The TRUTH About Makeup Pricing: are you paying for quality or branding??

In this video, we're doing a deep dive into luxury makeup to figure out where exactly is that cost going to drive the prices so high compared to drugstore makeup. Is there actually a difference between luxury makeup and drugstore and how can you tell? So you know if you're getting ripped off with your money or not. We'll do a side-by-side comparison of similar products in both luxury and drugstore makeup so I can show you where the money is being spent. I wanna show you the process of how and where makeup is made, what it takes to create different packaging, and show you where the true costs are actually adding up to create your favorite beauty products. So is luxury makeup actually worth the price and what causes makeup to be so expensive? Lately, just like with everything else out there, prices have skyrocketed, especially in the last several years. Do y'all remember when drugstore makeup used to be under $10 and now I feel like it's closer to 20 or even higher on average. The least expensive brand I've come across is Wet n Wild with prices averaging between $3.29 to $7. Almost every product from this brand is still under $10. Another great affordable brand I love is Elf Cosmetics. They have been taking reign for the king of budget beauty with many of their products ranging from $6 to $14. My favorite product from this brand, you guys know I talk about it all the time, is the Elf Halo Glow. It's a liquid highlighter that in my opinion is actually better than a lot of high-end brands out there and it's less than $14 and it lasts forever. So let's talk about how the beauty industry is divided. It's basically three categories. You have luxury, which is obviously your most expensive. You have prestige, which is most of your brands that you're gonna see at Sephora and then you have mass and that is a lot of your drugstore products you're gonna see at your local drugstore, Target, Walmart, stores like that. Some example of some luxury brands will be a lot of your fashion houses like Valentino, Gucci, Chanel, Dior, YSL. All of those major luxury fashion houses, a lot of them have the makeup brands and that's where their luxury makeup comes in. Tom Ford, another great example. Prestige is gonna be a lot of your mainstream brands like MAC, NARS, Charlotte Tilbury, Pat McGrath, Stila, Danessa Myricks, any of those brands that are kind of a higher price within drugstore, you'll see them a lot in Sephora and then mass is gonna be obviously those big names we all know and recognize, L'Oreal, Revlon, Maybelline, CoverGirl, Milani, Elf Cosmetics, Wet n Wild, all of those ones that we see in the drugstore that's the mass category. Now, according to statistics for 2023, cosmetic sales last year reached $31.7 billion with a B. Prestige brands grew by 14% last year compared to 6% for mass brands. So more people are buying prestige brands versus drugstore. I found that really interesting because we are in hard financial times. So why are people spending more money on prestige products now versus the drugstore makeup when drugstore I feel like has come a long way in the last few years? Okay, so here are the claims that people are making about luxury makeup. I have three of them. Claim number one is, luxury makeup uses higher quality ingredients. Claim number two, luxury makeup has better packaging and presentation. And claim number three, luxury makeup is made at higher quality facilities. By the end of this video, you will get answers to all of these claims on whether they are true or not. Now, before we break down these claims, I wanna explain the process of how makeup is made so you understand what's going on behind the scenes. It's a seven part process. Part number one is going to be the formulation process. So this is where I spent most of my time in the last 15 years as a product developer. Formulation development is where a cosmetic chemist and a product developer work together to create a product that is needed for that specific brand. The product developer is gonna sit down with the chemist and decide what type of product that they're looking for, what is the texture they want, the colors, the finishes, the pigmentation level, how the makeup is going to be applied, all of the specifics of exactly what they're looking for. They're gonna give that to the chemist to try to create that vision of that ideal product. The chemist then creates that product using a variety of ingredients, such as pigments, binders, emollients, preservatives, filler powders, all of these type of ingredients that are used to make makeup, they go back there and they create that actual product. Then part number two is going to be color matching. So once a base formula is created, the chemist sends that to the product developer and or the brand owner to decide, do you like this formula as it is? Do you like the texture? Do you like how it applies? Do you like the pigmentation? All of the basis of that formula. If it gets approved, then it goes to stage two, which is color matching. And this is where, especially for foundations, they're gonna sit down and create the color range of what they're gonna offer. If it's eyeshadows, what are the colors that we're going to have? Is it gonna be metallic, matte, shimmers, satin finishes, and what are the colors we're going to offer? Is it a high pigment load? Is it something kind of sheer? You do all of the color matching to get exactly all of the shades that you need for that specific