“Truth in advertising” sometimes seems an oxymoron, and the cosmetics industry is hardly where you’d expect to find much of it. So hats off to Neutrogena’s Norwegian Formula hand cream, whose statement on the tube that it “instantly relieves dry or chapped hands – just a dab needed” is absolutely correct. They claim it was devised from the experience of Nordic fishermen with the effect of fish oils; be that as it may, I can attest that this formula really can handle chapped skin that would laugh at your usual hand lotion.
But more to the point, just a dab is really all it takes, and here the manufacturer did something really amazing: it designed the tube to ensure you don’t use more than that dab. Look at the photo below, which compares the tube of this fishy formula with another cream. The hole the cream comes through is barely a pinprick. Obviously, this spares the consumer’s money – at the expense of the vendor’s profit. Wow!
Which reminds me of the story of the guy who came to a toothpaste company and proposed they give him a megabuck if they like his idea for increasing profits: he then told them to enlarge the hole at the end of the tube, since consumers measure out paste by length, not volume. The guy got his money (though I can find no confirmation that this ever happened – can you?) because the toothpaste manufacturer was not as honest as the makers of the Norwegian hand cream discussed here…
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