Problem: I’m not one to fall for a company’s enthusiasm for its products, but surely some companies can have secret or special ingredients and formulas, or use more expensive, superior ingredients. A friend mentioned that her chocolate chip cookies contain flour, sugar, shortening, eggs, vanilla, chocolate chips, and nuts, but they still don’t taste like Mrs. Fields’. I have used your inexpensive recommendations and they have worked great, but I am so tempted to buy the more expensive stuff!
Solution: I understand the concept your friend is suggesting when it comes to her cookies. However, some people may prefer Mrs. Fields cookies while others would prefer your friend’s. If this company does have a secret ingredient, that may taste great to you but not to someone else. With a cosmetic the situation is a little different, because here you are asking, Is it really any better for skin? And, What is the product’s impact on the skin; as well as What is its overall benefit (or detriment) to your body?
When it comes to shopping for skin-care products, there are unquestionably great formulas out there that work better for different skin types and different needs, in all price ranges, but most of that is about the texture of the product, not the beneficial ingredients. Think of it like your diet. Dark green leafy vegetables, deeply colored fruits, fish rich in omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids, flax seed and olive oil, and herbal seasonings such as curry, turmeric, and curcumin all offer the body numerous health benefits. How you eat them, whether in a salad, barbecued, grilled, sauteed, raw, or mixed in some kind of ethnic culinary delight is up to you, because the preparation (as long as it’s healthy) doesn’t significantly change the benefit (some types of high-heat cooking can destroy nutrients). What counts are the ingredients; not the cuisine.
The same is true for skin care. Whether you prefer a gel, cream, lotion, liquid, serum, or balm, those qualities are separate from the value of the bioactive ingredients the product should contain. The healthy ingredients for skin should all be in there, and the texture is simply the way you prefer to feel them delivered to your skin.
It is a complete fallacy that expensive products are better than inexpensive products, not to mention there isn’t a shred of research supporting this concept. Our own empirical evidence also tells us this is true because we’ve all bought expensive products we didn’t like.
After interviewing dozens of cosmetics chemists and cosmetic ingredient manufacturers, I have yet to find any that agree with the notion that secret ingredients provide superior benefits for the skin. There also aren’t any secret ingredients, because all ingredients have to be listed on the label or the company will be in violation of almost every cosmetics regulatory board in the world.
There are ingredients that can make a difference, but almost without exception they are accessible to every cosmetics manufacturer. I rate hundreds of expensive and inexpensive products on a range of excellent to poor, so I’ve come to know that judging by price alone can hurt your skin and waste your money.