Premium Ingredients

I didn't know what to call this so let me just briefly explain what I'm about to say. Companies charge a "premium" for certain formulations. Certain formulations that we as consumers either want to purchase or need to because everyone's skin is different.

Long story short, I was shopping around for some treatment cream, and I was almost flabbergasted that the same product formulated without certain ingredients cost 60 cents more than the one formulated with those specific ingredients. It's not significantly more, but if you factor in how many people in this world have certain skin conditions or have skin sensitivities and need to purchase the same product, but with different formulations catered to their specific skin needs, that's a lot of extra money spent for the "premium" price.

Basically what I was shopping around for was a treatment cream that contained zinc oxide because I'm running out of my current on from Johnson&Johnson. Highly recommend. It's for "diaper rashes" but I use it to treat other inflammation that occurs just sporadically since it contains zinc oxide which is known to calm and reduce inflammation.  Don't wanna go too much into detail.

I was looking for something "clean" that didn't have fragrance and parabens in it. At first, I was just going to repurchase the same cream that I was already using (except in a different packaging because companies LOVE doing that), but I decided to change it up a little bit and look for zinc treatments which then somehow led me to just diaper rash creams. I literally typed "zinc oxide treatment" while searching around on the Target website.

Then I stumbled upon The Honest Company Rapid Relief Diaper Rash Cream which was pretty clean according to CosDNA (If you don't know this, it will change the way you look at cosmetics and skincare), but it costed about $10. For less than a 3 oz (yes, I'm in the US - we are one of the three countries who still use the imperial system) tube! I know it's not crazy expensive but DAMN!

I was going to get this one but CosDNA says otherwise. I'm putting it on my body, so I tend to steer away from fragrances and parabens if possible.

So I tried looking at other options, and I saw a "butt rash paste" with a super cute packaging that had pretty clean ingredients as well for a much larger portion size (okay, that sounds weird - I'm not ordering food here, but you get the point) after browsing around a little bit.

Seriously, how cute is this though?  This isn't the original one, but it's got some pretty good ingredients in it.

Although I'm not sure why both this and the maximum strength one cost the same, but the one that has no fragrance and added preservatives cost 60 cents extra.





Like oh, you want extra strength, sure we'll give it to you for free, but if you want specific ingredients you have to pay a "premium". Not sure what kind of backwards logic that is. It just baffles me how companies can charge extra just because they have to formulate something catered to specific people, in this case, people with sensitive skin or those who just don't want preservatives and fragrances in their products.

What shocked me even more is that the one formulated with preservatives actually came up worse ingredients-wise on CosDNA. 

Here's what the original one (with no parabens and preservatives) looked like:

Full Ingredients: 

Zinc Oxide (16.0%), Castor Oil, Mineral Oil, Paraffin, Peruvian Balsam, White Petrolatum

I'm a little iffy on the oil-based ingredients it has since depending on how it's refined, it could be comedogenic.

And here's the one with natural preservatives:

Full Ingredients: 

Zinc Oxide (16%), Aloe Vera, Beeswax, Carnauba Wax, Castor Oil, Citric Acid, Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Peruvian Balsam Oil.

Okay sure, it contains wax, but if you look at the "natural" one above, it has paraffin, which is a natural form of wax.

Bottom line: Companies charge a little extra for specific formulations, which is sad and unfair if you think about how many people have to purchase products formulated for sensitive skin.

Similar situation happened when I was deciding between the unscented the scented version of the Purito Centella Sunscreen a couple weeks ago. The unscented version costed about a dollar or two more so I opted for the scented one. Sadly, now they're both the same price. Should've waited a week or two. Strangely, it doesn't really have a smell that I find overpowering but might not be the case for people with sensitive skin.

I just find it really sad and shocking that companies charge extra for ingredients specifically formulated for a certain group of people. I just wish they could be more transparent about their ingredients. Luckily, brands like The Ordinary and The Inkey List becoming more and more popular and being transparent and open about their ingredients and what they actually do instead of making false promises that don't deliver. 

That was my little rant/spiel about the annoyances of certain formulations and fancy "premiums" companies like to charge in order for them to make a profit and look better. 

The Truth About Skincare Products

This was originally posted to my other blog back in June of 2019. I'm doing a little re-vamping.
-----------------------------
I spent almost an entire day watching skincare videos and reactions yesterday. Why, you may ask. It started with me watching a new video Wengie had just uploaded. Oh, YouTube, how I love and hate you sometimes.

It got me thinking, WHY THE HECK do skincare products have such a wide range of prices? Take clay masks for example. I think they blew up these past few years. Not just clay masks, but Korean skincare, and specifically, the 10-step Korean skincare routine. Ain't nobody got time for that!

