When I was asked to take a look at eye cream called Pack Your Bags They’re Leaving ($39.95) from a company called Simply Divine Botanicals, my first thought was this is cool, a natural cosmetic company with a quirky sense of humor. Ok so, so the web site’s tag line - “merging science with energy and love” – was a bit New Agey, but what the heck. Then I looked at the ingredients for Pack Your Bags. The first item was “unconditional love and gratitude”. Definitely New Age. Then I looked again, something was a bit fishy.

As I dug around, I found myself brushing up against the paranormal, tele-evangelists and visions from God that led to humanity-saving soap. Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up.

But let’s start where I did with the full ingredients list for Pack Your Bags: Unconditional Love and Gratitude, Cucumber, 24 kt Gold, Seaweed, Sea Buckthorn oil, Watermelon seed oil, Essential oils of Frankincense, Myrrh, Tangerine and Lemongrass, Vitamin E. Now it is conceivable that the essential oils provide the base for the other ingredients, but then they struck me as incompletely explained; cucumber what? Extract? And these days, seaweed is usually identified by its type. I decided to take a look around the Simply Divine Botanicals website.

We are told that of the over 400 varieties of seaweed available, the one used by SDB “is seldom if ever used in skincare as it is so costly, taking 1,000 pounds of only the center vein to make 1 pound of extract.”. We are never told what variety this actually is.

I then took a look at the cleanser and the fun really started.

I was most intrigued by an ingredient that I had never heard of before called eloptic. An online search on eloptic threw up some extremely interesting characters and the discovery that – I wonder how I have gone on so long without knowing this – God is a formulator.

Eloptic energy was apparently coined by a Dr. Thomas Galen Hieronymus. He is described as “familiar with psionics (the study of the paranormal) as Nixon is to politics”. Searching a bit more on “eloptic” I found something called Miracle II soap, which looked a lot like Simply Divine’s cleanser – which is called Outer Body Experience (perhaps in tribute to Dr Hieronymus and his work).

Miracle II soaps were invented by Clayton Tedeton, who hails from Calhoun, Louisiana. Whilst ill in bed, he was cured by a tele-evangelist and shortly thereafter spoke with God who gave him the formula for Miracle II soap. Apparently it cleans babies and oil spills.

Back to Pack Your Bags, the eye cream that sent me down this rabbit hole. K (whose name has been withheld to protect the gullible) tells me it feels really nice and soft. K, just tell me one thing – you will never, ever buy the Outer Body Experience cleanser.

Ingredients in Miracle ll Moisturizing Soap

Energized stabilized oxygenated water, Dehydrabiethylanmine (substitute name for proprietary ingredient), Ash of Dedecly solution, Calcium, Potassium, Magnesium, Foaming Agent (Coconut extracted). Plus Oils of Avocado, Almond, Olive, Coconut, Vitamin E

Ingredients in Simply Divine Botanicals Outer Body

Unconditional Love and Gratitude, Organic Whole-Leaf Aloe Vera, Eloptic, Energized and Oxygenated Water, MSM, Ash of Dedecyl Dehydrabiethyamine (coconut derived), Calcium, Potassium, Magnesium, Oils of Avocado, Almond, Olive, Coconut, Vitamin E and Essentail Oils.