Skinny is a herbal diet pill for women who are trying to lose weight and attain a “skinny shape.” It’s part of a range of Mermaid supplements that are primarily marketed via Amazon.com.
Although Mermaid USA is not a big name in the diet pill industry, its Skinny diet pills are quite expensive. The cost of using them instead of an alternative product is likely to put off a lot of potential customers.
The lack of information about Skinny diet pills is also a problem. The product description fails to adequately explain what the pills are meant to do other than make you “Supper skinny and high-class.”
That’s not a typo on my part. The Amazon sales page says “supper” instead of “super.”
But how do the pills help women get super skinny? Apparently, they use natural herb power to burn the fat. That’s it, folks. No further explanation is offered. As for making anyone high-class… WTF? Is any pill likely to do that? Seriously! Somebody needs to get real.
BS is normal in the diet pill industry but it’s rare to encounter a product that’s being marketed with so little information. Or such poorly-written sales material.
Here’s a screenshot:
Who Makes Skinny Mermaid Diet Pills?
Skinny Mermaid diet pills are marketed by Mermaid USA. The company’s website domain was registered in 2014 but I haven’t been able to find out any information about the company at all. It’s not listed on the Better Business Bureau (BBB) website and my other online searches failed to unearth a registered company trading as Mermaid USA.
According to the “About Us” page on the official website, Mermaid USA began in New York in 1968. At some point, the ownership of the company changed and the products are becoming more and more popular with women all over the world.
However, much of the text appears to have been copied from the Twinlab Consolidated Holdings LinkedIn page.
TCC is a respected company that’s been active in the health and wellness industry since 1968. It does not mention any connection to Mermaid USA or Skinny Mermaid on its official website or LinkedIn page.
When I took a closer look at the Skinny diet pill page on Amazon, I noticed the product details state the manufacturer is TCM Product Inc, not Mermaid USA. That’s interesting.
TCM product Inc is a supplement manufacturer that’s based in Southern California but appears to have a strong connection with China. The company produces private label products.
It seems likely the person or persons who are behind the Mermaid USA brand name pays TCM Product Inc to produce their supplements.
Promised Benefits
- Use natural herb power to burn the fat
How Skinny Diet Pills Work
The marketing material doesn’t provide any explanation about the way the pills work.
Skinny Diet Pill Ingredients
According to the label, each Skinny capsule provides 350 mg of a proprietary blend.
The blend consists of nine natural ingredients:
- Poira
- Amomum Fruit
- Epicarpium Benincasae
- Buplerum
- Hawthorn
- Radix Glycyrrhizae
- Tangerine Peel
- Rhizoma Zingiberis
- Honey
Skinny Diet Pills Ingredient Evaluation
Mermaid USA is using a strange combination of ingredients in its Skinny diet pills. None of them are popular with diet pill manufacturers.
Poira
Poira (Poria cocos) is a mushroom that appears to boost immunity. It has a long history of use in traditional Chinese medicine and is sometimes used as a treatment for anxiety, tinnitus, high cholesterol, fatigue, and insomnia.
It may have the potential to treat more serious ailments as well but there is a lack of supportive evidence–across the board.
Poira is not normally associated with weight loss.
Further Reading: The Health Benefits of Poria Mushrooms
Amomum Fruit
This appears to be the fruit of the Amomum villosum plant.
Amomum villosum is a member of the ginger family. It’s native to South-East Asia, where it’s cultivated for its fruit.
Practitioners of Chinese medicine use Amomum villosum for treating dysentery and other stomach/digestive problems. Like poira, this ingredient is not normally associated with weight loss.
Epicarpium Benincasae
Epicarpium benincasae is winter melon skin. It’s associated with several health benefits such as improved digestion and a stronger immune system but it doesn’t appear to have any potential as a weight loss aid.
Buplerum
Bupleurum is a perennial herb that mainly grows in China and is commonly used in traditional herbal medicine. The ingredient requires further research but it may support improvements in immune response and help provide a healthier gastrointestinal tract.
