Booksellers and readers are well-aware of Oprah Winfrey's effect on books: if she recommends a title, it becomes a bestseller. But she also has the same effect on beauty and anti-aging products, reports the
The New York Times:
Few Americans had heard of a beauty treatment called Thermage until Oprah Winfrey began championing it on her talk show. Billed as a procedure to tighten skin, Thermage uses a radio-wave emitting machine to heat and expand collagen beneath the skin's surface.
In episodes with names like "How to Stop the Clock on Aging," "Look Younger! Live Longer!" and "Look 10 Years Younger in 10 Days," Ms. Winfrey introduced Thermage as one of the "latest cutting-edge treatments" and as a "lunchtime face-lift" that requires no recovery time.
When Thermage was first showcased on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in 2003, "the show drove so much interest that our sales reps were selling machines over the phone," said Stephen J. Fanning, president and chief executive of Thermage Inc., which sells machines to doctors for about $30,000.
And every time "Oprah" reruns one of its Thermage episodes, most recently last summer, traffic on the Thermage Web site (thermage.com) spikes to 30,000 hits for the day, Mr. Fanning said. Ten to 14 percent of the people who visit the site after seeing an "Oprah" episode end up visiting a doctor's office to have a facial procedure, at an average cost of $3,500, he added.
Ms. Winfrey's ability to create best-selling books with an endorsement on Oprah's Book Club is well known. Much less recognized is her Midas touch in the beauty industry. With an average of about nine million viewers daily, the "Oprah" show drives enormous traffic to cosmetics counters, spas and doctors' offices when she endorses a product or a treatment, according to beauty industry executives.
"Getting on Oprah is like winning the lottery," said Marianne Diorio, senior vice president of global communications for Estée Lauder. "Because her audience really trusts her, if Oprah or her producers sincerely fall in love with some product or person, the results can be spectacular," Ms. Diorio said.
The skin-care brand Philosophy was sold only in a handful of stores when Ms. Winfrey included its Hope in a Jar moisturizer in a 1996 episode. "She took this obscure little company and gave us national name recognition," said Cristina Carlino, founder of Philosophy. The brand now sells in Nordstrom, Macy's and Sephora stores and on QVC. Last December, when Philosophy Amazing Grace Shower Gel appeared on "Oprah," the product's monthly sales increased to 18,000 bottles from 3,000 the previous December, said Ms. Carlino, who calls her manufacturing plant "the house that Oprah built."
The rest of the article quotes plastic surgeons and dermatologists who complain that Oprah doesn't publicize the risks that some of these procedures have and details one woman's horrific experience with Thermage (the procedure melted the fat under her skin, leaving her face lumpy and weird-looking).
All the experts agree that Oprah gives good advice, they are just concerned that when reporting on the newest treatments the media doesn't usually disclose the risks inherent in any surgical procedure. But Manhattan dermatologist to the stars Dr. Patricia Wexler says it's up to the doctor to disclose those risks before any procedure, which is certainly true. We have to wonder how much experience the doctor had using the Thermage machine before he performed the procedure on the unhappy customer. When it comes to any kind of plastic surgery, you never want to be the doctor's first, tenth or twentieth patient.
Booksellers and readers are well-aware of Oprah Winfrey's effect on books: if she recommends a title, it becomes a bestseller. But she also has the same effect on beauty and anti-aging products, reports the
