In case you ever had any doubt, celebrities sell skincare products.

Case in point:  about 8 years ago People magazine reported that Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt  ”slathered Kinerase all over their beautiful bodies.”   Sales of Kinerase soared.

Now, no one knows whether Jennifer and Brad actually used Kinerase  (and they are not talking to each other, let alone the media!).  But after packages of Kinerase were given away at a big celebrity event, Jenn and Brad took them home.  A good PR firm did the rest!

(one thing to note about Jennifer Aniston–she’s one of the few celebrities in Hollywood that refuses to endorse any product–no matter how much $$ is offered!)

Hey, even though they make $$$ millions, celebs are like the rest of us; they like free stuff.  They just get a lot more free stuff than the rest of us do. And at these award shows, the give-aways are pretty lavish–expensive watches, trips, and jewelry, all valued at about $30,000 per gift bag.

The give-aways at celebrity events (like the Academy Awards, the CMA Awards) aren’t as lavish as they used to be though. That’s because the IRS sent out letters saying that the recipients would be responsible for paying income taxes on the freebies.  So many of the celebrities graciously said, “uh, thanks, but no thanks”.

So is it wrong or unethical to give away free products to celebrities?  In our opinion, no. We just thought you might like to know that that’s the way the game is played.  What brought all of this to mind was an infomercial that said that “many of the celebrities who went to the Academy Awards already have it”.

The next time you see that a celebrity has a particular skincare product, you have to wonder–did they get it for free?