Fantasia Salon / Spa and Wig Specialists

This is one of Procter & Gamble’s biggest product launches ever. The fashion mentor of reality TV’s “Project Runway” is among those involved in marketing the new “Total Care” products that P&G says draw on technology from its beauty products allow clothes to keep their shape, color and new look longer through repeated washings. Sounds like the baby boomer mantra, we want to keep our shape, color and look “new” longer!

The $60 million marketing campaing for the Tide detergent and Downy fabric softener products includes a tie-in with Ann Taylor Stores Corporations Loft unit and ads in such magazines as Elle, Vogue and Cosmopolitan.

It’s an example of how P&G is banking on big-brand innovations to overcone a tradedown-mined US consumer economy and the company is promoting the line as a budget helper because clothes can be worn more often and dry-cleaning bills reduced.

It’s sort of an anti-aging line for clothes, using ingredients dcerived from hair care products and skin care products. Helping to open the campaing is a Tide Web site featuring Tim Gunn of Bravo’s “Project Runway and his “Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style” shows. He offers tips in online videos and will be in other ads, along with such fashion advisers as Jorge Ramon, June Ambrose and Charla Krupp.

In September, promotions including samples will be in Loft stores across the country. One domestic engineer, who handles most laundry duty for a family of six in Jacksonville, Florida says she’s intrigued after seeing online promotions for Tide Total Care. She is presently using Unilever’s All Free Clear but plans to test the new Tide’s product claims of maintiaing clothes’ appearance while reducing the need for dry cleaning. It makes sense she says because you use less time shopping, less time driving, less aggravation. So, overall, you would spend less money. P&G officials say offering new versions of major brands will help offset tendencies by consumers to look at lower-priced private label brands and other competitors.

Tide, a brand more than six decades old with annual sales of $3.3 billion, just rolled out a smaller, lipstick-sized version of Tide to Go carry-along stain removeer. In another example, Crest toothpaste is ready to launch a “weekly clean” toothpaste that’s meant to offer a dentist’s office -clean feel.

P&G’s shares were down nearly 2 percent. Perhaps as they link laundry to fashion, it will help bring those shares back up. Time will tell.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that the US market for anti aging will hit $72 million dollars in 2009? This information comes from Nutraceuticals International, a trade publication. The baby boomers are on a quest for immortality and are fueling this current boom.

Scientists are unlocking several key factors in the aging process, generating headlines about how it might be slowed or reversed. For example, in studying metabolism, researchers have zeroed in on proteins called sirtuins, which apparently control age-related illnesses in other organisms. Resveratrol, a substance found in small amounts in red-grape skins and red wine, is believed by some scientists to boost sirtuins in humans. Of course this has triggered excitement about its potential benefits.

Other researchers are exploring the effects of the enzyme telomerase, which could thwart the natural tendency of chromosomes to break apart as cells age. Stem cells hold out the promise that doctors might someday be able to regenerate body tissue or even grow new replacement organs.

However, you should know that no drug, nutritional supplement or medical regimen has been proven to extend the human life span. Vitamin B-12 shots have a fairly miraculous energizing effect on individuals who are B-12 deficient but little to no effect on those who aren’t. To date, there are no double-blind, controlled studies on healthy human beings showing any particular substance leading to greater longevity.

A decade ago, you had to be a big-league or Olympic athelete to have your own chemical guru. Hollywood stars and hip-hop artist picked up on the trend of personalized supplements and steroid regimens. Thousands of anti-aging clinics have now opened across the country offering those with extra cash the chance to look and feel younger.

Anti-aging is definitely the buzz word for the new millenum. In 1933, Time magazine reported the secret to long life as given by an aged Chinese man named Li Ching Yuen. Li supposedly lived to the age of 256. What was his secret? “Keep a quiet heart, sit like a tortoise, walk sprightly like a piegon and sleep like a dog.” Doesn’t sound like anything money can buy!