base product. Once the colors and the base formula get approved, then it goes to stage three, which is the ingredient procurement. That is where the manufacturing facility and the chemist figures out all of the ingredients that they need to make. It's kind of similar to baking a cake. So if I'm going to bake a cake, I need flour, I need eggs, I need milk, I need sugar, I need baking soda and baking powder. All of these things are gonna create this cake, but those ingredients come from different places. My flour may come from India. My eggs may come from China. My milk may come from the USA. Canada has my baking soda. We get all of these ingredients. It comes together at the manufacturing facility, where they then batch that base formula, where they scale it up to create however many products that that brand specifically needs, their MOQ. It's called their minimum order quantity. How many are they ordering of each of these colors? They scale it up and create it from there. Some common ingredients that you'll see in makeup, especially when it comes to powders, is gonna be talc that comes from the USA, China, India, Brazil. There's another one called mica that usually comes from India, Brazil, Madagascar. These natural raw ingredients are gonna come from different parts of the world, depending on where it's naturally sourced from. Once all the ingredients come into the manufacturing facility, then it's stage four, and that is the mixing and blending. In this stage, the raw materials are measured, they're weighed, they're made sure it can be able to scale up. Because when they make the initial R&D sample, it's the research and development sample, that a product developer or the brand owner is gonna see, that's a small batch of it. So when they mix it and blend it, they scale that up to a larger quantity. They have to make sure that the texture, the pigmentation, everything is exactly the same in that big batch as it is in that small sample. The most common countries that make mica right now, there's the USA and Canada. There's also Italy, China, and the latest player in this game is Korea, who's really stepping up with their game. So those are the major countries that have facilities that actually mix and blend and create the final product. Then stage five is testing and quality control. Now this happens throughout the process. If the lab is reputable and good, mind you, they're gonna be doing quality control along the way to make sure that the ingredients are pure, to make sure when the ingredients are mixed together, that there's not any foreign materials coming in that's in a clean and safe environment. These products need to be tested to make sure that they pass a regulatory measures and that they are safe for the consumers to use. Then stage six, once the ingredients are mixed and blended, now it's going to be filling and packaging. Mica products can be filled into various packaging, such as compacts, glass jars, metal pans, whatever the outside container of that product is, the mica is gonna be filled into, it gets packed up. And then the final step, stage seven, is the final inspection and distribution. The products get sent to a distribution center or if the mica brand itself is doing the distribution, it gets sent to their warehouse, so then it can be shipped out to customers as they purchase. So now let's discuss claim number one, luxury makeup uses higher quality ingredients. So let's talk about the formula difference between prestige and drugstore makeup. Here's the questions I want you guys to ask yourselves. When you're testing a product, no matter if it's a luxury or drugstore, ask yourself, how easily does this product blend? Does it blend really smoothly or does it take a lot of effort to get that product to blend out? Is it sitting on the skin nicely or is it sticking to the skin, giving me a patchy appearance? How does it blend? Number two, how smooth is the texture? Does it feel very smooth when you dip your brush in or when you fill it with your fingers or does it have a rough gritty texture that really is uncomfortable on the skin? Third, what is the pigmentation of this product? Is it a high saturation of pigment? Is it really sheer? That could be a personal preference as well, but usually higher pigmentation in a product is more expensive to make because it takes more pigments, which are not cheap, in the product to make it have a saturation of color that you can actually see on the skin without having to pack on multiple layers. And then lastly, are the ingredients high quality? And this is where it's a little bit tricky because it's hard to tell if the ingredients are high quality unless you're looking at that ingredient. Like some of the less expensive makeup ingredients are gonna be mineral oil, they could be lower grade talc, ones that are not mined properly. There's a few different ingredients that cost a little bit less, but usually if you don't know the ingredient depth, you can tell the quality of the ingredients by how smooth it is, how is the texture, how easily does it blend. So let's start with a product example of blushes. Most powder blushes are gonna have a base of powders of talc, mica, silica, titanium dioxide, or nylon 12. Those are kind of the top five common ones. The top most that you're gonna see are gonna be talc or mica. Talc is the most common ingredient, so let's investigate that a little bit. Are there higher versions of talc that higher end brands would use versus a less expensive brand, a drunk store