Miley Cyrus’s 9-year-old sister helps sell lingerie for kids

Filed under: In the News, Failed Products

Update: According to the Gossip Cop, an anonymous source told the Web site that Noah Cyrus “is NOT starting this line, that she is NOT involved in its launch, and that it’s NOT lingerie in the first place.” Also of note; all of the collections have been taken off of the Ooh! La, La! Couture Web site.

If there were ever a time when our nation should utter a collective “huh,” ( or more likely a “WTF!?”) the time is now. Miley Cyrus’s 9-year old sister Noah, who is already known for wearing a dominatrix outfit for Halloween and pole dancing with her friends, is helping her cousin Emily Grace Launch a line of lingerie for children. Yes, lingerie, as in underwear that is designed to, “be visually appealing or sensuous,” … for children and teenagers.

How this idea made it through the pitch stage without someone — maybe Billy Ray Cyrus, or Emily Grace’s father standing up and saying, “over my dead body!!” — is beyond me. How any clothing line executive couldn’t see the blinking, day-glo words: BAD IDEA/PUBLIC OUTRAGE over the concept defies common sense. The absurdity of a lingerie line for children, even teens, is so obviously wrong that even the 14-year-old son of one of our writers asked, “Didn’t her parents tell her it was a bad idea?”

The new line of lingerie for kids is from Ooh! La, La! Couture, a clothing company which describes its clothing as, “unique combinations of comfortable knits, exclusive prints, Swarovski crystals, and fanciful trims, were immediately appreciated by little divas and moms alike.” Its Website does not show any of the lingerie, which was discussed in a video between Miley Cyrus, Noah Cyrus and Emily Grace in which Emily is seen wearing fishnets (a clothing item that no child should have any familiarity with.”

The video has since been removed. Gee, guys. Why’s that? Pedophiles worldwide would no doubt love a look at this line.

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iRenew balance bracelet stumbles again

Filed under: Shopping, Consumer Ally, As Seen on TV, Failed Products

The iRenew balance bracelet, an “energy-correcting” gadget whose advertisers claim it can heal people holistically, is so bogus as to have earned its marketer the lowest rating from the Better Business Bureau.

The group based its grade on dozens of consumer complaints saying the iRenew Bracelet not only does nothing for their health, but purchasing it puts them through a frustrating cycle of overbilling, slow delivery, and ignored attempts to get a refund.

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Noah Cyrus NOT launching a lingerie line for kids

Filed under: In the News, Failed Products

Early this week we reported that Miley Cyrus’ 9-year-old sister was helping launch a lingerie line for kids. We were very disturbed at the thought of anything remotely resembling lingerie being marketed toward children, and we weren’t the only ones, as moms weighed in with their displeasure on Facebook as well.

We are happy to report that there is no lingerie line for children. Whether there was a plan and it was canceled or if the idea itself was born out of the poor accessorizing choices of a 9-year-old in front of a camera we can’t say, but we do know that Ooh! La, La! Couture is not designing, selling or marketing lingerie to children.

“The story is completely false … it’s a total lie … we don’t make lingerie,” Annie Dugourd co-owner of Ooh! La, La! Couture told CNBC’s Jane Wells in an interview published late Wednesday.

The company’s website is now back online after downtime on Thursday and you can see samples of the current Ooh! La, La! Couture line, which is made up mostly of tutus and tank tops in bright colors. Noticeably absent are the fishnet stockings which could be seen in the still offline video clip, promoting a new line to launch in mid February, CNBC that started the media-storm.

According to Dugourd, neither Noah Cyrus nor Emily Grace are planning to launch a line of children’s lingerie with another company. We are glad to see this issue put to rest so we can all get back to wearing our lucky superhero and Dora the Explorer underwear, where it belongs, under our clothing.

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AfterShark: Student gets schooled over his Factionist clothing line, but gets a job

Filed under: Make Money Fast, Shopping, Career, Video, As Seen on TV, Failed Products

Last night on Shark Tank, Nate Berkopec, a 19-year-old New York University student originally from Minnesota, dared to take his six-month-old environmentally conscious clothing line, The Factionist, into the Tank.

“It’s really easy to do your market research if you are the market,” he proclaimed of his clothing’s message and ethical manufacturing methods, and duly confident, he requested $30,000 for a 20% stake of his business. “It’s not just an apparel brand,” he enthused. “It’s a movement.”

But right after that, he ran his ship into the shoals that have scuppered many a vessel before his.

