Tetherd Cow Ahead

Today’s interesting tidbit comes to you, dear readers, courtesy of Acowlyte Essence De La Grenouille who I’m sure will not mind being affectionately referred to as Froggy.

Froggy’s local news source carried this rather intriguing advertisement which promises the delights of an Australian skincare product called MooGoo, an unguent which, the makers say, is ‘adapted’ from a cream used on dairy cow’s udders ‘to keep them in good condition for milking’. For reasons which are not entirely clear, this gives it excellent credentials as an effective skin treatment for humans. ((This falls in the same category as the ‘Baby’s Bottom’ analogy. It’s an advertising ploy that works on the principle that if it’s kind to a baby’s bottom/cow’s tender udder, then it must be gentle on your skin!))

Apparently MooGoo is ‘an Australian phenomenon’. It’s not phenomenal enough to have reached my ears, but I guess I’m not really in the target market so maybe it’s not overly surprising that I’ve never even heard of it. The MooGoo makers like to wax lyrical about the product’s use of ‘natural’ ingredients. Here, let me quote from the text of the MooGoo advertisement in Froggy’s newspaper:

[MooGoo] is made from only natural ingredients including edible oils such as almond oil, olive oil, rice bran oil and lots of other skin repair ingredients…

Well, not really much news there if you know anything about skin creams. In essence, MooGoo is selling a compound based on vegetable oils rather than on the petroleum-derivative oils that some other skincare products use. ((Petroleum derivatives are essentially vegetable oils anyway, formed as they are from the compressed deposits of million-year-old plants. It’s all just carbon semantics in the end.)) Since there are about, oh, a BILLION skincare concoctions that use vegetable oils, the main selling point of MooGoo basically still comes down to the cow udder thing.

Of course, being the good researcher I am, I visited the MooGoo site. It’s pretty harmless as these things go. They make a big deal about how their product is ‘natural’ ((The use of the word ‘natural’ in relation to these kinds of products is banal and stupid, and a pox on our modern sensibilities. The definition of mineral oil that makes it ‘unnatural’ also renders evening primrose oil unnatural. They both ultimately come from plants, and are acquired through a mechanical process. In the same way that it’s not wise to drink a glass of mineral oil, it would be inadvisable to drink a glass of evening primrose oil. Likewise, a dab of evening primrose oil on your hand is likely to have about the same consequences as a dab of paraffin.)) and harp on rather a bit too much about their lack of gimmicks. I think they must own a dictionary that has a different definition of the word ‘gimmick’ to mine, because I’m not really all that sure what they mean when they say things like:

MooGoo does not use gimmick ingredients and marketing…

You can, perhaps, see my amusement here: using vegetable oil ingredients is no big thing for a skin lotion, so the main point of difference between MooGoo and other similar products is the marketing angle that this marvellous substance comes from a treatment for cow udders. Which is, by any account, a gimmick.

As part of the MooGoo ‘we’re completely natural’ pitch, the front page of the MooGoo site features a video which claims to show ‘how most moisturisers are made’. It’s light-hearted and funny, but when the pretty-but-amiably-goofy spokeswoman starts talking about the evil that is in products-that-are-not-MooGoo, it becomes deceitful.

She gives us a demonstration of how sorbolene, commonly used in a variety of cosmetics, is made from paraffin oil, water and an emulsifier. But, she warns us sternly:

Paraffin oil is actually a flammable petroleum oil. Let me demonstrate.

… and then sets fire to a wick saturated with paraffin, which burns obligingly.

You’ve gotta wonder how many people are aware that those nicely packaged creams are made from a flammable petroleum oil. I’m sure that if they did know, they wouldn’t be very comfortable putting this on their skin, let alone their baby’s.

You’ve gotta wonder how many people fall for the old ‘scare-them-with-hellfire’ ploy.

Ms MooGoo continues:

We aren’t saying this cream is dangerous…

Really? Then it’s a little perplexing as to the point of the fiery demonstration and the conjoined images of a burning wick and a naked baby that follow. The implication is, by any reckoning, that the stuff you find in ‘other’ skin care lotions is related to petrol and therefore ouchy burny. MooGoo, we learn, is made from much less threatening stuff – like sweet almond oil, evening primrose oil and olive squalane.

Let’s see now… would that be the same sweet almond oil that is not merely combustible, but poisonous and a highly dangerous eye irritant? Or the evening primrose oil which is, like most hydrocarbon-based substances, also combustible? Or perhaps the olive squalane which, aside from also being a flammable hydrocarbon, is a saturated analog of squalene, a biochemical precursor to steroids? Would you be comfortable putting these on your baby’s skin? If that’s not scary enough, MooGoo almost certainly contains DHMO (Dihydrogen monoxide) a substance which can be highly toxic to humans.

