I was watching Saturday Night Live’s At Home edition on the SNL website, and between Brad Pitt’s cold open and the first skit, this Pantene commercial came on.
It featured their new Nutrient Blends collection. A female voiceover invited the viewer to “Explore new worlds” which struck me as slightly lofty and disconnected.
New worlds?
The first “world” was rosewater. I’ve heard of this substance before, though I have no idea what rosewater might be. It can’t just be water infused with roses. Can it? Either way, it sounded like something that Pantene would sell.
But the next item was biotin. This caught my attention. Biotin? That can’t be a real thing. Right? Based upon what was presented in the commercial, biotin are tiny, jelly-like geodesic spheres. Those can’t be real…
Next was castor oil, and now I knew what was happening. This was a fake SNL ad. A comedy sketch hidden in an advertisement. Castor oil is the stuff that parents in old-timey days used to cure belly aches and punish children. There’s no way Pantene would use caster oil in their…
Wait. What is this product anyway? What is their Nutrient Blends collection? Is it shampoo? Body wash? Conditioner? I wasn’t sure. The commercial hadn’t even made the product’s purpose clear.
The next item solidified my belief that this is an SNL ad:
Bamboo.
I wasn’t sure if this stuff was supposed to be applied to the skin or hair, but there’s no way that wood could be a real part of any beauty product.
It wasn’t the funniest ad ever, but by moving from rosewater to the fake biotin to the ridiculous caster oil to the absurd bamboo, it possessed the basic structure of comedy if not the best jokes in the world.
But these skits were being done from the homes of the staff. I was willing to cut them some slack.
The last of these nutrient blends was jojoba oil – also clearly invented – but unlike the equally fictitious biotin, this joke played on the silliness of the name. Biotin was fake but pretending to sound real. Jojoba oil was fake trying to sound fake.
But before the female voiceover returned to finish the ad, there was a final bit of text indicating that the product contains 0% sulfates, parabens, mineral oils, and dyes.
This gave me pause. Sulfates sounded like some industrial product, and parabens was clearly invented, too, but mineral oils and dyes are normal things. Not funny in any way. And in any joke, the last thing should be the funniest thing.
SNL often falls down in this regard, incapable of putting the funniest moment at the end of a skit, but in this case, it was too easy. Replace mineral oils and dyes with almost anything – elephant testicles, kitty litter, motor oil – and it would be funnier.
And I wasn’t even trying.
This product couldn’t be real. Could it? Was this a real Pantene commercial? Did Pantene really put caster oil and bamboo in their products? Is biotin and jojoba oil real?
Also, did Pantene intentionally fail to indicate if this was a hair or skin product, assuming that everyone would know but me?
Yup.
When Elysha came downstairs an hour later, I told her that Pantene is putting caster oil and bamboo in their products, and she just nodded like it was normal.
When I mentioned biotin, she didn’t blink.
She even corrected my pronunciation of jojoba oil as if she’s been saying the word all her life.
I saw a commercial and thought it was a mildly amusing joke. A fake. But it was completely legit.
Does this say more about the problems with the commercial (and perhaps the weirdness of the ingredients that we are now using on our hair or skin) or does it speak more to my complete incompetence when it comes to hair and skincare products?
I’m still not sure.
Side note: If you look in the comments for this commercial on YouTube, you will discover that a certain segment of the population is obsessed with the music played in this commercial, begging to know the artist and asking for a full release of the song.
Weird.
Also, one person commented:
