Kimopolis

I hate shopping. I know, I am a woman, and all women are supposed to be “Born to Shop,” but not me. My “mall” gene must be recessive, because I would rather eat paste than spend my day hitting the stores for some “retail therapy.” Usually, this little quirk works to my advantage. I don’t spend money I don’t have, and I don’t have a bunch of crap I don’t need. It’s really a win-win situation. Plus, since shopping on the internet is quick and painless, I rarely ever need to go to the mall.

Since today is December 17th and there are only eight shopping days left until Christmas, I decided it would behoove me to start scouring the internet for something to give to my family and friends. That’s when I stumbled upon this: the Intentional Unisex Bamboo Tee. Intentional? Did I read that correctly? Surely it’s a typo and they meant to write “International,” right? And how does one make a tee shirt out of bamboo, exactly? The words confused me, and the picture just left me with more questions.

Why is this woman giving me “The Fonzie?” What is so special about her boring brown shirt? I must be missing something for them to be charging $36 (plus shipping and handling) for a cotton shirt. And that’s when I clicked on the link that brought me HERE.

Look! There she is again! Wow. She sure looks happy. “Discover the secret power of positive intentions!” Definitely NOT a typo. I scrolled down: “Are you ready for an amazing way to boost your Energy?” Hell yes! Now, I was getting a little excited. After a few satisfied customer reviews, I finally found what I was looking for, and this is what it said:

“These are not your ordinary shirts! Why? Research that shows written words on containers of water can influence the water’s structure for better or worse depending on the Intent of the word. The human body is over 70% water. We believe that these positive, loving and powerful words will have a profound effect on your entire being when worn on your own personal “container” on a daily basis.

Imagine the feelings of Love, Peace, Courage, Strength, Hope and more, that you’ll experience with these wonderful words printed on the inside of your clothing. Use the Power of Intention in these shirts to reinforce your own private intentions and act as a reminder to speak kindly to your inner self. No one else has shirts quite like these!

This is your opportunity to attract more positive energy into your life by using the Power of Intention in these products!”

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back the truck up, there missy. You lost me at “research shows.” One should not be flinging that term “research” around so brazenly. See, when you use a term like that, you are implying that actual scientific studies have been performed. Where might I find that information? Oh, excellent. The FAQs begins with the question: “Is this just another gimmick?” So, there must be some irrefutable proof that your product works. “We were inspired by Dr. Masuru Emoto who demonstrated photographically the power of positive energy on water.” Who? Did you mean Dr. Masaru Emoto? It is not a good sign when you base your entire product line on the research of a man whose name you have misspelled. It sort of makes it look like he was just an afterthought, and not the sole reason your product exists. And after reading the Wikipedia page on Dr. Emoto, I can see why you might want to mislead your customers.

First of all, Dr. Emoto is a writer, not a scientist. Secondly, it appears that his work with water crystals has been heavily criticized by the scientific community. In fact, some dude offered Dr. Emoto a million dollars if he could reproduce his results in a double-blind study. I don’t think I need to tell you that Dr. Emoto has yet to win that bet. But, since now I was even more intrigued, I continued to try and learn more about this product based on the fictional claims of a man whose doctorate is in alternative medicine from an unaccredited university in India.

Let’s, for the sake of argument, say that Dr. Emoto’s claims are valid. How can his studies (cough) with positive intentions on water crystals be of any use to a clothing company? I hope you’re feeling open-minded today because this is going to be a stretch. Since the human body is made of 70% water, by simply placing positive words close to your body, your life can be influenced to be more positive. Really? Why not just have the words tattooed on your skin then? (Sorry, I will try to keep my smartass remarks to myself.)

Okay, let’s pretend I just had a full-frontal lobotomy, and I actually believe this ridiculous line of New Age crap. Still, even with my dramatically lowered IQ, I can see from the pictures of your products that there aren’t any positive affirmations written anywhere. Sure, I see that the sweatshirts have your company logo emblazoned across the front, but where are these words you advertise? Are they written in invisible ink? Or are they too small for the human eye to see without the aid of a microscope?

And here is where the brilliance of this product is revealed. The words, over 200 positive words in 15 languages from around the world, are printed on the INSIDE of the shirt. Huh? Wouldn’t that mean that the only person, who would know if I were wearing one of your shirts, would be me? Why not just wear a plain tee shirt and use a Sharpie to write these powerful words directly onto your skin? Surely the closer proximity of the inspirational text, the more effective it would be, right? Isn’t that the reason you didn’t print the words on the outside of the shirt?

No, you say? Then, maybe you could explain to me how your product works (okay, I’m just going to directly quote these people here, because I don’t want any of you to think I made this up):

“We have spent a lot of energy ourselves trying to understand how our concept works the past year. In the end, we realized that it really doesn’t matter how it works, just that it does for people who are open to possibilities. Perhaps it is our belief in the Power of Words that gives our shirts the energy. Perhaps it works for people because once they have the shirt on their subconscious starts looking for positive events to reinforce their belief. We don’t know. There are many experts out there that can perhaps explain the phenomenon.“

Alright, so you don’t have an explanation for how your shirt works. What about the words? Is there any rhyme or reason to why you picked the words you did?

“The list of all the other words in our design, 99 of them, was completed in little less than 15 minutes. At the end of that initial writing of the list, we would try and add a word, and then think “hmm, nope”. Add another, “nope”. After multiple tries to expand this list we realized that the original list of words came from a space beyond ourselves. There wasn’t much point in trying to mess with the Universe on this!!!”

You know what? I don’t think I want to mess with the Universe either. I’m going to the mall.