Everyone likes to have young-looking, healthy skin. It gives us a confidence boost and simply makes us happier. Unfortunately, not everyone wakes up in the morning looking like a princess. Most of us have to do a lot of work just to look “so-so”.
That’s where cosmetics come in. But how to choose? Is price a factor?
We are often tempted to spend quite a lot of cash on beauty products, hoping to find a real game changing cream or serum. However, as we’ll see, price and product quality aren’t always in agreement.
Often, the high price of your skincare product is simply based on marketing, and has nothing to do with the raw materials used in your cream or serum. If you see a brand being endorsed by a celebrity or a lot of influencers, there is a big chance that what you are paying for has a lot to do with the advertising cost and not the quality of ingredients.
It is a common practice for a skincare brand to design a product based on 1 or 2 star ingredients. This is all fine, as long as those star ingredients are used in the correct quantities. In the case of essential oils for example, that quantity is quite low, but for the majority of other active ingredients, they have to be added to a formulation in a specific, often quite high dosage to be effective. That is why, with the same key ingredients in a product, you can have two very different outcomes: one will do miracles for your skin, while the other will just make your wallet feel lighter.
Reading the ingredients list of most of the big, mass-marketed brands, you realize they’re just water with a lot of functional ingredients. Yes, they do provide a nice feel to your skin, but they are very low on actives and won’t improve your skin’s health and nutrition much. Most of these products are expensive just because of the good marketing behind them. As much as I appreciate the efforts of their marketing specialists, I just don’t feel like sponsoring them.
But do not panic, there is still hope. There are skincare products out there that actually work.
As you have probably realized by now, I have a pro-natural approach to beauty. That’s because most of the natural skincare brands have a very transparent “business to client” attitude, especially the indie brands. Some of them are just wonderful and you will be able to find real gems out there.
If you have already had a look at indie beauty brands, you are probably wondering why so many of them are so expensive. Surely, a higher percentage of actives are worth less than a celebrity endorsement, right? Well, yes and no. First of all, indie brands are small operation businesses, which means higher operating costs. This means ingredients, packaging, and other aspects of their operations cost more money per unit when compared to mass market brands. Secondly most of them tend to provide the best quality products they can, using eco-friendly packaging, wild crafted ingredients and organic certifications, and don’t cut on formulation costs. Lastly some natural raw materials, even if they are used in small quantities, are just crazy expensive.
So, I encourage you to always read the ingredients list before you buy, and check if the active ingredients are at the very top of that list. The list is always organized in descending order by percentage of ingredients in the formulation. If the star ingredients don’t show up within the first five positions, except for essential oils, which should be listed at the end, just put the product down, and keep searching.