Did you see what I did there, Acowlytes? I selectively chose negative consequences of the substances concerned and presented them as the most important aspects of those substances. I mixed my argument with conflated associations and a little scary-sounding scientific language et voilà! – a picture of MooGoo that makes it sound as daunting as the products it derides. In the same way that the MooGoo video is careful to not actually lie, nothing I wrote is untrue. It’s just couched in such a way as to give the reader a strong unfavourable image.

As these things go, MooGoo is a pretty harmless example of flim flam. I really have nothing against this kind of product. It probably works as well as anything else you could buy of this nature. What annoys me, though, is the way the makers of MooGoo claim to be different to (and superior to) the other products they compete with, but then go and use pretty much exactly the same hocus pocus as everyone else to sell it. The fact is that every single one of these kinds of ‘moisturizing’ products, be they derived from paraffin or olives or almonds or turtles, ((Oh yes…)) works on the exact same basic principle – putting oil in your skin. Aside from a thousand relatively trivial differences, the major thing that differentiates one from another is the hyperbole and sleight-of-hand that advertisers use to sell them.

Ah, Acowlytes, Cowmrades and Cowpokes all! Welcome to the passing of another year on Tetherd Cow Ahead. It really doesn’t seem like a whole year since the last Rasputin Competition, does it? That’s because it wasn’t! Haha. I was just testing you – as you will recall, last year’s comp ran a little bit late, owing to me being snowbound (and workbound) in the good ol’ US of A (and that doesn’t seem like a whole year ago either, I have to say). But this year, the pageant is right on time. I thought I’d better make sure it was, because as you all know, the world ends in 2012 ((True, it did ‘end’ several times last year as well and we’re still all here, but this time it’s for real! How could the Mayans – a primitive and superstitious culture that tore out people’s hearts for fun – possibly be wrong?)) and that could be anytime from today onward. ((The Mayans themselves didn’t actually predict the world would end in 2012, in case you didn’t know that. To them, it was an unimaginably distant future time, and the truth is that their calendar, like all calendars, had to end sometime.))

This year, we hark back to the origins of the Competition somewhat, so I suggest that a little refresher might be in order. I recommend it to newcomers at least. In fact, I suggest that newbies and old hands alike might like to go back and peruse previous years to get some idea of the playing field. Here, and here were pretty good years I seem to remember…

The rules, as always, can be found here.

OK, well the only thing that remains now is for me to wish you all a very Happy New Year. As I’ve said on many occasions, the Cow is nothing if not the sum of its parts, and some of those important parts are indisputably all of you, my dear Acowlytes. I hope you will keep on visiting the Cow through 2012 and keep on making it the swell party it is.

Oh… I nearly forgot!

Let the Celebrity Penis Wars commence!

If you intend to take up a stance in the #occupy stakes over the coming weeks, why not parade your casual disdain for entrenched capitalism and religion in front of the news cameras by spending mere sheckels on one of these fabulous new t-shirts from the Cow Shoppe?

For your sartorial elegance we present a new Acowlyte T (for those who are Cow and want to flaunt it), a Duck’s Quack T (For your next visit to St Paul’s whispering gallery) ((Marvel at my GENIUS at tying in all these things!)) and the mysterious Shhh! T (Yes, it’s true, the FBI are on to us…)

Christmas is nearly here Cowpokes, and I know none of you want to see the Reverend go without whisky over the festive season. So spend up big! Who could possibly not want a Cow T-shirt in their stocking this year?

Cow Housekeeping: I have installed a plugin that will allow you to subscribe to all NEW Cow posts as they occur. You’ve been able to subscribe to comments for a while, but theoretically you should now be advised when ever the Cow speaks new thoughts. Just click on the Subscribe button over to the right in the side bar and fill in your email details. You can unsubscribe at any time, should you ever crazily decide to do that.

That is all. We now return you to normal service.

Or, How To Get Product Placement on Tetherd Cow Ahead Without Even Trying

A couple of weeks back I told you the story of the tragic event in my youth that undoubtedly thwarted a brilliant artistic career; namely the loss of my beautiful set of Derwent pencils. To my surprise, the charming Rebecca from Derwent in the UK read that post and kindly offered to send me some Derwents, which I’m pleased to report she did. They arrived in the post a few days ago.

The look of the pencils has changed somewhat – gone are the rainbow hues, replaced with an earthy brown with colourful tips (they’re not really blue like they appear in the arty HipstaMatic ((Dang. Secondary product placement! I should be getting kickbacks!)) shot above). I’m pleased to say, though, that the pencils themselves retain their waxy luxury and I aim to take a little outing somewhere over the next few weeks, to sit and draw, something I have not done in many years.

Wherever I venture, you can be sure that this time I will not leave my Derwents on the bus.

Thank you Rebecca, for the lovely coda to my childhood story.

Top Ten searches that have brought people to Tetherd Cow Ahead in recent times. Sister Veronica sends a big shout out to all you wasp-loving Renaissance art perverts!