Nerium Delirium -- The quest for truth in advertising/labeling.

I could be the President of "Label Readers Anonymous". Seriously. Nutrients and chemicals, natural or otherwise, fascinate me. 

Food products, supplements, shampoo, cleaning products, horse feed... You name it, I read the label. Supplements and natural skincare products are usually what puts me over the edge. In my world, there is nothing "natural" about lab created vitamins, chemicals or synthetics. 

After the labeling nightmares at Ava Anderson and their closing this week, its really got me thinking more about all the false advertising and incorrect labeling. A few of the Ava Anderson products were glaringly obvious to anyone familiar with natural skincare products and soaps. It is impossible to have a bunch of oils create "soap" without a saponification or a detergent. Yet it was magically possible if you looked at their labels and asked around... This is not the first time I have found such labels in products marketed as "all natural", etc. 

While surfing the interwebs, I came across an infographic and personal testimonial in an MTHFR facebook group that piqued my curiosity.. I am not familiar with Nerium or any of their products and had never checked out the ingredient lists on any products. I thought, great, company advertising the Methyl form of B12 (methylcobalamin). My thought was, if they were smart enough to use a quality form of that particular vitamin it may be worth checking into.

The graphic that lured me down this rabbit hole for the last few days.

Like any "Googler" approaching almost professional status, First thing to pop up on Google Images when searching for  "Nerium EHT ingredients" was THIS ( first picture below).... and Instantly, my radar had a little *ping*.

Well that just doesn't make sense, CYANO-cobalamin is NOT the Methyl form(methylcobalamin).. Off to investigate and see when they changed their formulas.. Straight to the company.

Current Nerium website's EHT page (as of 10am CST, 1/29/2016)

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm?!?!?!?!  Better check to see when the formulation changed.
Below is two graphics directly from Nerium (notice the copyrights at the bottom of each).
One shows Folic Acid and Cyanocobalamin, while the other shows only Methylcobalamin.

At this point of googling more and finding nothing to specify when the formulation had changed (or did it?!?!), I was begining to feel delirious..

"Nerium Delirum", the irony of that gave me a bigger chuckle that it likely should have..  After all we were talking about a supplement for "Brain health and function".. This was turning into the antithesis of that..

After spending way more time on this than I should have, I decided that to get to the bottom of this without much work or going in more circles, I'd ask if anyone out there in Facebook land could take a picture of the back of the bottle. It would solve my wondering.. Fast, quick, easy. I see loads of people selling Nerium products, how hard could it possibly be???? Snap a pic with your cellphone, hit post, and done.. Easy peasey.

This actually turned out to be a pretty hard task, all I wanted was one pic.. I posted on my own FB wall, got *crickets*.. I joined and posted in numerous Nerium groups asking for a pic of a bottle of the EHT's label. A few people tagged other people, and referred me back to the website (which was of no help, no mention of product reformulation anywhere.)

Two days passed, still nothing. In some of the larger groups with thousands of people, makes me wonder if either nobody has a bottle of this, or nobody had a working smartphone.. Id have imagined that like most of the MLM's a potential new customer would have been flocked to in hopes to make a sale.. I was just sure that this would get me an answer..

2 days later, still *crickets*.. so I called Nerium's Customer Service..

I got a helpful customer service rep... I explained my situation in seeing the differing labels and expressed my concern for the differences in labels/formulations there was in with the website and materials right from Nerium..

She put me on hold for 5 minutes or so, and checked.  Her exact words were "Its Cyanocobalamin in the product".

To which instantly lit my fuse.. I made it extremely clear to her that their website and some materials said otherwise.. BUYER BEWARE!

This is potentially a large FDA and FTC labeling issue. (I have reported appropriately.. Someone else with a larger reach than I do needs to check into this.)


And again, this was today's ingredient list on the website......

showing "Methylcobalamin"... While todays Nerium Customer Service rep says its "Cyanocobalamin", when asked when did that change, "I don't know" was the response.

Don't believe me, call and ask.. 855-463-7486.

Whats really in the Nerium EHT? Will we ever know for sure?

This should absolutely be concerning to ALL Nerium Brand Partners and potential customers. If ANY company cannot keep an accurate hold on whats really in the products and keep the website current, why on earth would you want to risk taking something that the formula may have changed unbeknownst to you? Truth in labeling is a huge for anyone with allergies, sensitivities and issues with certain products where they MUST know exactly what is in that product..

Id still love to see a picture of the back of a Nerium EHT bottle.. If anyone can get me one, let me know!