Clothing retailers have been accused of using all sorts of tricks to get you to buy more. “Skinny mirrors” can be one of them.
Its creators claim the concave curve of their product makes women look five to 10 pounds thinner. They also say stores that use it see an 18 per cent boost in sales.
Some retail experts, as TODAY pointed out on Wednesday, call the practice flat out deceitful. Certain customers seem to agree.
“I purchased a dress and in the store it looked great, when I got home it looked terrible, which made me feel even worse about myself. The fact that you are profiting from clothing stores makes me sick,” Kate Olsen Amador recently wrote on the company’s Facebook page.
The company’s reply was that Amador may just have a “fat mirror” at home.
“I had a fat mirror at home for three years and didn’t know it, which made me feel worse and worse about my body over time,” the presumed creator wrote. “That’s why I made this product. Maybe your mirror at home is the culprit?”
She told TODAY’s investigative reporter Jeff Rossen that “if the mirrors are not mounted properly, every single mirror in each dressing room is going to be different” and claimed that “a normal mirror actually makes you look five to 10 pounds heavier than you do in real life.”
Physics experts told NBC News that’s false. “Regular, flat mirrors shouldn’t add weight at all.”
Belinda Jasmine-Bertzfield, The Skinny Mirror owner, doesn’t understand the whole controversy.
“It’s just a mirror.”
“The fashion and cosmetics industry lie to us all the time,” she argued.
READ MORE: Psychology of an impulse buy: how stores manipulate you to spend more
The 37-year-old insists that her mirror just shows women an image that’s closer to what they look like in real life.
Her website says The Skinny Mirror is “in the business of helping people to feel good about themselves.”
READ MORE: Technology allows shoppers to see themselves in outfits without trying them on
Of the more than 500 mirrors she’s sold to individuals and businesses since 2013, she said “a lot” have gone to Canada. She estimates she’s sent 40 or 50 north of the border in the last year, mostly to private homes and small boutiques.
“They love them,” she said.
She wasn’t able to say which stores exactly sold them. But if you look out for a pinky-nail sized “Skinny” logo at the bottom right-hand corner, you might be able to spot them.
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