Link Love: Girdles for Men, A StriVectin Investigation, Punk Perfume & Google’s Next Buy

• What does heroin smell like? The remaining live members of the Sex Pistols have bottled their scent. Check out Hint’s review.

• The New York Times investigates the claims behind skin cream StriVectin and its Better Than Botox slogan. They also discuss the firm’s new products: a scrub and an eye product.  The company is now owned by private equity house Catterton Partners, which bought StriVectin from Klein-Becker last year.

The product is based on a combination of vitamin B3 and NIA-114, an ingredient developed by Myron and Elaine Jacobson at the University of Arizona. NIA-114 claims to be a gentler alternative to Tretinoin, which most people know as Retin-A, Renova or Atralin. Pop the top.

• Men are apparently as self conscious about their love handles as women are about their asses. The Washington Post has a hilarious trend piece on the many companies making shirts to tighten men’s chests and love handles.
• Google is apparently eying a shopping site that would improve its use of images, both as a search engine and an advertising company. While the WSJ and TechCrunch both posted reports, neither company has commented. Click here for the WSJ piece