Who decided you were so great?!

We all read (have read) beauty mags where the experts claim that these certain products are the best they've ever used..I know you're all thinking that I've done a post like this before and you'd be right..I have, but this post is more general than that one.

How did these certain products become the bees knees? Were they just chosen at random or were they actually tested out properly?

I don't know which of these it is, but these products have never provided me with knockout results.

The thing that annoys me is that people read beauty mags, think the products are as great as they're being made out to be, go out, spend money and realise the product is crappy.  It's happened to me in the past and I'm sure it's happened to you.

Certain products from certain brands are picked, these products are usually pretty shit.  I don't know about you, but if I buy a mascara from one brand and it's crap, I'm not likely to buy another mascara from that brand..

I asked my fellow Twitterers to tell me about products which had been given this treatment but were actually crap and they came up with the following:

• Elizabeth Arden 8 Hour Cream: I've used this myself as well and found it did nothing.  Quite a lot of people at work have also used it and found that it didn't really deliver any results.  I don't quite know how a cream can make you look like you've had 8 hours of sleep..
• Clarins Flash Beauty Balm: This is another cream which is touted as a wonder cream for your skin. Firstly, it smells like grandmothers.  Secondly, it does nothing but dry your skin out.  I had really dry skin recently and decided that this might help, it didn't.  I've never heard of a moisturiser making your skin even drier but this managed that.  You're meant to apply it under foundation but I wouldn't, your foundation would flake off.
• MAC MSF: This is not hyped by magazines but it gets endless love from most MAC addicts.  I take many issues with this, firstly, why can't you call a powder, a powder? I thought it was an eyeshadow when I first saw it.  I was pretty surprised that you could use them as powders for your face.
• YSL Touche Eclat: See here.  Mine has started to stink so I'm very close to chucking it away.
• L'oreal Elnett hairspray: This is horrible, it was sticky and I couldn't brush my hair after using it at all.  Pantene do a much better hairspray.  I wasn't the only person who felt this way!
• No7 Protect and Perfect serum: My mum made me buy this for her and it did nothing for her skin, I tried it and it did nothing for me either, apart from make me feel like I was wearing a mask.
• Clinique 3 step: I have a massive problem with this.  When I first got this, I loved it.  The face wash left my skin dry enough for a toner and the toner left my skin dry enough for a moisturiser.  I bought a full sized moisturiser and got a travel sized version of the liquid soap and toner (liquid soap aka face wash).  I came towards the end of using the moisturiser (the toner and soap had finished) and realised that it contained no SPF.  Now for a company who say that skincare is their speciality, you'd think they would have SPF in everything.  Anyway, I finished the moisturiser and realised that it didn't sink into my skin and that it just formed a coating on my face.  I went back to the Clinique counter wanting to just buy the soap and the lady was adamant that you NEEDED to buy all three together to make it work, despite me telling her that I wanted a moisturiser with SPF.  Her answer shocked me, she came out with "well yeah, you need to use the three step then another moisturiser on top which has SPF in it".  I' ve got combo skin, I'm not going to be using two moisturisers!  I've used and smelt the toner since then and I can't believe I used something so strong on my skin.  I would never recommend it to anyone!
• Maybelline's Great Lash mascara: Touted as being the best budget mascara out there when frankly, it isn't.  I'm not the only one unimpressed by the results from this one.  The annoying thing is, Maybelline have other mascaras which work far better than the Great Lash but someone will read a "review" on it in a mag and go out and buy it.  The Colossal is one of my HG budget mascaras but it seldom gets a mention in mags as the Great Lash is seen as being the be all and end all.

This isn't to say that I'm rubbishing the brands mentioned above, I'm asking why certain products have been chosen as being the standout ones when the brands have far better items to offer.

To those of you who weren't on Twitter to hear my call, which "cult" products do you find to be totally rubbish? To those of you who were, why do you think these have been hyped up so much?