Are Luxury Moisturizers Worth The Price?

Miracle in a jar?Cosmetics and beauty products were a hobby of mine. An extremely expensive hobby that helped get me into debt. I have tried many of the expensive face moisturizers out there. As recently as just last year I was using up the last of my Crème de la Mer moisturizer ($125 for 1oz). That was the most I had ever spent on a single jar of moisturizer.

I really enjoyed the “high-end” moisturizers you get at department stores or from Sephora (my old addiction). They were soothing and comforting and somehow special. I never knew why exactly but I felt they were better than their less expensive counterparts. They just *were*. After all, my skin looked great! It must have been because of those luxury products, right?

When evaluating my spending habits I started looking at what I was getting for my money in these moisturizers. Was it really the expensive and exotic ingredients in these high priced products giving me that nice skin or was it the fact that I was simply using a quality moisturizer at all? Was it worth the extra cost?

Paula Begoun, famous cosmetics reviewer, gives her take on the La Mer Crème I love so much:

The reality is that this very basic, and I mean really basic, cream doesn’t contain anything particularly extraordinary or unique, unless you want to believe that seaweed extract (sort of like seaweed tea) can somehow be worth this much money, or that it can in some way heal burns and scars. According to Susan Brawley, professor of plant biology at the University of Maine, “seaweed extract isn’t a rare, exotic, or expensive ingredient. Seaweed extract is readily available and used in everything from cosmetics to food products and medical applications.”

Creme de la Mer contains mostly seaweed extract, mineral oil, petrolatum (similar to Vaseline), glycerin, waxlike thickening agents, plant oils, plant seeds, minerals, vitamins, more thickeners, and preservatives. How expensive can it be to stick some seaweed and vitamins in a cosmetic? According to the cosmetics chemists I’ve interviewed, it costs pennies, not hundreds of dollars.

So maybe the ingredients weren’t all that exotic after all. Based on this evaluation I have to assume that the price tag of $125 isn’t due to the cost of the ingredients. If it doesn’t cost significantly more to make than its competing products then why was I paying a significantly higher price?

Let’s look at a few ways the industry helps to create the perception of added worth.

Brand Distinction

Did you know that many of the brands you are familiar with are owned by the same major companies? Brand recognition adds value, especially for new products. Through developing distinctive brands these companies can target key consumer groups and price the products appropriately. Products for a luxury line like La Mer will be priced at luxury levels (who knows what the actual manufacturing cost is). Within a single company you might find that a product from an inexpensive brand is virtually the same as a product from an expensive brand. Coincidence? Try comparing some of the L’Oreal Paris and Lancôme products.

Here are two parent companies with their brands below:

Estee Lauder: Aveda, Bobbi Brown, Bumble and bumble, Clinique, Estée Lauder, Jo Malone, Lab Series, La Mer, MAC Cosmetics, Origins, Prescriptives

L’Oreal: Kérastase, L’Oreal Paris, Maybelline, Biotherm, The Body Shop, Cacharel, Kiehl’s, Lancôme, Shu Uemura, Dermablend, La Roche-Posay, SkinCeuticals

Fairy Dusting

“Fairy Dusting” refers to the practice of adding minimal amounts of special or desirable ingredients to a product to make it more attractive to buyers. This can include ingredients associated with the hottest trends (like green tea) or age-old treatments (like olive oil). This method is often misleading and is used to get the product from the store counter to the bathroom counter as quickly as possible.

Dusting can be done in several ways, like:

Packaging

My La Mer jar is heavy enough to be a weapon. It looks and feels expensive. The elaborate boxes it came in were nice enough to keep and reuse! I suspect that the packaging might have cost more than the crème. Many of the expensive moisturizers come in beautiful containers and bottles. Companies use packaging to create added worth. Who is going to pay $125 an ounce for a moisturizer in a cheap plastic container? Put it in a heavy glass jar that re-enforces the idea that the crème is worth that much. In this way, packaging is often used as a tool to help achieve the desired price point.

So, is it worth it? Well, that’s up to you. If you like the way it makes your skin feel and are happy with your skin’s appearance then it might be worth it to you. Be aware that just because you’re paying more doesn’t mean you’re getting more and that you can likely get the same results for a much smaller price tag.

