From the inside out

The final product
Four months after our first meeting with the president of a West Coast infomercial production company, the final product was delivered. Our infomercial arrived in the mail.

The infomercial makers had rented a mansion in Malibu, with an exquisite poolside setting.

Moisturol infomercial hostess: We all know water is essential to life. Moisturol is the first ever product designed to give your skin the moisture it needs from the inside out!

And there were our testimonial women.

Woman giving her testimonial: I would feel my cheeks and they were like velvety smooth and I’d go, “Wow this is just totally amazing!”

Woman giving her testimonial: I wanted something that worked from the inside and that’s exactly what this product did. Moisturol is great!

Is this our Nestle Quik they’re talking about?

Woman giving her testimonial: Moisturol really blew me away because it was just... it’s so easy and it’s so effective!

And finally, there was the doctor.

Dr. Margaret Olson (in the infomercial): So in this situation Moisturol would be really very helpful for people. Moisturol is one of the new products out that is going to help get rid of lines and wrinkles from the inside out. The idea being is if you can make happier, healthier cells that make better collagen and this is a very innovative way to do it and very practical.

Dr. Olsen, board certified, and at the time Chief Of Dermatology at Saint John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, was clearly endorsing Moisturol.

Dr. Olson (in the infomercial): I think Moisturol is useful because it’s going to be an efficient way to get what you need, that you may not get if you’re not very good to yourself and you’re trying to undo the damage of the past.

With the doctor’s credibility and endorsement, we now had a powerful, convincing sales tool for a product that did not work as advertised.

Dateline was never going to sell Moisturol to the public, so it seemed a good time to find the people who’d been involved in the production and start asking questions.

Talking to the women who gave us their testimonial
We first called the women who said they’d tried Moisturol and had given those testimonial endorsements. We told them we were NBC News, doing a story about infomercials, and seven agreed to talk with us. We did not tell them that NBC was behind the product. At least not yet.

But then we asked one direct question:

John Larson, Dateline correspondent: Did it really help your skin?

Woman in infomercial: It didn’t help as much as I said it did, but it definitely helped!

... and the veneer began to crack.

Woman giving her testimonial: I mean it did work. I found some potential in it, but I mean I went on to say that y’know,  I’m using this for the rest of my life! I’m telling everybody that I’m throwing everything in my medicine cabinet out because all I’m gonna have is this little bottle of pills!

Larson: How many of you have taken the little bit of truth for an infomercial and stretched it? Raise your hand.

Hands go up.

Woman giving her testimonial: I stretch it a whole lot!

They said on a typical infomercial set, there is a lot of pressure to please the producers, who, they say, influence and even trick them a little bit to better sell the product. And the Moisturol set was no different.

Woman giving her testimonial: The day that I went, they told me that they had been there for a few hours and they hadn’t gotten a good interview from anyone prior to me. So I really wanted to do a good job.

Another woman giving her testimonial: They told you that too?

Larson: They told you that too? Who else got told that there hadn’t been any good ones?

Woman giving her testimonial: Yeah! The day that I went.

Larson: So, in other words, the pressure’s on?

All: Yes.

But why would they feel such pressure? Because these women are not what they seem to be, everyday people who love our product.

Larson: How many of you folks are in fact, actresses? Raise your hand.

Hands go up.

Larson: All right, six out of seven.

It turned out that nearly all the actresses had done other infomercials. And all were recruited by the company, whose president told us in our very first meeting that he had the names of hundreds of people like them: part-time actresses who were just flattered to appear on camera.

Infomercial producer (on hidden camera): There are tens of thousands of women in Los Angeles who came to L.A. when they were 18 to be stars. It didn’t turn out, they got married when they were 25, they now have a kid or two, they live in the valley, they’re attractive compared to most of the country. But when our producer calls them up and says “Hey, how you doing? Listen, we got this thing, it’s not really any money but do you wanna do it?”

And for just $50 dollars, these women did just what the company president said they would.

Larson: If you’re not making a lot of money, why do you do it?

Woman giving her testimonial: Exposure! There’s always a chance somebody will see you and say, “Hey I want her in my next movie…”

The women were supposedly in the infomercial to testify about their own experiences with Moisturol. And at one point, we asked if any of the women would say that it was the ‘best product they’d ever seen’. No one took our suggestion, but meantime, just off camera, the company’s producers were feeding them their own lines.

So what would they say when they found out that Moisturol, just like them, was not what it appeared to be?

Larson: I have a secret for you. The maker of Moisturol is not some big pharmaceutical company. It’s, in fact, NBC News. And the secret ingredient in Moisturol is… Nestle Quik. Chocolate powdered drink!

All: Oh my god! Are you serious?

Larson: So the question is, how did this make your scar go away? Help your flakiness? Make your skin feel softer than you ever could have imagined? And get rid of those crow’s feet?

Woman in infomercial: It was a stretch. I was trying to be creative in my testimony.

And now that our secret was out, the stories changed.

Woman giving her testimonial: I’m thinking how I didn’t like ask questions, I didn’t care, y’know? And I’m sitting here going, why did I do that? You know what I mean? And for 50 dollars?

Woman giving her testimonial: The exciting part was I had submitted my picture and I was chosen! So I wanted to do a really good job. And in my heart I knew I didn’t see a difference, after using it.

Woman giving her testimonial: We were not exactly honest about it. And I don’t know about anybody else but I was a little uncomfortable about that, yeah.

Larson: You were?

Woman giving her testimonial:  A little bit. I mean not enough to not take the 50 bucks thank you…

In the end, there was one holdout; One who still believed in the wonders of Moisturol.

Larson: Do you still think it really changed your skin from the inside out?

Woman giving her testimonial: Absolutely. I’m gonna go buy some and do a two week trial and see what happens.

She did, and after a couple of weeks of drinking Quik, now admits she’s not so sure. In many ways, most of these women were just doing what they were trained to do as actresses. But the woman we would interview next... would have no such excuse.

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