasites
pipe corrosion
germs

And I DO NOT THINK that they are natural chemicals

[Nury]

Dear Anon, by coincidence I bought a whole family-sized case of Qoo Juice two days ago.

I will check it when I get home tonight. If you are right, and it actually is only 3 per juice, then SOMEONE IS GOING TO PAY.

(Coca-Cola officials, start trembling now.)

[Louise]

wow, after reading the latest post by Mr Jam, i din't know how Pacific Coffee would react. Do the Chinese characters say it is not all juice, or something in that sort of tune???