Curdled Thighs? Frenzied Buyers Say `Pass The Cream'

THIGH CREAM. In the past several weeks, these two little words have exploded onto billboards, newspaper ads and telephone poles all over town, playing to the high thigh anxiety of women everywhere.

Ever since late October, when the news hit the press that respected scientists have come up with a cream they say reduces girth and smoothes "cottage cheese" thighs, this fad has taken on phenomenal proportions:

-- Distributors of several "thigh creams" that claim to contain the same active ingredient as the scientifically tested concoction say they can't take orders fast enough.

The two major cream makers most popular here are Herbalife International Inc., selling Thermojetics Body Toning Cream (about $35), and Neways Inc., with Skinny Dip ($23.95).

Two of Skinny Dip's local distributors, Kent first-grade teacher Diane Gill and her airline-pilot husband, Michael, say they sold enough cream in one month to hire a full-time helper at $10.45 an hour and, with some other distributors, to buy a TV commercial and advertise on two billboards.

-- Some women are so eager to get the stuff they aren't waiting for mail delivery. Local distributors attending a Skinny Dip demonstration on a cellulite-riddled mom of four in Federal Way last week said clients have driven from as far as Centralia and Canada. They described the Canadian as a "gorgeous actress, accompanied by her personal hairdresser. She looked really thin, but she said she had one little poochy area."

-- In little Salem, Utah, Skinny Dip's headquarters, the town's phone lines were shut down by the volume of calls.

-- The researchers whose study started the stampede have been inundated by thousands of faxes and letters, many pleading for the cream.

This was hardly the reaction expected by the two scientists whose findings were presented in late October to a scholarly conference on obesity. What the scientists didn't realize was that an Associated Press reporter was in the audience. His story went around the world, and the rest is history.

The gist of the study: The researchers tested on one thigh of 12 women a cream containing 2 percent aminophylline, best known as an asthma drug. A placebo cream was used on the other thighs. After five weeks the treated thighs had shrunk an average of one-half inch, although one woman complained of skin irritation and dropped out of the study. The theory is that aminophylline alters fat cells in the thighs, allowing them to burn stored energy faster.

Now rival creams are jockeying for position, lawsuits are flying, talk shows are humming, the Food and Drug Administration is investigating, and major pharmaceutical companies are vying for a piece of the action. The bottom line: Millions of dollars are at stake.

Despite massive publicity, a lot of facts are getting lost in the hype. Some key points:

-- Is it safe?

The FDA is investigating that, testing aminophylline creams. Expect an answer within a month, spokesman Mike Schaefer says. For now the FDA is considering the creams a cosmetic, not a drug, so the agency isn't concerned with whether the creams work, only whether they're safe.

-- The rivals.

Although the public seems to think of thigh cream as one product, there are several on the market. None are exactly the same as the researchers' formula; at least one is very close, however.

-- Which works the best?

No one knows because the science hasn't been done.

The original researchers are moving in two directions. On Friday they said they agreed to license Heico Food Acquisition, whose subsidiaries include Nutri/System Inc., to market a less potent half-percent aminophylline cream as a cosmetic, probably by early next year. That cream promises to improve thigh appearance but not reduce inches. They also plan to license a major drug company to take their 2 percent formula through the long road to FDA-approval as a drug.

Meanwhile, there are at least three other major products for sale:

-- Cellution Contouring Cream ($29.95), made by Newport Beach, Calif.-based The Right Solution, is close to, if not exactly, the researchers' 2 percent formula. By miscommunication, says the researchers' spokeswoman Laurelle LeVine, they allowed The Right Solution to market their formula.

-- Herbalife's Thermojetics Body Toning Cream also is making a version of the researchers' cream. Herbalife also was granted a license to make the formula but chose to alter it somewhat, according to LeVine. Herbalife won't talk.

-- Neways' Skinny Dip had its own version of a thigh cream on the market before the researchers came out with their study. After the research was publicized, the company added aminophylline.

The researchers are planning a patent lawsuit against Neways and have gotten a restraining order precluding Neways from any advertising that associates itself with their research. Neways disagrees it's violating the researchers' patent.

The creams being sold come in bottles of about 4 ounces, which supposedly last about a month to six weeks. They are sold by health-and-beauty companies - only through the distributors, not at any stores.

Puget Sound-area Herbalife and Neways distributors have been hustling the last few weeks to get a jump on the competition.

Take the meeting in Federal Way last weekend, scheduled to capitalize on the free publicity Neways' distributor Saul Escudero got by appearing on a KING radio program.

A former car salesman and bartender, Escudero joined Neways two years ago and is running ads in newspapers nationwide, in hopes of making it into the leagues of the company's biggest boys, who are supposedly making $60,000 a month.

Diane Gill, who started out selling Herbalife and now, with her husband, Michael, is selling Neways, told a skeptic in the audience that she began using it about three weeks earlier and that with twice-daily applications has shaved 1 3/4 inches off her hips, three-fourths of an inch off her thighs and 2 inches off her waist.

She plucked out her pants to show where her now-thin thighs used to be.

"The product is wonderful!" she said. But, she warned, "You can't pig out on potato chips. It will come back."

Across the room, a group clustered around Ed Elliott. Elliott said he's a former cross-country ski racer and the owner of a heating business, and was looking for a new business after a serious accident. He read the Oct. 21 report about the research and thought, "Is this the next Microsoft stock or what?"

He fretted that "there's a real scientific basis for this, but unfortunately it's taking on that voodoo approach. I don't want people to miscontrue this as a magic pill."

But, let's face it - he's not saying the words we all want to hear.

Who wants to exercise and eat right? Pass the magic stuff.