Cher's infamous haircare products infomercials

I loved Lori Davis hair stuff...it was great.

Lori was Cher's hairdresser and friend, and she kept bugging Cher to appear in her infomercial. Cher apparently wasn't overly familiar with what was going on with infomercials and didn't know her's would be played ad nauseum, over and over every night. I don't know why her manager didn't warn her about that, that's their job.

^^Is that you, Cher?^^

My mother, not a stupid woman (she's a physician), swore by these products.

I used these products in the mid to late 90's. What happened to them? Lori Davis?

God you fuckers are lazy-

Lori Davis Hair Care Products are going stronger than ever!!!

Check out the website which looks like it was created circa 1997!!!

I bought that shit when it first cane out. It caused my hair to look shiny. Consisted of several bottles of layering products.

Cher's sister is gorgeous in this video and so is Cher. I noticed there was a couple of seconds included from Cher's 'Uninhibited' perfume promo from 1988 at the end. Uninhibited was discontinued around this time because Cher wanted the perfume to be a top-shelf, exclusive product that could compete with Chanel, and unfortunately the market could only support a moderately priced version. Shame, because Cher's perfume was by all accounts a high quality classic and is now highly sought after.

I never really understood what the big deal was, that it was beneath the dignity of an Oscar winner, that it made her look too money-grubbing? Cher obviously had no control over how often they were being played or there would been a stop to that. Lori controlled that and Cher ended up hating her guts for it. Cher says it completely ruined her career, both music and movies. She had to wait 5yrs for her Believe comeback.

I bought some Lori Davis shampoo back when it hit the grocery store shelves. I paid $5 for it. That is all.

I’ll never forget crystalline Shine!

You think so, R8? I remember buying it at Macy’s for my then-girlfriend (lol, I was in the closet) and I found the top notes to be brassy and sour. It would relax a little after a few hours but even then, it wasn’t appealing to me. Looking back I wonder if it all had to do with me faking the girlfriend though, I was under a lot of anxiety like a lot of closeted gay guys.

Yes. What could she possibly have been thinking?

Hundreds of millions? Ridiculous, Cher's total fortune is only 360 million, probably from constant touring, which seems to be what she does most.

Oh, come on. I love Cher, but she knew exactly what she was doing. I think after winning her Oscar and her music career also being revived with big hits (If I Could Turn Back Time), Cher branched out into business ventures.

Remember, she also did exercise videos at this time.

I love this Lori Davis video. Fab!

25 years ago Oscar winners were expected to do loftier things. I don’t think Cher aspired to be the next Meryl. She lucked out by winning that Oscar over such formidable competition. Cher always made her money primarily through tv and music. Plus at this time she had some kind of ailment that depleted her energy (can’t remember the name of it). No one would hardly blink an eye if an Oscar winner did this nowadays. Many winners do commercials that are shown overseas for cash.

R12 I never tried it, but fans of the perfume pay outrageous amounts for the tiny amounts of vintage that still exist. Ive heard the first batch she released exclusively was described as close to (not kidding) Chanel No. 5 Extrait, with a touch of vintage Shalimar on top.

I think part of the problem with Uninhibited (at least the version initially put out) was that Cher really wanted a TOP of the league product she could be really proud of. That meant a huge outlay she was willing to spend, and as celebrity perfumes were a lesser known variable in 1988, the expectation on returns was probably way too high.

Celebrity perfumes became faddish and fickle, and then utterly crap maybe that's why Uninhibited failed.

Cher still applies a little Uninhabited before every performance.

I liked the hair infomercials. I got to see Cher a lot. I would watch Cher read the phone book. However, not a good move regardless of whose fault. Cher's poor, struggling "El Centro, California" side came out at the time. Some celebrities never forget their roots and how poor they were or how much they had to struggle to achieve success. Some celebs say yes to anything. Oscar winners shouldn't do that--or even someone of Cher's status, she was very successful singer at the time too. But Cher was also suffering from Barr-Epstein disease at the time. The infomercial was a way for Cher to do something while she was sick. The girl wasn't thinking straight. Bad move, Cher. You learned the hard way and almost lost your career after being at the top. If you could turn back time, indeed.

The irony being Cher always wears wigs.

R21. Cher wears wigs when performing, but mostly just has her own hair on display when not performing.

I think it's a big stretch to blame the informercial for her career problems. It made her an easy scapegoat or jokes but that's it. Her lousy film choices after Moonstruck and song choices after the Heart of Stone album are more to blame.

R23. Those choices, good or bad, came later are subjective. However, Cher was ridiculed at the time and following those hair infomercials. Her reputation was damaged, not permanently, but badly. It had nothing to do with her entertainment work. And in show business, reputation is often times everything.

It's not at all believable that Cher just wanted to do a favor for a friend, and didn't know the commercials would shown a gazillion times? That's her story. I mean yeah she wanted the money, but it was all Lori's idea to do the informercials, surely Lori doesn't deny that. And I don't believe for a second Cher made hundreds of millions on it. That's just absurd. Why would Susan Powter be broke now, if that were true? Because she managed to burn through hundreds of millions in 25 yrs?

