[Misc] When brands are basically robbing their customer. (x-post /DIYBeauty)

Beauty Tips For Body Care
One of my hobbies is to go through expensive skincare brands' ingredients list just to see if I could formulate them at home and how much it would cost me vs buying directly from them.Obviously, I wouldn't try to formulate DE Protini at home since buying (and finding) all those peptides would be costlier and much more time consuming than just buying from DE directly... not to mention trying to understand at which percentage to add which peptide... It would get too confusing for me. But then there are these simple formulas that are just oils or water and a few extracts that are very doable at home. They're obviously sold at a higher price than it would cost to make them at home but it's okay, brands have to pay their chemists, marketing etc. But there's a difference in making a product for $5 and selling it for $60 compared to making a product for $5 and selling it for $300. The latter is nothing short of robbery IMO. Okay, 'robbery' might be too extreme but I really can't think of another word. I might edit and change it when I'm less mad and I've gotten over this absurd product that I'm about to talk about next.My inspiration for this post is this Hyaluronic Acid Serum by Dr. Barbara Sturm. She sells it for $300. Maybe it's chock full of expensive extracts, peptides and what not? Nope. This is the INCI:WaterButylene GlycolLactobacillus/Portulaca Oleracea Ferment ExtractPhenoxyethanolSodium HyaluronateEthylhexylglycerinPotassium SorbateLeuconostoc/Radish Root Ferment FiltrateEight ingredients - four of which are preservatives and one is water.Let's see how much this would cost to make at home. Instead of the preservatives she used, I'll use Liquid Germall Plus. The rest is basically the same.IngredientPriceCost for 100gWater////5% Butylene Glycol$4.25 for 4oz/113g$0.185% Lactobacillus/Portulaca Oleracea Ferment Extract$18.85 for 2oz/57g$1.651% Sodium Hyaluronate$4.45 for 1g$4.450.50% Liquid Germall Plus$3.49 for 1.25oz/35g$0.04Leuconostoc/Radish Root Ferment FiltrateIt preserves the extract.//Total: $6.32/3 $2.20 to make approx 30g at home! Let's not forget that brands have access to wholesale prices and here I calculated the costs from the smallest quantity available which is usually more expensive than buying a larger quantity.I would love to hear examples of similar products and your thoughts on them.
Girls Blog 2015
Submitted by xNanaOsaki