HeadOn

HeadOn is a topical product intended for headache relief, produced by Miralus Healthcare, which claims it is a homeopathic remedy.^[1] The intended uses are not listed on the website or in the commercial spot. The company was prohibited from stating their product provided headache relief by the Better Business Bureau because there is no evidence for its efficacy.^[1]

HeadOn is manufactured in Chicago, Illinois, United States, while Miralus Healthcare has offices in Canada and Florida.^[2]

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Commercial

HeadOn's notoriety came in part due to its advertisements on cable and daytime programming on broadcast television which consisted of using only the tagline "HeadOn. Apply directly to the forehead", stated three times in rapid succession, accompanied by a video of a model using the product. On September 18, 2006 a new advertisement debuted on US channels.

The original advertising campaign which was used to promote HeadOn included the phrase "Should I know about HeadOn?", but was changed in late June 2006.^[3]

The company used focus groups to try a number of potential commercials, with one focused solely on repetition; the focus groups recalled the ads much more than with any other method.^[1] Many people consider the ads annoying.^[4][5][6] Dan Charron, vice president of sales and marketing, told the Los Angeles Times that nobody in the focus groups had told him that the ads were annoying.^[2]

Parodies

The commercial has led to a number of parodies now appearing on Web sites such as YouTube, USA Today reports,^[7] and it has since become an internet meme. The technophile magazine Make describes how to turn it into a ring tone.^[3]

In an episode of The Colbert Report, host Stephen Colbert argued "apply directly to the forehead" was a phrase that best captured the essence of American pop culture in the 21st Century. He also vowed to kill Osama Bin Laden by applying their product "directly through his forehead."^{[citation needed]}

A Doonesbury comic strip published on December 23, 2007 features two characters discussing the commercial.^[8]

Other products

Five other products are also currently produced by the manufacturers of HeadOn:

• ActivOn
• FirstOn
• PreferOn
• FREEdHEM
• RenewIn

The commercials for these products generally follow HeadOn advertisements (save for FreedHem) and share the repetitive nature of the original HeadOn commercial. Unlike the other products, RenewIn is not a topical medicine.

Ingredients

Chemical analysis has shown that the product consists almost entirely of wax. The two ingredients listed as "active", white bryony (a type of vine) and potassium dichromate (a known carcinogen), are diluted to 1 ppt and 1 ppm respectively.^[9] This amount of dilution is so great that the product has been described as a placebo. Each 0.2-ounce stick contains a “12X” concentration of white bryony. That means that the whole stick contains 1 part of ingredient in 1 trillion parts of wax - equivalent to 5.670 picograms of ingredient.^{[citation needed]}

Seymour Diamond, director of the Diamond Headache Clinic in Chicago and the inpatient headache unit at St. Joseph Hospital, has been quoted as saying "I see nothing in this product that has any validity whatsoever."^[10]

However, the package does list menthol as an inactive ingredient; menthol is one of the active ingredients of Vicks VapoRub.

Correspondence has been published with a statement from HeadOn Customer Service that "It works through the nerves."^[11]

Miralus Healthcare claims that HeadOn is safe, so that "it can be used by anyone and as often as needed. There are no dosage restrictions or health risks associated with its use."^[12] There are three variants of HeadOn — Extra Strength Headache Pain Reliever,^[13] Extra Strength Sinus Headache Relief,^[14] and Migraine Pain Reliever.^[15] Their active ingredients (converted from the listed homeopathic dilution notation to standard percentages) are:

Extra Strength Headache Pain Reliever

• Potassium dichromate 8 × 10⁻⁸%
• White Bryony 4 × 10⁻¹⁴%

Extra Strength Sinus Headache Relief

• Potassium dichromate 5 × 10⁻⁸%
• White Bryony 4 × 10⁻¹⁴%
• Golden Seal Hydrastis 8 × 10⁻³²%

Migraine Pain Reliever

• Potassium dichromate 3 × 10⁻⁸%
• White Bryony 4 × 10⁻¹⁴%
• Blue Flag Iris Versicolor 1 × 10⁻¹³%

See also

• Kali Bich
• Homeopathy

References