Expensive beauty products – how is their price determined? Episode 172

Perry Romanowski (0:00)

Hi, I'm Perry, and you're listening to The Beauty Brains.

Hello, and welcome to The Beauty Brains, a show where real scientists answer your beauty questions and give you an insider's look at the beauty product industry. This is episode 172 I'm your host, Perry Romanowski, and with me today is hair color cosmetic chemist extraordinaire Valerie George.

Valerie George (0:31)

Hello, Beauty Brains.

Perry Romanowski (0:33)

On today's episode, we're going to be answering your questions about whether a product's price can indicate anything about the quality, whether glycerin and aloe vera actually do moisturize, what salicylic acid is doing in products, and how legitimate are beauty product and ingredient trends. Plus, we'll cover a couple of stories that we found interesting in the cosmetic industry.

Should be a fun show, but first we should say hello to Valerie and get on with our famous and named chit chat to start the show. Hello, Valerie.

Valerie George (1:08)

Hey, Perry, how's it going today?

Perry Romanowski (1:10)

You know, it's cold. It is really good, it's like negative four degrees here.

Valerie George (1:14)

Yeah, I don't miss those days at all. So, if you've listened to the show earlier, you guys know that I moved to California about eight years ago, and I really do not miss those days at all.

Perry Romanowski (1:27)

Well, I don't like to complain about the temperature or the weather much on the show. Today, I brought it up mostly because it's on my mind because this window is freezing. But also, so this happened to me last weekend.

My wife and I went away for a nice weekend. It was very nice, but as I run outside every day, it was like one degree outside, and I only had these skimpy gloves. So I went running, I come back and my hands were numb, and now my fingers are still numb, and it's a week later. That's probably not good, right?

Valerie George (2:00)

I don't think that's the cold, Ferry. I think you have something wrong.

Perry Romanowski (2:03)

I'm sure. It seems to be getting better, but just really slow.

I hope it's nothing serious. Yeah.

Valerie George (2:12)

Well, the one thing I don't like about the winter, and whether or not it's cold or warm in California, in the winter, the earth is tilted differently, and everyone experiences that thin air. I'm suffering from extra dry skin right now, so I'm really excited that we're going to talk about some moisturization questions today.

Perry Romanowski (2:31)

Yes, but let's move on to some Beauty Science News and talk about a couple of stories that we found interesting. Interesting.

Valerie George (2:43)

A new study has come out on Cosmetic Business News that 71% of consumers are buying beauty on their commute.

Perry Romanowski (2:50)

You mean like when they're on the train or something?

Valerie George (2:53)

Well, I hope that's where they're buying it because if you're in LA driving on the 405 freeway, I couldn't imagine being on your phone buying products. So the study was done in a metropolitan area like London, actually not like London, it was London, where public transportation is the main method of how people get to work.

The study found that the average weekly expenditure of commuters doing online shopping was anywhere between 89 pounds and 153 pounds. So that added up over the course of the year contributes about 22.8 billion pounds per year to the economy, which is about 14% of overall online shopping in the UK.

Perry Romanowski (3:35)

Wow, who knew the beauty industry was such a big thing online? Amazon, I guess.

Valerie George (3:40)

Well, it's no secret that brick and mortar shopping is in decline and online shopping is increasing, but I found this really interesting because even myself, I prefer to shop in stores where I can look, feel, touch. But when you're on social media platforms and not really just brand websites anymore, you're scrolling through Instagram and you get these pop-ups coming up, ads tailored to things that you're interested in. So, it's very easy for me to say, oh, what's this new mask that I see someone using on this Instagram ad and head to their website and in just a couple clicks, I can buy.

Perry Romanowski (4:16)

You know, I've never been much of a shopper, but my wife, she likes to shop. And I remember when we first sort of got together, she would go out shopping like every weekend and it would just be like an adventure for her.

And she doesn't do that anymore. Now, she sits on her iPad and just scrolls through Instagram. This is when I knew Instagram was getting really big, is because she was on Instagram and she's like just ordering all these things. And so every couple of days, there's a new box that comes to the door. I'm like, oh, she was shopping.