brand? Actually, yes, there is. Talc is a natural occurring mineral that is used for its softness and its ability to absorb oil and moisture. It's mined in countries like the USA, China, Brazil, and India. Higher purity talc is usually brighter in color. It is more white, it is more opaque, whereas more impure talc is gonna have slight gray tint to it. Now this is where it's tricky, you all, because obviously when you have a makeup product, it has pigmentation in there, so it's hard to tell if the talc being used, if it's a pure white or if it has a gray tint to it. So how can you tell if the brand is ripping you off and using high grade talc or a less expensive one? Texture is gonna be the key. High grade talc tends to have a fine, uniform consistency particle. So if I'm feeling a high grade talc, it's gonna be very smooth, it's gonna be easy to blend, it's gonna be very soft, because the particles are very smooth and they are consistent in size, whereas a lower grade talc is gonna be a little bit more gritty. It's not gonna be the same particle size, it's not gonna be as smooth. So if you see a high end product versus a drug store, sometimes you can tell there's a slight difference based on the texture of it. If you have a blush that blends very smooth, it's very creamy, and then you have another version of a brush, maybe it's a drug store one that's less expensive, they used a lower cost talc, it's gonna be a little bit more gritty. Not all the time, but that's why I'm teaching you all. See, you can tell because just because you're paying more doesn't mean that the brand is using a higher quality ingredient or not. You've got to test it. Products also with higher grade talc may have better opacities. The thing that I always recommend too is go with brands that have a long term reputation that are known for having consistent quality in their product. No matter whether it's drug store or luxury or not, if a brand's been around for a long time and has a reputation of putting out good products. So for example, Elf. Elf is inexpensive, but they're known for putting out great products. That would be a brand that I would trust to have talc in it because I know that they're probably not gonna be using a very inexpensive and maybe a bit irritating talc. Because like I've talked about in other videos, you always talc naturally is close to asbestos when it is mined. So if it's not mined properly and it's not a high grade talc, they can have slight traces of asbestos in it. Is it common? Especially nowadays, not as much, but it still can happen. So make sure you go with a brand that you trust their reputation. So now let's compare two blushes side by side. I have a drugstore one and a high-end one. This one here is the Essence Pure Nude Baked Blush. It goes for 399. 399, you all, that's super inexpensive. It's the cheapest blush I could find. The other extreme, I have the luxury version and this is the Valentino Eye to Cheek Blush. This sells at Sephora for $52. So $52, 399. The Essence blush has talc, mica, and aluminum starch as their first three ingredients. That is a common base that pretty much every blush is gonna have. That's a base of powders. That's the majority of the product. It's a bunch of powders that are bound together with some sort of binder or moiland, pressed into a pan with some pigmentation and that's what creates your blush. So talc and mica, not surprising at all. The Valentino blush's first ingredient is synthetic florflagopite. That is a synthetic mica. The next ingredient is mica and then a little bit further down the list, you'll see bismuth, oxychloride, and talc. So the ingredient decks are a bit different even though they both have talc and mica but here is the texture. That's what we wanna check first. Here is the texture of the Essence blush. When I run my finger over it, it's fairly smooth in that it's a baked powder but when I run my finger closely, I can pick up some inconsistency in the particle of size. Is it bad? Absolutely not. I'm actually wearing this blush right now. It's a beautiful blush and the pigmentation of it is really, really nice. Look how beautiful that is. But I do notice that there is some grittiness in some of the particles on here. I can see it here on the side. I'm gonna get up to the camera so you guys can see. When I look at it at an angle, I see several dots in here where it's not fully, fully smooth. So it does make me wonder the quality of the talc that they're using in here. Do I think it's of poor quality? No, but there is a slight texture to it that has just a tiny bit of grit whereas normal baked blushes would be completely smooth all the way through. Now I know I'm being really nitty gritty with the texture of this. When you go to apply it with a brush, you're not going to notice that texture because you're not gonna be sitting there rubbing it with your fingers. So does that matter at the end of the day? Not a ton, but it does tell me as a consumer or as a product developer that the smoothness of the particles of the powder is being used here in my opinion is not as smooth as it could be. So I don't feel that they're using a higher grade talc, just my opinion. When I go to apply it, it does give me a beautiful color and do like the pigmentation of it. I feel like there's enough pigmentation in there to work really beautifully. So is this a great blush for $3.99? Absolutely, yes. Can I personally tell that it is drugstore and it's not as high quality as some other brands? I can, but does that mean that it's not