1. Teri Hatcher: Red Wine Baths
Teri Hatcher reportedly pours a bottle of red wine in her bathtub when she bathes. I cannot imagine why this is appealing. Have you ever spilled red wine on the floor? It's STICKY. Also, I imagine it would look like you were bathing in blood. That aside, she says it makes her skin feel firmer.
DIY Alternative: Uh, pour a bottle of wine into your bath. Crappy red wine may taste crappy when you drink it, but I have to imagine you don't need to splurge on a good vintage for your bathing needs. This might be a good time to part with that already opened bottle that's been in your refrigerator for a bit too long.
Here's a photo of Teri Hatcher after a bath. She does not appear to be red wine-stained.
2. Lindsay Lohan: $40,000 Worth Of Tanning In 2 Years
Lohan was recently accused of not paying $40,000 she owes to a Nevada spray-tan company for services she got between 2007 and 2009. How does one rack up a $40,000 tanning bill over 2 years? That's over $1,600 of tanning a month. How this is even possible is baffling.
DIY Alternative: Self-tanning need not cost you thousands of dollars a month. Tan Towels work nicely — and cost just $27 for a 10-pack.
3. J.Lo: Smothers Entire Body With La Mer Cream ($140 per ounce)
La Mer cream is such an outlandishly expensive, elitist product that even Blair Waldorf called it overpriced in a recent episode of Gossip Girl. An ounce (that's the size of a small shot glass) of the stuff costs $140. It's hard to imagine how much J.Lo would need to moisturise her whole body, which she apparently does. Most people who buy it just use a pinch on their faces.
DIY Alternative: If you want La Mer cream so that your skin can look like J. Lo's you can buy 16.5 ounces of it on Amazon for the sale price of $1,650. But if you don't have that kind of cash and are diligent enough to put any lotion — the Vaseline kind you get at the drug story, for instance — all over your body every day, your skin will probably look pretty good.
4. Angelina Jolie: Caviar Facials
Celebrities may be more likely than the rest of us to believe that expensive items like diamonds, gold, pearls and so forth are not only luxurious, but also have some kind of beautifying effect when turned into skin treatments. Allegedly buying into this idea is Angelina Jolie, who uses uses various caviar facials and caviar-based creams because of the proteins and fats like phospholipids that are found in caviar.
DIY Alternative: A dermatologist tells The Daily Mail that you'd be better off covering yourself in cod liver oil, which can be found quite easily for around $12-$20. Save the caviar for eating.
5. Halle Berry: Mixes Body Wash With Coffee Grounds
Berry reportedly puts coffee grounds in her body wash, because it exfoliates and the caffeine in the beans "energizes" skin and increases blood flow.
DIY Alternative: You can add coffee grounds to your soap all you like, but any "energizing" effects are about as guaranteed as results from those creams that claim to erase cellulite.
Or, like Berry did at the Kids' Choice Awards, get slimed. I hear it does wonders for your complexion.
6. Victoria Beckham: Sheep Placenta Facials
Considering women eat their own placentas these days, it's hardly surprising that some put the sheep kind for their faces, as like Victoria Beckham supposedly does.
DIY Alternative: Sheep placenta's are nothing to fear! Inexpensive hair and skin products made with sheep placenta are easily found in many drug stores. Take this $13 sheep placenta-containing skin cream, for instance. I tried a sheep placenta hair mask which was on sale at my local drug store for $1.99 and it felt nice — like a super conditioner.
7. Charlize Theron: Hot Milk Baths
In the forthcoming Snow White And The Huntsman, Theron plays the beauty-obsessed Queen Ravenna who takes full-on milk baths. Various spas think the trend will catch on, and now offer treatments like goat milk scalp rinses and hot milk baths, which run up to $500.
DIY Alternative: A spa owner tells the Daily News to try immersing yourself in a tub full of milk. But that's a lot of gallons of milk to buy, isn't it? You might consider just filling a bucket with milk, and immersing each limb separately. Let me know how that goes.
8. Demi Moore: Gets Blood Sucked By Leeches
Moore's publicly acknowledged her fondness for leeches, which she says "detoxify" the blood and "optimize health." Leeches do have proven medical uses — like the ability to quickly drain blood froma wound — but, as Dr. Ed Zimney writes: "Ms. Moore and the other devotees of blood-letting, are misinterpreting this use and adorning it with magical properties they wish were true."
DIY Alternative: Maybe let's just skip this one.