Check out my interview with Berkopec, and also make sure to check in with the big winners from last night’s show, Erin Whalen and Tim Stansbury of Grease Monkey Wipes, who also granted us a behind-the-scenes follow-up video interview as part of our AfterShark series.

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Wall Street applauds as Enron the play dies on Broadway

Filed under: Extracurriculars, Investing, Bankruptcy, In the News, Failed Products

Last week, Enron, the play, opened on Broadway. The $3.9 million play, a Kafkaesque retelling of the feats of ego and creative accounting that led to the largest corporate collapse in the history of the universe, was an import from London, where it has been successfully running for months. But on Sunday, Enron will die for a second time.

Here, it will have played just 16 performances since it opened to critics. Its spectacular failure can’t be blamed on its critical reception, which was mostly mixed but hardly scathing. In fact, it earned four Tony nominations (none in a major category) this week. But even if it wins, it won’t live to see the awards ceremony.

What went wrong? The British press has hinted the cause might be xenophobia (the playwright and director are both British). That doesn’t ring true because most audience members wouldn’t have known its origins. And even the Houston Chronicle, the paper at ground zero of the company’s implosion of greed, called it “superbly acted and ably directed.” The nominations seem to prove it isn’t a matter of talent. Instead, it’s a matter of taste.

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Illegal sales of color contacts spur warnings

Filed under: Health, Consumer Ally, Failed Products

Over-the-counter sales of fake contact lenses spike during the holidays, but are illegal in most states and can cause permanent eye damage and blindness, warn consumer interest groups on the Better Business Bureau’s web site.

The reminder, originating from the Ohio attorney general’s office, addresses a sharp increase in the number of consumer complaints and resulting cease-and-desist orders to businesses selling color contacts on the black market – at gas stations, beauty supply stores and Halloween costume shops.

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Consumer Outcry: 9 big brand backlashes

Filed under: Extracurriculars, Shopping, Ad Rant, Failed Products

WalletPop takes a look at what happens when good brands make bad moves — and consumer outcry follows.

Oops! We guess Gap learned the hard way that you don’t mess with a good thing. Last month, it unveiled a new “more contemporary, modern expression” (pictured at right) of its much-loved classic logo and consumers everywhere balked big time. After just one week — and a massive outpouring of critical comments — Gap announced it was reverting to the iconic blue box logo (pictured at left).

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FTC bans marketing of Kinoki Cleansing Detox Foot Pads

Filed under: Shopping, Health, Fraud, Consumer Ally, Failed Products

The loud marketers of the Kinoki “Detox” foot pads that have barraged consumers with television and Internet ads for more than two years, claiming the patches can remove toxins from the body if one wears them at night, have been banned from spreading the false and unsupported messages, the Federal Trade Commission said.

As reason for pulling the plug on the over-the-top infomercials, the agency cited the Kinoki marketers falsely claimed the foot pads were effective in treating a host of medical conditions. Yehuda Levin and his company, Xacta 3000, Inc., promised consumers their “ancient Japanese secret to perfect health” could cure arthritis, cellulite, depression, diabetes, headaches and insomnia, as well as remove toxins, heavy metals and other chemicals from the body, according to the FTC complaint.

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8 collectibles you won’t make any money on

Filed under: Shopping, Investing, Economizer, Failed Products

What is a collectible? For most of us, it’s something that tugs at our heartstrings; an object out of our childhood, or one we associate with special people, places, or events. Meaningful items, if only to us. Unfortunately, many speculators, seeing the climbing value of certain rare items, have jumped on the collectibles bandwagon as a way to make money, and, not too surprisingly, many of them have been burned.

The Street.com recently named eight items that have scorched many a collector. Here’s our take on these once-popular mementos.

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9 misprints that are worth a ton of money. Do you have a copy?

Filed under: Make Money Fast, Extracurriculars, In the News, Failed Products

Typos can do more than damage the credibility of a publication. Penguin books in Australia recently had to reprint 7,000 copies of a now-collectible book because one of the recipes called for “salt and freshly ground black people.” Correcting that typo will empty the publisher’s pockets of nearly $19,000. But if you find a book with a similar mistake, it could fill yours.

When typos and mistakes appear, they’re usually corrected quickly, sometimes even during printing. This makes them extraordinarily appealing to collectors, who want to own the very first copies of a work, says Vasilis Terpsopoulos, manager of the rare book department at New York City’s Strand Books.

Check your personal library shelves and garage sales for these rare editions, because when publishers fail to recall every incorrect copy, collectors can make a windfall.

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