Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, September 11, 1994                   TAG: 9409120039
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 15   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: KATHLEEN WILSON
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DOES DIOR REALLY HAVE AN ANSWER FOR CELLULITE?

Christian Dior vows that if I use their new Dior Svelte - something they've spent the last several years researching and developing - that my rear end and thighs are going to look just like those.

(And we thought changing water into wine was a miracle.)

According to the press material sent by Dior, American women are sick of miracle diet programs. We still believe in exercise, but don't really like it or stick with it.

The question Dior asks is does cellulite really exist?

One look in my mirror sends me screaming tearily, Yes! Yes! Yes!

Dior says some scientists call cellulite a myth.

Dior prefers to call it ``unattractive bulges'' and ``dimpled'' skin, comparing it to an orange peel, as if that will soften the blow.

Call it what you will, Dior says the root of the problem is ``the underlying layers of the skin containing fatty cells.''

(Isn't that cellulite? Wait, I forgot. Cellulite is a myth.)

Dior prefers to call these fatty cells adipocytes, composed primarily of lipids.

(Am I getting too scientific for you? Because if I am, you must not want that other woman's thighs very much.)

Women, they say, have an average of 35 billion of these adipocytes in our bodies.

Men only have 28 million.

``On the positive side,'' the press material assures us female types, ``these fatty cells provide women with added protection and extra energy.''

(Gosh, I'm cheering. Aren't you?)

Dior even has clinical results to wow us.

In one month after starting the treatment, 70 percent of the women tested saw a reduction in the appearance of cellulite; 69 percent, increased skin tone; 61 percent, improved suppleness; 57 percent, smoother skin.

Those were the results with European women.

American women were given the product to use at home over a three-week period. According to Dior, 76 percent of these women were thrilled, saying that it was more effective in reducing the appearance of ``dimpled'' skin and in ``refining their silhouette.''

There's just one thing the folks at Dior failed to mention in their press material.

Just how much will it set me back to make my thighs and rear end look just like the scarlet-scarfed one? $48.

I don't know about you, but it's not the price that worries me.

It's the statistics.

When you look at a picture like that one - even when promised that 70 percent of the women who gave this a shot were delighted - aren't you fairly certain from the start that you'll be in that other 30 percent?

Aren't most of us usually in that other 30 percent when things like this come up? Like the Mark Eden Bust Developer, which I mention at the risk of aging myself.

The truth is, that photo itself prohibits me from even allowing myself to dream I could look like that.

When I look at photos like that, depression sets in.

Followed closely by potato chips and brownies.

Don't you wish the folks in research and development at Dior could - just for once - set their scientists loose on developing a potato chip or a brownie that would give you thighs and a rear end like hers?