I still love the expensive moisturizers (even though I no longer buy them) but I understand they aren’t miracle workers or even substantially better products for improving my skin than what you can find at the supermarket. I love them for their texture, fragrance, and finish and those qualities enhance my experience, not my appearance.

Be sure to check back tomorrow when we will talk about ways to find an alternative moisturizer that works for both our skin and our checkbooks.

Image Source: sunshinecity

Finding a New VoIP Provider

Wow - A Rotary Phone!It sounds like Vonage is going through some rough times right now. We’ve been using Vonage for, I think, a couple of years now. We’ve been really happy with the service, and have two lines with them. One is our normal home line, and the other line Melissa uses for some of her charity work.

Some people have suggested we just drop the home phone altogether and go purely with cell phones. I don’t like that idea as much. For me, my cell phone has always been more about giving me convenience to call people when I’m out, and not for the convenience of getting a hold of me. I’m selective about who I give my cell phone number to, but I don’t mind giving out my home phone number. I guess it’s more of a habit than anything else. Having separate home and cellular numbers just fits the way I want to live.

If you haven’t heard about Vonage’s latest trouble, several months back, Vonage lost a battle with Verizon over some patents. It was unclear at that time what would happen to them. There was talk that after the KSR vs. Teleflex Supreme Court case that Vonage might have a chance in appeals. I’m not sure everything is over yet, but at least for now, hope for Vonage may be slim after the appeals court has ruled for Verizon again, and this is just after Vonage lost a different case with Sprint.

Right now, I’m unsure of Vonage’s future, and I would really like to keep my phone number. I’m debating tonight whether or not I should switch. If I switch now, I have this theory that it will be easier than if I wait and Vonage is forced into raising prices or runs into even further troubles.

So, last night I started researching possible replacement providers. I didn’t realize how much things had changed. I had some friends who were trying to talk me into switching to SunRocket, but they are in bad shape right now too. I’ve got a couple of friends who have now mentioned CallCentric as an option. I like this one. It only costs $1.95 for a phone number, and it’s $0.015 for incoming minutes. Outgoing minutes are only $0.0198 / min (1.98 cents / minute). Seeing as how we only use at most a couple hundred of minutes on the home phone, this is only going to cost $1.95 + (200 minutes * $0.0198 = 3.96) = 5.91 a month. This sounds good to me! The only issue again is longevity. It’s not clear to me how long they’ll be around.

I was checking on some more providers, like Packet8. One reason I like them is a blurb on their about page :

Packet8 Internet phone service was introduced in 2002 by publicly traded 8×8, Inc. (Nasdaq: EGHT), a 20 year old telecommunications company with more than 68 multimedia and VoIP technology patents.

I’m not 100% sure what this will mean in a patent battle, but at least they might have a way to counter-sue.

We have Time Warner in my area, and they offer Digital Phone service, but it starts at $39.95 and that doesn’t include voicemail (that’s $3.95 extra). I always felt Vonage cost a little more than I wanted to spend. I can’t imagine spending more - especially when I get less for my money.

Another service I found intriguing was ViaTalk. It’s $199.95 if you prepay for a year, and you get two lines! That sounds like a pretty darn good deal. Plus, I might even be able to use my existing Linksys phone connector.

If anyone out there has some suggestions, I’m interested in hearing them. Leave a comment to the post if you’d like, or send us something via the Contact page.

For the immediate future, I’m sticking with Vonage as I continue to research what else is out there.

Image Source: spierzchala

Tightwad Wednesday - Flushing Less Water & Dry Milk

Each week, I will test out two tips from the The Complete Tightwad Gazette, and on the following Wednesday I’ll review how they went and evaluate if it is worth my time/effort/money to continue with it.

Well, again we have mixed results. I suppose that is to be expected though - it wouldn’t be a challenge if it was easy. Let’s get on into it.

Bottle in the Toilet Trick

This Tightwad tip was to help lower the amount of water used for each flush which can help save money on your water bill. You place a bottle filled with rocks in your toilet tank to displace some of the water. This reduces the amount of water used in each flush.