Back to clay masks. Some retail for $20 or less while others go for as much as $200. Two hundred!!! US dollars! My face is NOT worth that much.

I'd say I spend a good amount on skincare. Not a crazy amount, but just bare minimum for me to be considered a skincare...amateur? Not as much as the average person my age, I'd say.

That got me thinking, why DO skincare products range from relatively cheap to crazy expensive?! They have pretty much the same ingredients in them.

I bought this walnut scrub (I know, just bear with me) with the same ingredients as the overhyped St. Ives Apricot scrub for less than half the price.

So why. exactly? I would say branding. Take the example of Brandless. Everything on that site is I believe less than $10. And they have skincare products for less than $10.

But is a $200 moisturizer as effective as a $20 moisturizer? Cue the YouTube videos. I would say yes. So why do people still give into the $200 moisturizer? Branding. Marketing. It sells. More than the $20 moisturizer? Maybe. But do they have the same active ingredients? Probably. So why do people still give into this trap? Because ethos. We all give into emotion, and overly promising promises, even if they don't deliver. Because we want some justification as to why we spent that much money. It's the whole ethos, pathos, logos model we loved and hated in high school. Just me? Keep reading, you'll figure it out.

That's why I never spend more than $30 on any skincare product. The most expensive has been this Vitamin E Serum from the Body Shop I got for $28 when I was obsessed with "natural" products. Hence, the $30 maximum.

For now, I look at three factors before purchasing anything. Do I actually need it? Can I live without it? Is the price easily justified?

There have been times when I really wanted something, but thought, I can buy this another day, when I really want and have an actual need for it. Living in a smaller apartment also helps me minimise the number of things I buy while maximising the things I do have and the space I have to put it. No, I don't live in New York, if that's what you're asking.

An example is the overly hyped Sand & Sky Australian clay mask. I decided to buy a pink clay mask from Skin&Lab for half the price just to try it out. I don't know if it was my skin or the type of clay, but it didn't work for me. I still have almost the entire bottle just sitting there. I mix it with one of the other Skin&Lab clay masks I bought just to use it up. Update: I gave it to my sister who has dry skin so it might work better for her. 

I did some more digging and listed a bunch of skincare products I use and calculated it to be a little under $10 per unit. So that's a very rough (take it with a HUGE grain of salt) estimate. A little under $10 per face mask, for every single pump of moisturizer, eye cream, serum, essence, whatever it is we use (yes, guys have skin too!). I've spent a little over than $500 on skincare alone. And that's in a span of two years. So I guess you could say about $250 a year. If you think about it, that's not too bad, but it sounds like a lot. So next time, before you buy a skincare product, think about if you actually need it, or are you just giving in to this marketing gimmick?

Now, I'm going to use my previous knowledge and pretend to sound smart. Companies sell products. They don't care if you pay $200 or $20. As long as they make a profit, even as little as $5 or $10. But in the real world, that's not true. It would be double the base price.

The whole ethos, pathos, logs. Companies live and breathe on these three rhetoric skills. Ethos. Branding. Overly persuasive language. Celebrity endorsements. Claiming a $200 moisturiser will improve skin texture when a $20 one will do the same thing. Pathos. We all give into feelings. Having someone tell a story of how a product helped them fight off their acne, when if you think about it, it could be a variety of different factors. Your sleep schedule. Environment. What you eat. Hormonal. And much more. Pretty packaging and really cool advertising. Logos. Actual scientific facts. Okay this, I can understand why, but $200 versus $20?!

Of course there could be the yes, the $20 product might contain harmful ingredients like alcohol which everyone has a different reaction to, but it's all about what works, not what's good for your skin, but is paying 10 times the price really worth it? I know it's a stretch, but that's the logic. Is it really worth all that branding, useless jargon, beautiful packing and questionable claims? For all you know that $200 cream could be just another "sugar pill". At the end of the day it's all about what's in the ingredients and what works for you.

I remember back when I was a cashier, I took a look at the invoice we just got for some product we were selling. The unit price was about a little over a dollar and we were selling it for more than twice the unit price. That's how companies make money. That's the cold hard truth. If companies just sold things for a little over or the same price as they got it for, they wouldn't be making much money. It would be just like the olden days of trading rocks for gold. We wouldn't be as successful as we are today to put it in simpler words.

I wish I could explain why people give into these stupid gimmicks, but I just can't. I can try to find a reasonable explanation based on my logic and what I think goes into people's minds before making a purchase.

This doesn't just go for skincare. I'm just using this as an example of what society tends to do to the average consumer. So next time you go (online) shopping for an item, ask yourself those three questions before adding it to your (virtual) cart.