Seen in the window of a pharmacy while walking in my Paris neighborhood: breasts, actually a breast-and-a-half.

It’s the visual behind an advertisement for a new cream, Buste, which for less than €20 per tube promises “a firm young chest”.

The photo is really big –maybe three times life size– and I’m sure that male passersby noticed. Actually, it would be hard not to notice the display.

Two questions passed through my mind.

First, do the breasts and the hand below to the same person? Or was there a breast model, plus a hand model?

Second, what ingredient could achieve the promised goal?

I tried to look up the manufacturer; what I found puzzled me. Buste is manufactured by a Belgian company, DexSil Labs, whose logo suggests a man being drawn and quartered, and whose web site is under construction (“Please come back later.”). DexSil Labs would seem to have no relation to Dexsil, a US-based manufacturer of portable tests and instruments to detect and quantify contaminants in soil, water, and oil.

The entire DexSil product line, including Buste, revolves around one key ingredient: silicon. How fascinating! I don’t know what to think: computer chips? meteorites? breast implants (sans the implant or the silicone, itself made from silicon)?