Skinny Magic, Skinny Magic Zero Appetite and Skinny Magic Cleanse are herbal weight loss remedies created and sold by The Herb Shop, a subsidiary of Jade Enterprises based out of Florida. Jade Enterprises seems to have been unable to pick just one industry to become involved in, and opted instead to just dabble in all of them- they own several herbal supplement companies (including IAmHealthy.net), a photography and Photoshop company, and a window film company that specializes in ‘Toilet Tattoos’.
All three products claim to do as their name suggests, with that being helping you lose weight with natural herbs and superfoods in the case of their ‘skinny’ products. The company’s main claim is that their pills will energize you, allowing you to increase your activity levels while reducing your appetite so you reduce your caloric intakes. How the ingredients in their product do this, however, is up to interpretation.
Each pill contains chromium, niacin and vitamin B6 and B12, calcium and magnesium. Sadly, the amounts of calcium and magnesium are so small that you’re likely getting more from just your daily breakfast. The pills also contain 487.6 mg of what they refer to as their ‘Proprietary Blend’- a mixture of several ‘superfoods’ like stinging nettle, apple cider vinegar, barley grass, bladderwrack and other algae. Even if there were reason to believe any of these ingredients could perform the weight loss miracles the pills claim, it’s impossible to evaluate their efficacy, as the company refuses to give the make-up of its ‘Proprietary Blend’. For all we know, the blend is 99% apple cider vinegar, and the same experience could be had drinking what’s already in your kitchen cupboard.
The recommended use of Skinny Magic is 1-3 capsules per day, 30 minutes before each meal, but not within 7 hours of bedtime, as they may impair sleep. This likely has something to do with the 100 mg of caffeine in every pill (more than a cup of coffee). At 3 pills per day, any more than 1 cup of coffee in addition to these pills would put you over the Health Canada recommended daily maximum dose of 400 mg of caffeine- and how many of us only have 1 cup of coffee a day? This caffeine content likely explains the numerous customers experiencing nervousness, the shakes, and insomnia.
Beyond duping customers into buying these pills based on their weight loss claims, The Herb Shop seems to have another trick up their sleeves to take the money out of desperate pockets. A full bottle of 60 Skinny Magic pills (a month’s supply) will run you $59.95. At almost $1/pill plus shipping, you can imagine the creators had a hard time selling their magic to the public. To combat the trepidation, they began offering trial packs- 10 pills (a week’s supply) for $12.50 plus shipping. While this price is increased per pill, it’s cheap enough to coax wary customers to try the product. But, as numerous customers report, the formula of the trial pills and the normal pills greatly differs. This difference is made possible by the company’s use of an unspecific ‘Proprietary Blend’, which, as I’ve mentioned, allows them to do as they will with the quantities of each ingredient in the blend. Even if the pills worked, there is no way to guarantee from batch to batch or size to size that you’re receiving the same pills you found effective last month.
These pills boast big claims, but as their website is quick to point out, none of them have been evaluated by the FDA or Health Canada. Their own website points out that these pills are not meant to diagnose or treat any diseases, and that you should contact a licensed health practitioner, whom I just could not see prescribing these ‘magic’ pills.
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