Does Bupleurum help with weight loss? There doesn’t appear to be any evidence to suggest it.
Further Reading: Bupleurum article at Drugs.com
Hawthorn
Hallelujah! An ingredient that can actually help with weight loss. Unfortunately, there’s a problem. The only weight it will make you lose will be water.
Hawthorn is a powerful diuretic. Losing water from the body is not the same as burning fat. You may become a little lighter but the weight will come flooding back as soon as you stop taking the diuretic that’s reducing the quantity of water you hold in your body and making you pee more than normal.
Hawthorn can also cause some people to experience unpleasant side effects such as headaches, nausea, and heart palpitations.
Further Reading: Hawthorn Berry and Weight Loss
Radix Glycyrrhizae
This is licorice root. It’s another ingredient that’s popular in traditional Chinese medicine.
Licorice may help with digestive problems such as heartburn and colic. It appears to have potential in other areas as well but, although it’s occasionally added to weight loss formulations, there’s a lack of proof that it works (for weight loss). Some studies say yay. Others say nay.
Licorice can also cause water retention. So the Skinny diet pills formulation has one ingredient that may make you pee more (hawthorn) and one that may have the opposite effect.
Consuming licorice may lower your body’s potassium levels. It also has the potential to elevate blood pressure and cause a number of side effects.
Further Reading: Licorice Article at MedicineNet
Tangerine Peel
Mermaid USA has chosen some very strange ingredients for its Skinny diet pill formulation and tangerine is no exception.
Tangerines are a good source of Vitamin C and dietary fiber. When it comes to providing fiber, the peel is particularly good. Eating more tangerines or similar fruit can only benefit the health. However, the presence of a little tangerine extract, mixed with other ingredients in a 350 mg pill, isn’t going to do a lot and the ingredient is not generally used as a weight loss aid.
Rhizoma Zingiberis
Zingiberis rhizoma is the plant that provides the spice we know as ginger. The gingerol it contains can ease the symptoms of several ailments and is particularly good for settling an upset stomach and aiding digestion.
Research involving 80 obese women suggests ginger may help with fat loss but the women were given two grams of ginger a day. The amount provided by three Skinny diet pills per day won’t be anywhere near that much. Even if the pills were 100 percent ginger, they would only provide around one gram per day.
Honey
It has been suggested that honey may suppress appetite by reducing levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin. It’s an avenue that may be worth exploring but the present level of research is not worth getting excited about.
How many diet pills have honey in them? In all my years as a diet pill reviewer, Skinny is the first pill I’ve seen that has honey in it. That says a lot. If diet pill manufacturers don’t have any interest in it, there will be a good reason for that.
How to Use Skinny Diet Pills
The dose is one capsule, three times per day. It’s best to take the capsules at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Health ConsiderationsIf you are pregnant or nursing a child, please don’t take any kind of supplement without getting clearance from your doctor first. If you have an existing medical condition of any kind at all, it would also be unwise to use supplements without checking with your doctor first. Some of the ingredients in Skinny can present interaction issues when combined with medications so, if you are using any medicines you will need to check with a doctor before bringing the pills into your life. *Information on the Diet Pill Ninja website is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice. |
Do Skinny Diet Pills Have Honorable Customer Reviews?
At the time of this review, the Amazon global ratings awarded Skinny 4.1 out of 5 stars. A lot of women were praising Skinny and saying it works. Too many, in my opinion. How could such a poor formulation be getting such good feedback? I was amazed at what I saw.
When I looked at Amazon’s top review, I noticed a lot of the sentences are poorly structured. They appear to be written by someone who speaks English as a second language. I found that very suspicious so I whizzed over to ReviewMeta.com to get a second opinion about the quality of the Mermaid Skinny customer reviews.
