Guthy-Renker Skin Care

Are Guthy-Renker Skin Care Products Effective?

What have you heard about Meaningful Beauty and/or Natural Advantage?

Carin

Guthy-Renker Television Network is one of the largest and most successful infomercial producers. The company has been credited by Fortune Magazine as "a pioneer in infomercials".

Guthy-Renker uses A-list celebrities and high production values to blur the line between advertising and entertainment.

In addition to Cindy Crawford for Meaningful Beauty and Jane Seymour for Natural Advantage, the company employed Daisy Fuentes for Winsor Pilates, Katy Perry for Pro-Activ Acne Solution and Vanna White for Perfect Smile, among others to promote skin care and other products. [As of this writing, only Meaningful Beauty and Pro-Activ are still being promoted along with newer products such as Wen Hair Care.]

Nothing wrong with that - because the spokes-celebrities really do use and believe in the products. Their testimonials are real attention grabbers and lend credibility to the brands.

They do receive a percentage of sales, some of it guaranteed, and the percent can go as high as 3%.

Guthy-Renker's sales revenue topped $1.3 billion last year. Three percent of $1.3 billion is $39 million. I wouldn't mind a piece of that pie myself!

The skin care products get mixed reviews from some users - but wouldn't almost anything?

However the biggest complaint I found that buyers have is with the auto-ship policy which both Meaningful Beauty and Natural Advantage employ.

Many buyers don't realize that with their first order, they are agreeing to let the company send them a new shipment periodically and automatically charge their credit cards.

If you like the product, that might be OK with you. Just be sure to read the small print and understand what you are agreeing to.

You might be interested in some of the stories from people trying to cancel their orders posted on the Essential Day Spa Forum. However, realize that these complaints come from a small percentage of Guthy-Renker's customer base.

Meaningful Beauty's Skin Care Products

Meaningful Beauty's Maintenance 1 Cream for day has excellent sun protection ingredients. It is rated SPF 15 for UVB protection and contains octinoxate and avobenzone (also known as Parsol 1789), two advanced ingredients that protect against the sun's UVA rays.

The makers tout this skin cream's antioxidant power. It contains extracts from a "rare French melon" as well as grape leaf extract.

The moisturizers in this skin care cream are on the light side, so women with very dry skin would probably not be satisfied with it.

I would describe Maintenance 1 as a light daytime moisturizer with good sun protection and antioxidant power. It provides protection from free radical damage whether from the sun's rays, environmental factors or the body's own internal processes.

Meaningful Beauty's Repair Maintenance 2 Night Fluide

As with the day cream, there is nothing special about the moisturizers in the night "fluide" despite the company's words: "don't let the light texture fool you. It's delivering intensive moisture and nutrients to the skin."

Night Fluide also contains the "rare French melon" extract, as well as more widely known antioxidants (retinyl palmitate, tocopherol and tocotrienols). Retinyl palmitate is also an exfoliating agent.

Natural Advantage's Skin Care Products

All Day Moisture is rated SPF 15. It some effective moisturizers.

Nighttime Renewal Complex contains run of the mill moisturizers, retinol for exfoliation and tocopheryl acetate as an antioxidant.

In my opinion, the best product is the Ultimate Hydration Cream.

This is what I would call a great moisturizer. It contains the number one moisturizing ingredient hyaluronic acid (and in two forms yet!), as well as other very good moisturizing ingredients (shea butter, ceramide, etc.). It has anti-inflammatory botanical extracts and good antioxidants.

However when I tried to put it in my shopping cart, the following message appeared: "Please call our Natural Advantage Beauty Consultants at 1-877 ..." to order any of the products below.

Apparently, the only thing you can order through the website is the 3-pack which contains a cleansing gel and the two products above. Unfortunately, you cannot order this skin care product separately.

You do get a free sample of Ultimate Hydration, "a $12.95 value".

This article is for informational purposes only. It does not purport to offer medical advice.