worth it? Absolutely not. I still wear this. I love it. I purchased it obviously for $3.99. You cannot beat that price. Now let's test the Valentino one. So the Valentino one, I'm gonna run my fingers over this as well. And this is a very creamy texture. When I run my finger over it, it's very smooth. And as you can see on my finger, when I go to touch it, there's no gritty particles in it whatsoever. It's a very smooth texture. So the synthetic fleur-de-fleur, the mica, the talc, they're using that kind of blend of materials in there. It's giving me a very smooth texture. It's also very emollient, almost feels a little bit creamy, but I can tell personally by running my fingers over it that it's a very smooth formula. That to me tells me that they're using a bit higher grade ingredients personally. Now let's try the blush on this side because at the end of the day, it matters on whether you like the blush, if it applies beautifully, if it looks great on your skin and you feel like it's worth the money. So $52, she's pricey, but let's put it on so you all can see. Beautiful pigmentation, feels smooth on the skin, looks great. I love both of these blushes. Honestly, I can tell a difference in the price point, but at the end of the day, when I put the makeup on, I go out and wear it, most people are not gonna be able to tell from one side to the other which one is drugstore and which one is high-end. Now, if I had to choose with money being set aside between the two blushes, texture-wise, pigmentation, longevity, all of that, which blush would I choose? I would choose the Valentino one, absolutely. But at the end of the day, it's just blush and if I wanted to save some money and I wasn't concerned about the texture of it as much, I just wanted something that looked beautiful on the skin, then I would save money and get the Essence. So that's where you as a consumer have the power to choose what works for you, whether texture is more important or if just how it looks and saving some money is more important. That's your choice to decide what works for you. Claim number two, lingerie makeup has better packaging and presentation. Now, does packaging impact how a product performs or how it looks on the skin? Absolutely not. But is it part of the experience when you purchase it, when you use it, you pull it out of your drawer to take it out? Is that all part of the experience? Absolutely, yeah. So again, packaging is one aspect of it. Is it the most important? Not really, but it is something to consider when you're spending your hard-earned money. Here's the packaging of the two blushes. I have the Essence one, which is a plastic container and on the top, it has a clear lid. It snaps shut and it opens. It's pretty simple. It's great. It's very practical. You can see the color inside. It seems to be pretty sturdy. You can throw it in a drawer and all of that. Is it fancy? No, it's not. Is it very basic and generic? It is, but again, this is $3.99. Here's the Valentino blush. This one has more premier packaging. It has the gold plastic on here. It has the red signature to Valentino. It has the Ray's logo. When you open it, you press the lever and it opens like this. It has a full mirror inside. Inside, there's a little brush, but I lost it, you guys. I'm sorry, I was gonna show it to you, but there is a little brush in here as well. So it came with that. And the overall packaging of this obviously is so much more expensive and luxurious feeling than the Essence one. So part of the price, honestly, what you were paying for goes to packaging more than anything else. Even with these two formulas being a bit different, and I feel like this being a higher end one versus the drugstore one, the cost to the brand for these two is not gonna be massively different. Is there gonna be some difference? Yes, but the packaging for this, I guarantee costs at least four times the price of the packaging of this one. And that's where a lot of your money is actually going to, the packaging and the experience versus the product itself. Claim number three, luxury makeup is made at better facilities. The biggest question I have gotten throughout my entire career as a product developer is, is drugstore makeup and luxury made at different facilities or is it the same place? It is made at the exact same facilities most of the time. Not every time, but most of the time it is. Almost all of the brands that exist out there are going to use various facilities throughout the world. Like I said, USA, Canada, Italy, China, Korea. Those are the major players in makeup production. Very few labs, unless they're a huge, huge, huge brand are gonna have their own facility. They're gonna use different manufacturers that specialize in creating makeup. And that same manufacturer may create something for L'Oreal, it may create it for Lancome, and then it may create something for ELF, and then also for NARS. It may have all of these different brands that they work with. So in your mind, you're like, they're charging me completely different price. The formulas may differ, like I said, from one to the other. They may use a little bit higher quality ingredients, but where the pricing difference really happens is actually the country that it's made in. So I told you the top five players. This is the price category that I would put them in. The most expensive country is going to be Italy. A lot of that comes from the quality of ingredients that they use, but also the cost of labor. When you have a product that is