I love classic 90's infomercials. I grew up watching them. My faves are Ron's rotisserie and the ginsu knives that would cut through anything. My step-grandfather constantly bought kitchen gadgets from infomercials and ordered from Shop At Home all the time. He was obsessed with having the newest things/technology.

She followed this up with her own infomercial skincare line, [italic]Aquasentials[/italic], so her claim that she didn't understand the reach of an infomercial at that time doesn't hold up.

[quote]I love classic 90's infomercials.

r26 writes fanfiction about Mike Levey and Billy Mays.

R25, Susan Powter later admitted that she was an alcoholic, beer was her drink of choice, IIRC.

Focus on Beauty.

In what we know about Cher do we really think she did this because a friend asked her too and she was so naïve? No i don't think she was unaware, i think she wanted the money.

That's interesting, r29, but I hope you're not implying she drank her way through hundreds of millions? That's not humanly possible, even with a thousand liver transplants.

I was young! I needed the money!

The iconic "fire test" from the commercial above, featuring some of the best acting Cher has ever done.

I imagine this inspired thousands of kids across the US to play with aerosol sprays and lighters.

I remember a relative of mine buying Cher's Uninhibited cologne. She said it smelled like oranges and smoke, sort of like being in a dance club. She loved it. I remember her commenting on it's expensive price.

Were people really stupid enough to buy beauty products from someone who looked like a school bus driver/cafeteria worker herself?

R32, I don't think Susan Powter made hundreds of millions of dollars from "Stop the Insanity." I think she had bad judgment exacerbated by the alcohol. She probably made enough money to live comfortably, if she had been sober and gotten help with financial planning.

It isn't cheap being Cher, supporting 20 relatives and friends. She did get the last laugh, because after Believe and the tours/ Vegas residencies she is rich AF.

Here

I'd forgotten Lori was such a lard-ass.

Cher looked gorgeous in this ad:

I saw Cher in an interview talking about her tattoo was going to kill her movie career. This was years after the infocommercial.

Lori Davis makes my dick hard.

The first run of the hair care products had incredible ingredients and was well produced, really was terrific, but once it churned through later stages of the mass market it stumbled in quality. The current releases are solid again.

[quote]My mother, not a stupid woman (she's a physician)

R4, allow me to introduce you to Dr. Ben Carson, one of the stupidest people on the planet.

r31 In the "Cher Show" musical, it is made quite clear that Cher did this because movie offers had dried up and her music career was fading and she needed the money

R36, yes because her hair was GLORIOUS!

Dr. Ben Carson is NOT stupid.

He is odd and eccentric, but the Yale educated department head(retired) of pediatric cardio-surgery is not stupid.

You forgot active campaigner against marriage equality and major gay bashing bigot, R50.

Topic, please!

Why did Cher’s movie career go down the shitter?

[quote[Why did Cher’s movie career go down the shitter?

I think there were a few factors. The infomercials did not help but she also went back and focused on issuing new music (If I Could Turn Back Time ...). She also had some facial work not long after this that did make her look a b it too mannequin like. When she filmed Moonstruck, she still had a face that looked like she could have been the woman at the beginning of the movie. Five years later, that would no longer be the case.

Still has a better movie career than Madonna's.

[quote]if she had been sober and gotten help with financial planning.

Seriously. I'd have helped out a fellow dyke.

Why does Madonna have to brought into every thread that isn't even about her?

It is like these Vadge stans can't give it a rest.

All I can see is Chris Farley as Lori Davis.

Those parodies they did on SNL and In Living Color were very mean-spirited (especially the latter one) but still fucking hilarious. Of course they could never make sketches like those today - they'd be called out for fat shaming poor Lori.

Cher explained that she didn't know much about infomercials, and thought that it would be played a few times late at night and that would be it. Not many people would even see it in that pre-internet world. Of course, it was played multiple times a night, every night for months on end, on a number of different channels. Cher had no idea. The infomercial was a laughingstock and really hurt Cher's brand for a while. Like the above poster said, Cher's manager should've told Cher that the infomercial would be played non-stop.

OMG Cackles for days!

Infomercials were becoming big at the time so Cher must have known that by adding her name was going to be a big deal. She was just coming off Moonstruck and Mermaids and her songs were big hits on MTV and the radio.

The other thing is Cher didn't do much between 1992 and 1996. She did the duet of Love Can Build a Bridge which became a big UK hit but no albums, no movies except for a Greatest Hits album. So, the infomercials are what kept Cher in the public eye in the early-to-mid 90s.

Yeah, I'm not sure I'm buying Cher's version. I'm sure Lori pestered her, but infomercials were a brand new thing and before they quickly became a joke I could imagine a PR team thinking they would become sort of a bumped-up version of an endorsement deal.