By Paige West, director of interactive
projects
What it is: Kinoki Detox
Foot Pads, $19.99, www.buykinoki.com
What it claims to do: The
foot pads collect “harmful toxins” from your body while you sleep,
says the manufacturer, by “cleansing and detoxifying your skin’s
outer layers,” boosting your energy level and improving your health
and wellness.
My experience: I was
surfing the Web on a rainy Seattle night with the TV on in the
background when whatever late-night show I’d been watching ended
and suddenly, images of a woman in a kimono filled the screen as a
voice-over told me about an ancient Japanese secret that would give
me better health and well-being. The claims were so fantastic that
it took me a while to decide whether I was watching a satirical
sketch or an ad for a real product.
The item in question? The Kinoki Detox Foot
Pad – and it’s real, all right.
Every night for two weeks, you attach a
small, white pad to the bottom of your foot right before going to
bed. While you sleep, the pad removes “heavy metals, metabolic
waste, toxins, chemicals and more!” A fancy graphic on the Kinoki
infomercial explained that the pad draws toxins down your legs and
out through the soles of your feet like a biological magnet.
There’s even “proof” that it’s working: After wearing it overnight,
the pad is black and puffy, full of nasty crud that used to be
floating around in your body. As a result, you will feel
better and have more energy! At least, that's what the lady in the
kimono seemed to be promising.
Putting it on, I discovered, is a little
like building your own foot-sized Band-Aid. I followed the
instructions by placing the pad in the middle of an accompanying
piece of adhesive, pressed it on to the sole of my foot and went to
bed.
The next morning, my ticklish feet gamely
endured my peeling the pad off when, to my surprise – and utter
disgust – I found it had turned completely black. Worse yet, it
smelled like a vile combination of sweat and the acrid smoke of a
campfire. But that day at work I was oddly perky. Maybe there
was something to this detoxification system.
Alas, no. The directions say that
continued use is supposed to result in the pads becoming less and
less black over time due to the gradual elimination of toxins from
my body, but mine continued to be dark and smelly every
morning. The only pattern I saw was related to how long I’d
slept – longer equaled blacker (though, luckily, not smellier).
And my higher energy level? That vanished,
and I found myself in an ugly funk a few days into my experiment,
but I blame that more on the gray Seattle weather than Kinoki.
Growing increasingly suspicious, I decided
at the end of the two weeks to test a theory. I held one of
the foot pads over a kettle of boiling water, and within about 10
seconds, that familiar blackness and smoky odor became obvious.
What the expert says: Dr.
Devra Davis, director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at
the University of Pittsburgh and an expert on toxins, did a similar
experiment: She left the foot pads out overnight without
their plastic packaging and saw the same effects. She says
the pads contain little more than green tea and vinegar.
“It doesn’t make sense that these
ingredients would produce that effect,” said Davis, who suspects
the blackness and odor are the result of the ingredients
interacting with oxygen, heat or moisture.
And while it’s not unheard of for
substances to get into our bodies via the skin, such as the
nicotine patch or estrogen creams, Davis says she doesn’t know of
any therapy that actually pulls substances out of the body through
the skin.
Davis doubts the foot pads are harmful, but
says “we really just don’t know.”
As for energy boost the first day I tested
the pad, Davis says there’s no way to know whether any
psychological benefits are real or merely a placebo effect until
controlled experiments are done. (She doubts that will happen
anytime soon since the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t
have authority over alternative therapies like Kinoki foot
pads.)
Bottom Line: While
Kinoki foot pads probably won’t hurt you, they likely won’t help
you either. Save your money
and put it toward a nice pedicure."
http://doesitwork.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/19/1156772.aspx?GT1=43001
Not just this brand i suppose. Lots of them at watsons and
guardian. once i saw an Indonesian tai tai n front of me buying 3
sets X 3 pkts(having some promo, each set is a bundle
of 3pkts). She paid like hundred over dollars sia...
