How to tell if a skin care product is good (or bad!)
These will not help you
1) Price. There is no correlation between price and quality because prices are greatly inflated to give the illusion of a luxury good or because the company’s structure requires huge mark-ups
2) Texture and smell. You may want these characteristics but these alone will say nothing about how effective the product will be
3) Use of “science” in advertising. Skin care companies have became very good at using scientific sounding language to give an impression of seriousness.
4) Where is it made? Korean, Japanese, French companies use the same ingredients to manufacture skin care products. Skin care is a global market. At most, there may be a difference in “label value” ingredients like some unusual plant extracts.
5) Packaging makes a product look expensive even if the ingredients inside cost way less than the jar. Don’t be fooled.
6) The store where it’s sold. A fancy store will add to the price but no necessarily to the quality.
7) Being advertised as natural or naturally derived. These days, the word “natural” is defined in such a way that it has lost any useful meaning, a process called “green washing”. Remember that everything on earth is naturally derived, including plastics.
8) Products advertised as lacking in “poisons” such as phosphate, preservatives, etc. These are promoted base is misleading information spread by fake grass roots groups, who get rich by giving the stamp of purity (to those willing to pay for it). Again, they take advantage of people who don’t know chemistry.
The best antidote? Learn about the science behind skin care.
These will hep you
- Ingredient list. But you need to know how to read and interpret it.
- My book. When I started Skin Actives I didn’t know what I know now. Now you can learn what I did learn, in my book, blog and forum.
- Buy from Skin Actives. Our products work because the ingredients in them work.