What the F...ungi?

I saw a commercial the other day that made me laugh; it was a sarcastic laugh that fell into both the Holy-crap-now-I've-seen-everything! category as well as the How-stupid-do-they-think-we-are? one. It was for Aveeno Active Naturals Positively Ageless Rejuvenating Serum with...wait for it...SHIITAKE MUSHROOM COMPLEX.

Really? Because that's exactly what women are looking for these days: an easy way to smear fungi all over their faces.

According to the Aveeno website, shiitake mushrooms were first cultivated in Asia over 1,000 years ago, and were "recognized by ancient herbalists for their medicinal purposes." With this new product, Aveeno claims to have "captured the beauty-enhancing benefits of shiitake mushrooms in formulas that have been shown to enhance the youthful appearance of the skin." Okaaaaay....

I don't know why this latest concoction surprises me. After all, the skin-care and beauty industries have been marketing strange ingredients to consumers for years. Here's just a sampling of some of the odd ingredients in moisturizers, serums, and cosmetics being sold today:

-- Placenta: Because everyone wants skin as soft as a baby's, right?

-- Whale vomit: Called Ambergris, it's a scent ingredient used in perfume.

-- Cochineal beetles: Crush these suckers to get a lovely crimson hue for lipsticks!

-- Snake venom: Can reptile poison really smooth out wrinkles like Botox?

-- Egg whites: Called albumen, it constricts and firms (your wrinkles, supposedly) when dry.

-- Snail slime: Wow, anti-aging and anti-acne properties in one nasty snail secretion!

-- Caffeine: This vasoconstrictor reduces puffiness, rejuvenates, and is rumored to smooth cellulite.

Of course, this is nothing new. Quacks have been hawking snake oil and gullible pawns have been buying it up for centuries.

The term "snake oil" refers to traditional Chinese medicine made from the Chinese water snake, which was used to treat joint pain. It wasn't used in a derogatory way then, but the expression now refers to a product with exaggerated and unverifiable efficacy. (Sound like any products you know and use?)

Hundreds of years after the Great Chinese Water Snake Massacre, early North American settlers continued the tradition of patenting dodgy elixirs with dubious ingredients. One product called Stanley's Snake Oil, which was sold in the early 20th Century, contained the following frightening ingredients:

- fatty oil (most likely beef fat)
- red pepper (feel the burn!)
- turpentine (oil paint remover, people!)
- camphor (more burn!)

YIKES and OUCH, right? But apparently this is the same approximate composition of today's capsaicin-based ointments, though the fat is now usually vegetable based. But yes, turpentine is still used in many cosmetics and remedies (hello, Vicks Vapo-Rub)!

What it comes down to is that people have always been and probably always will be suckers for a sexy marketing scheme. We don't read or research the ingredients we're either slathering on our skin or tossing down our gullets.

And I guess when you compare it to whale vomit and and snail slime, a little fungi sounds downright appealing.