Eric was less than thrilled that I decided to do this Tightwad tip and was very reluctant to even try it. He doesn’t like the idea of having something in the toilet that could mess up its operation or leave a mess (sand). And quite frankly, he just didn’t like the idea of less water when he flushes.

grossAfter fiddling with trying to find rocks I thought of sand or kitty litter. He felt that if the bottle somehow failed it could leak dirt or kitty litter into the tank and we would have a big mess. We have low flow toilets already so he felt limiting even more water would be too much. So we looked for other alternatives.

He suggested we try another time tested trick “if it’s yellow let it mellow…” I agreed to try this as an alternative but only when we don’t expect guests. Yellow tinged water just isn’t a good look.

He has gladly subscribed to this method now and prefers not to flush until needed. I find it tougher to deal with but I’m working on getting over my girly objections to it. I have a goal to flush 1-2 times less a day. I’ll ease into it since it is going against my nature not to flush. Even if I have trouble sticking with it, at the very least having Eric do it will help cut back on our water usage.

Through this experiment I have learned that men can be very picky about their toilets. I guess that is why if given a choice they are more likely to go for a “Ferguson” over a low flow. I would have rather stuck with doing the bottle trick but he feels strongly about conserving by not flushing. So we will go with his method to reach the same goal.

Dry Milk for Drinking

The Complete Tightwad Gazette says this concerning non-fat dry milk:

Rarely will you find absolutes in the pages of The Tightwad Gazette. I believe that each individual or family has their own priorities and values. Dry milk use is one exception. … It is not often that you find a food that combines economy, health, versatility, and convenience in such a perfect union. It has a place in every tightwad cupboard.

Wow. That’s pretty strong encouragement for dry milk from none other than the Frugal Zealot herself. I figured we had to give it a try. I suspected it might be a hard sell because Eric is picky about his milk and I tend to like 1% and above. Dry milk just sounds “icky”, especially for a girl in love with dairy. And my memories of it as a child were not flattering.

Amy recommends starting out with a mix of half whole milk and half dry milk then working your way up until you are drinking more dry milk. She says her family even drinks it straight and enjoys it. With milk costs at $4 a gallon I bet that helps a lot with grocery costs.

In preparation for this test I put a bottle of tap water in the freezer. Milk always tastes better when it is ice cold, right? I mixed up a glass using the directions on my box. Not bad! It doesn’t taste like my 2% but it doesn’t taste bad. Just a little different. Maybe it is an acquired taste that will take longer than my 1 week trial to appreciate. The smell reminded me a little of those instant breakfast mixes.

The Great Milk Challenge!Eric felt it was too “milky”. Apparently he wants his milk to taste more like water and he said that the dry milk tasted more like milk than milk. Ha! Odd but I think I understand what he is saying. He gave up on it and wouldn’t try mixing it half and half for his cereal. But he will also stop drinking regular milk if it smells like anything in the jug so I must conclude that he is just too sensitive and that is ok. I’m the main milk drinker anyway so I continued the testing.

I tried the half and half mix and it was decent, almost like a skim milk. Over cereal it wasn’t bad either. However, I didn’t like the 100% dry milk over the cereal. The flavor was “off” to me and I could see a little sediment from the mix in my bowl. Really it’s not a big deal but I could tell a difference. I imagine it’s easier for people who drink skim to make the switch to 100% since they are already used to “thinner” milk.

For you folks thinking of trying dry milk I say go for it. It could really help out families that go through a lot of milk. I will definitely keep this stuff in my pantry. I don’t mind drinking it 50/50 so it will come in handy when I run low on milk. I suspect it is even better for cooking. I bet you could use it straight in many recipes and not notice a difference at all - especially in those dishes where milk is just a component.

Note: A great trick for making it more palatable is to mix it up and store it in the fridge overnight. This gives it time to fully develop and reach the best flavor. I didn’t know this when I first started drinking it and the flavor did improve over time. Just be sure to mix it well before drinking (sometimes I could see sediment).

Final Thoughts

Bottle Trick: We would rather flush less than have less water to flush with when we do flush. We feel that is a better decision for us. No bottle for us - just less flushing.

