I’ve always been oddly intrigued by whoever it was who invented the novelty pen that, when you turn it upside down, all the lady’s clothes come off. It just seems a strangely inventive mind that looks at a pen and thinks, “you know what this is missing? Female nudity”.

I’m pretty sure the pen had it’s heyday around the same time Benny Hill was getting chased by women in lingerie every week. These days, gratuitous female nudity in pop culture is largely frowned upon (unless it’s on HBO though, seems it’s okay to get your gear off if it’s a highbrow TV show).

That said, I’d have thought a label like Skinny Blonde (from a biz part-owned by one of the guys in rock band The Vines) wouldn’t have seen the light of day these days. As you can see from the above pictures, it features a blonde. When the bottle is cold, she’s wearing a red bikini. When it warms up, the bikini disappears. Pretty charming, huh?

I’d heard about the label about a year ago but hadn’t seen it anywhere until I stumbled across a bottle at a bottlo near my place. Given that the best-before date was March 2012 (yes, I said 2012) I’m going to assume the beer isn’t being made any more. It didn’t taste that great, which may because it’s more than a year past it’s best or it could be because it’s a low-carb beer and they’re all crap.

But I didn’t buy it for the taste, I bought it for the novelty of the label. Which is where I think the business plan for brewers with questionable labels like these falls flat. Most people, I reckon, would just buy this for the novelty factor. And once, they’d done that, there’s no reason to ever buy it again. So, as well as alienating a segment of the beer-buying public right out of the gates, they then lose any chance of building up repeat customers.

Simply, labels like these just don’t make business sense.