made, the formula itself, what you're mostly paying for is not just the raw materials, it's the labor to create it. So if I'm paying a worker in Italy to create a product versus a worker in, say, China, that's going to be two very different price points. Those two countries have different costs for labor. Second most expensive is going to be tied between Canada and USA. It's not quite as expensive as Italy, but it's still a little bit up there. And the fourth in line is going to be Korea. They're not quite as expensive as the USA, but they're not the least expensive. And then the last one, the fifth one, is going to be China. They are the least expensive in labor. Now this isn't in any way pitting any of these countries against each other, you all. It simply comes down to, what is the cost of labor in each of those countries? How far does their currency stretch? If you buy something in China, it's going to go a really long way. If I buy something in Italy, not as much, it's going to be a little bit more expensive. That's just simple economics. The other thing that can drive up the labor prices in these countries is the manufacturing standards and regulations. Countries with stringent manufacturing policies and principles are going to cost more than other countries because it's expensive to do regulations, quality controls, checks throughout the process. So that can also be part of the cost differences between different countries. Some countries are very strict with their testing and their quality control than others. And I will testify to that. It's a whole nother video, Pandora's box. We will open another day. I'm reading this from factual statements here. Manufacturers in regions like Italy, Canada, and the USA may incur higher costs because they have to ensure product safety, consistency, and compliance with regulatory requirements, which are led by the government's policies for that country. So for example, I've talked about this in the past, EU and Japan are very highly regulated when it comes to cosmetics. They don't allow a lot of ingredients in their cosmetics. They're very stringent on testing and they're constantly updating their regulations to make sure that ingredients throughout the time are being passed as safe to wear on skin. Whereas other countries may not be as stringent, which USA is one of them. I will sit here all day and agree to that. The USA is not as stringent as say Europe or Japan. And in other countries like China are definitely not as strict as USA. So that can alter some of the price difference as well. Not just the labor, but the manufacturing standards and regulations that they go through. So really quickly while we're talking about countries and where products are made, I wanna compare a drugstore lipstick to a prestige one that are both made in the same country. The first lipstick I have is by Milani. It's the color fetish lipsticks here. The packaging is actually pretty unique and unlike anything I've seen at the drugstore. The comparison I have is Lawless Beauty. This is a prestige brand that is sold in Sephora. This is made in Italy as well. Let's check out the formulas because that's what matters. But I will quickly show you the packaging. The Lawless one is a little bit more simplistic, whereas the Milani one is actually pretty unique and has some details on it that make it very exquisite looking even though it is drugstore. Let's swatch these side by side. Here's the Milani formula. It's very creamy. It's very smooth. I don't feel any grittiness to that texture. It really does feel like a high-end lipstick. I can tell that that is made in Italy just by the texture. The Lawless one side by side. This is also very creamy. Little bit different finish. This one has a touch more shine to it, so it's more satin, whereas this one is more like a sateen or almost a matte type finish. But the way they apply is very similar. Very creamy, very smooth, easy to blend, no grittiness in there. Very beautiful formulas for both of them. So in my opinion, this is where I would actually boldly say that I feel like the Milani is a great option for 10.99 versus I think the Lawless one is in the 20-something range. You definitely can save some money here because it's made at a high-end facility. The packaging is really great. So how they are staying profitable on this one, I don't know, but man, props to Milani. This is a great lipstick, and I think you're charging very fair price for what you're actually getting for that one. So hopefully all this information helps guide you all to feel empowered when you go to the makeup store what to look for. You wanna check for texture. What is the pigmentation level on that? What does the packaging look like if that matters to you? All of that's gonna come into play on the pricing of that product. But at the end of the day, you as a consumer have the power to choose exactly what it is that you are looking for. If packaging doesn't matter for you, get a drugstore item. There's still some great quality things that you can find. If you're all about having fewer pieces in your collection, but you want them to be high quality, you want them to feel beautiful, luxurious in your hand with great packaging, high-end may be the one for you. There's no right or wrong answer. It's up to you to decide what is best for you. So hopefully this video was helpful for you guys. Come back next week for another makeup video, and I will see you soon here on this channel. Don't forget to subscribe, and I'll see you next week. Bye.