A lotion sold at Sephora stores is getting an unusual amount of attention online, but for a reason which might not please the brand's marketers: customers have come to believe that it attracts spiders, and are even posting the results of experiments designed to confirm or falsify the claim.
"Can anyone who's used the sol de janeiro wolf spider cream please come forward with your results," asks one user on Reddit, attracting hundreds of likes and dozens of comments. (Note that the product, Sol De Janeino Body Butter, is not literally called "wolf spider cream")
The $22-a-tub cream is not, to be clear, marketed in any way as an arachnid attractant. Sephora describes it thus:
What it is: A rich, whipped body butter that locks in deep moisture while repairing the skin's protective barrier and calming redness.
Skin Type: Normal, Dry, and Combination
Skincare Concerns: Dryness, Redness, and Dullness
Fragrance Family: Warm & Spicy
And here's the ingredients list, as disclosed on the company's website–notably lacking the acetates some assume to be the problem.
Aqua (Water, Eau), Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Ethylhexyl Palmitate, Parfum (Fragrance), Methyl Glucose Sesquistearate, Glyceryl Stearate Se, Lauryl Laurate, Glycerin, Myristyl Myristate, Hydrolyzed Sodium Hyaluronate (Hyaluronic Acid), Lactobacillus/Hibiscus Sabdariffa Flower Ferment Filtrate (Prebiotic Hibiscus), Copaifera Officinalis (Balsam Copaiba) Resin, Passiflora Edulis (Passionflower) Seed Oil, Platonia Insignis (Bacuri) Seed Butter, Theobroma Grandiflorum (Cupuaçu) Seed Butter, Squalane, Tocopherol, Bixa Orellana (Achiote) Seed Extract, Cetearyl Alcohol, Behenyl Alcohol, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Phenyl Trimethicone, Maltodextrin, Cetearyl Olivate, Sorbitan Olivate, Sodium Stearoyl Glutamate, Potassium Cetyl Phosphate, Sodium Gluconate, Ethylhexylglycerin, Phenoxyethanol, Butylene Glycol, Carbomer, Potassium Hydroxide, Sodium Hydroxide, Annatto (Ci 75120), Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Hydroxycitronellal.
On Twitter, one Samantha Ruddy found the original source of the claim, a user review published by Sephora itself.
"When I put it on instantly one will come out. Normally I'll see one every like 3 years, used this and it was every day. I stopped using it and haven't seen one since…. oh and one time, the spider wanted to eat whatever ingredient it is so bad that it chased me."
UPDATE: BB contributor Jennifer Sandlin noticed that another Twitter user found that the same commenter has previously made similar claims about another product and may, therefore, be trolling. Perhaps there's a lesson here for Sephora about the wisdom of publishing unmoderated engagement-bait "incentivized" product reviews .
