The price of beauty products varies enormously. An expensive product does not guarantee its effectiveness. In fact you should certainly be suspicious if you have to pay more than 60 euro’s for a product. There is no combination of active ingredient which can make your product so costly. Not even if the product contains high concentrations of active ingredients (and sadly this is seldom the case…).
On the other hand, I don’t think it is possible to produce a ‘state of the art moisturiser’ for under 15 euro’s. High concentrations of active ingredients in an airtight packaging simply costs money. Here’s a calculation: a product costing around 10 euro’s to buy leaves you, after deducting all other costs (research, standard packaging, PR/marketing, overheads), with less than 50 euro cents for the contents. This is only possible if your product is predominantly made up of water and oil with a minimum level of active ingredients.
Concentrations of ingredients
A manufacturer is not required to state the concentrations of active ingredients in its product. It is very tempting then for the manufacturer to use low concentrations of active ingredients. Furthermore, it is so easy: it is more difficult to develop an elegant cream using higher concentrations of active ingredients. The product can be difficult to break down, smell unpleasant, have a strange colour or feel sticky. Above all adequate concentrations of active ingredients have an effect on the skin. The consumer must also therefore have proper guidance as incorrect use can have consequences. The manufacturers aren’t waiting for this to happen.
Alongside this it is interesting to see that there is a big difference in the quality of the ingredients. Ingredients can be added to a product in different forms; the effectiveness and price can vary tremendously depending on the form. This is not always clear to the consumer.
Vitamin C
An example of this is vitamin C, a very unstable substance. Once added to a product in its original form it will lose its effectiveness very quickly. There are, however, a number of ways in which vitamin C can be made stable, but this is definitely costly in effective concentrations as shown in scientific research (Huang and Miller – The truth about over-the-counter topical anti-ageing products: a comprehensive review – aesthetic surgery journal – July/August 2007). If you want to produce a cheaper product then you should use the unstable form.
Botanicals (such as green tea)
A similar example is plant extracts. Unfortunately there are no regulations for the so called botanicals (plant extracts). The quality and effectiveness of the plant extract can vary enormously. An example of this is green tea. Green teas effect is made from a component called ECGC. An extract can contain anything from 0 to more than 95% concentration of this substance. The more purer the extract, the more expensive it is. This purity does not have to be displayed on the packaging. Moreover, it is good to know that for green tea extract to be effective, it must be present in a product in a concentration of at least 1 to 2%. This will make your product brown!
Regards Jetske.
(Dr. Jetske Ultee. Research Doctor and Head of Skin Therapy)
You can read more about:
the effectiveness of a cream
the situation with ‘green’ cosmetics and
what the winter does to your skin.
This article is also available in Dutch