Cosmetic Fads: Active Ingredients as Marketing Incentives

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The skincare and cosmetics industry is largely powered by marketing. Most companies spend far more on their promotion, advertising, and the perfect sales pitch than they do on the actual ingredients in the product they are selling to you. They capitalize on vanity, fear, and the customers’ lack of knowledge about chemistry. They prey on the fact that many people will pay dearly and believe marketing pitches that sound more like fairy stories than like chemistry.

The reality is when you buy most drugstore and even many department store skincare products what you’re buying is mostly emulsifiers, solvents, and water even when trendy actives appear in the ingredients list.

The cost savings from putting in the minimum of actives means bigger profit margins for brand owners. Actives are often the most expensive part of a recipe and also the most desirable to clients because of their benefits. If a product appears to have valuable actives in it then it will command a higher price and likely sell better, especially if the active ingredient is trendy. The combination of higher retail price and lower production cost is a set of practical, profitable business assets that many company owners find it hard to ignore. When profits are more important than people many ugly decisions are made in the name of “beauty”.  Therefore, next time before you  go for that name brand cosmetic with the newest ‘active ingredient,’ look closer.

 

original article here