Dry Milk: I will definitely keep dry milk in my pantry and I want to continue experimenting with it in cooking. Even if you don’t like it straight up, using it for cooking could at least help conserve the regular milk for drinking. This is really worth trying and could potentially save you money.


Stay tuned for next week’s Tightwad Wednesday challenge where I will be:

Image Source: Kevin Hutchinson

The Surprise Rebate!

It’s worth a shotRebates can be a fickle mistress.  Sometimes it seems like a gamble on whether or not you will actually get that rebate you so painstakingly prepared.  You might get it in the mail or you could get rejected for something small or for seemingly no reason at all. 

A while back I saw a $10 rebate in the paper for buying 10 of the sort of products I use.  Most of the time I ignore smaller rebates but this one was substantial and it beckoned to me.  I had a handful of coupons I could use for the products included in this rebate and with the current sales I could get a very good deal.  With this rebate I had to buy all 10 items in one shopping trip so I knew I couldn’t afford to mess it up.  There would be no second try.

After buying the items, cutting off the UPCs, and getting all the paperwork in order I did my final check before sealing the envelope.  I noticed something.  Staring me in the face was one UPC for an item of the wrong size.  I was mortified and felt sick.  Suddenly my great deal vanished before my eyes.  I knew all this work was for nothing.  I was really surprised at how upset I was over it.

My husband convinced me to go ahead and send it in anyways.  I already had it ready to go in a stamped envelope and he thought it was worth a shot.  If it got rejected I guess I would know why.  I feel like I followed the rules.  My store only offered this one product in one size so I got it not even thinking it might not be included in the rebate.  But I know rebate centers look for things like that to deny requests.  After all, companies don’t want to actually redeem these rebates.  They use them as lures hoping most people forget about them or mess up and it works.

Yesterday I got a big surprise - that rebate check I didn’t think I’d ever see.

I’m thankful that they overlooked that one issue and issued the check anyway.  I sure feel better about redeeming rebates through them now.  I wish all companies were so forgiving with rebates. 

It kinda makes up for all the other rebates that never came through.  Well, not really.

Image Source: ninjapoodles

The Roundup - Stone vs Brick Accents Edition

Stone vs BrickEveryone tells us that building a home is extremely frustrating.  I’m starting to see what they were all talking about. 

The builder just called to inform us that it is standard to get stone accents on the exterior instead of the brick we had chosen.  That’s news to us because we were told we had to choose a brick for accents and stone was never even an option.  After all, the exterior of the home is already that same stone.  How is that an accent?

This is the third case where something was said to be “standard” that they are attempting to change after we signed the contract.  Unfortunately, I hear this behavior is “standard” among builders.  Sorry for the rant everyone, I just needed to vent. 

Let’s move on to some great articles!

More Buffet Strategies: Olive Garden’s Never-Ending Pasta Bowl @ Punny Money - This is a really funny read about a man and his eternal struggle to eat-all-he-can-eat.  It even includes pointers on how to maximize your pasta intake.  Pasta and sauce is so cheap you could probably eat for days and still not come out ahead on that price.

Chop ‘Til You Drop @ Cheap Healthy Good - Learn to how to process all your fresh foods and save money.  Buying pre-chopped veggies is a total rip off.  This is a great guide and even includes instructions and videos on how to prep a huge list of foods.  I bookmarked it.

How Long To Keep Financial Documents @ Rather Be Shopping - I need to go through all my paperwork and start throwing out old bills.  I’ve always kept everything for way too long.  Although keeping all my financial documents for 7 years paid off for me when I had to dispute an error on my credit report.  I’m sure I still could have been able to prove my case without those 6 year old electric bills though I bet it would have taken longer.

Check out these fabulous carnivals:

Make it From Scratch #32 was hosted by Bridget at Miles To Go Before We Sleep.  She did a great job hosting!  My reducipe for Orange Rosemary Pork Chops was included.

Festival of Frugality #93 was hosted at Money and Values.  The cake themed layout was very creative and yummy.   I’m thrilled that my post on frugality becoming an excuse was chosen as a favorite!

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