The site found a lot of problems, removed 83 percent of the “potentially unnatural reviews”, and awarded a new star-rating of 3.5, based on the 25 reviews it kept.
Possible Side Effects
I only found one customer review that mentions side effects. The lady who left it complained the pills made her feel nauseous and gave her bad heartburn.
One review is not a lot. However, the pills contain an undisclosed amount of hawthorn and it has several known side effects. With that in mind, it would be a wise move to seek medical advice before adding Skinny diet pills to your normal weight loss routine.
The Best Place to Buy Skinny Diet Pills
At the time of this review, Skinny diet pills were no longer available via the Mermaid USA website. This could suggest the product might be in the process of being discontinued.
However, it was still possible to buy Skinny via Amazon.com and worldwide shipping was available, albeit at a price.
There are 90 capsules per bottle. That’s a 30-day supply.
However, with a cost of $68 per bottle, Skinny diet pills cost more than many of the top-rated weight management supplements. That’s not a strong selling point. Especially when you bear in mind the fact that a lot of the best diet pills are sold with free shipping to customers all over the world.
Mermaid USA doesn’t charge any shipping fees for delivering to customers based in the USA but it can get pretty expensive for customers who live elsewhere in the world.
For instance, at the time of this review, the company was charging $8.47 for shipping a bottle of Skinny diet pills to the UK.
The cost was higher still for people living in the Netherlands. Mermaid USA was adding “estimated” import fees as well. The total additional charges came to $24.79. That brought the total cost per bottle up to a whopping $92.79.
Strangely enough, even though the distance is not so great, the cost of shipping the pills to Singapore was much less. Mermaid USA was charging $7.09 for shipping and there were no import fees at all. How can that be?
Guarantee and Product Returns
Mermaid USA does not appear to be offering customers a money-back guarantee. However, people who purchase via Amazon may be able to make a claim under the Amazon Returns Policy if they are not happy with the way the pills perform.
Skinny Diet Pill Review Conclusion
Mermaid USA has affixed quite a high price tag to its Skinny diet pills. Customers who live outside the USA have to pay additional fees on top and the product has no money-back guarantee. I’m not impressed. What about you?
The formulation is heavily influenced by Chinese medicine. There’s nothing wrong with that but ginger (Zingiberis rhizoma) is the only ingredient that has proven weight loss abilities and it’s probably not included in an adequate amount.
Several of the ingredients boost immune function. That’s great if you are focusing on improving or protecting your health, but it’s not a primary diet pill aim.
In theory, honey is a valid inclusion because of the link between honey and appetite. But really! How much honey can there possibly be in such a tiny pill?
Then there’s the problem with the customer reviews. If ReviewMeta is correct, there has been some serious gaming of Amazon customer feedback.
And let’s not forget, the many gray areas regarding Mermaid USA. It’s unknown to the BBB and the official website fails to provide a mailing address. It could be based anywhere in the world.
All things considered, I cannot possibly give Skinny my recommendation. But I can suggest something better to use instead.
Leanbean: An Excellent Alternative to Skinny by Mermaid USA
Leanbean
is a British diet pill made for women. It contains better ingredients than Skinny Mermaid and is cheaper to buy. If you select the appropriate package when ordering, Leanbean also has a 90-day money-back guarantee.
Leanbean blows Skinny Mermaid out of the water in every way.
Although Skinny Mermaid is certainly a natural product, most of the ingredients it provides are not normally associated with weight loss. More importantly, there is no proof any of them can work.
The natural ingredients in Leanbean have excellent credentials. There’s plenty of science that shows what they can do. Some of them support fat loss, and Leanbean excels as an appetite suppressant. That’s important because research shows women are more susceptible to hunger than men are.
Leanbean also boosts energy without using stimulants. The lack of stimulants is good because stimulants can disrupt female hormone levels. Apart from being an excellent alternative to Skinny Mermaid, Leanbean is probably one of the best female fat burners in the world.
| Buy Leanbean | Read My Leanbean Review |
