I watched this program on PBS last night: The Powder and the Glory. It was about the history of prestige cosmetics and cosmetic use in the US. The featured entrepreneurs were Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden, who simultaneously started rivaling cosmetics companies in the early 1900's.
The show took the viewer through several decades of cosmetic developments and trends and showed how these two women literally changed the faces of women worldwide.
One thing that stuck with me was this: the narrator described how Elizabeth Arden set the pricing of prestige brands by influencing the attitude of the buyer not on the value of the cosmetic ingredients themselves, but on what the buyer would pay for them. The higher the price, regardless of the cost of production or its effects on the buyer, the more desirable a product would be. Fooling people into thinking they were getting a better product because the price was higher worked and two successful businesses were formed - at our expence and because of our vanities...and hope. She sold a face cream, that cost 5 cents to manufacture, for 85 cents ( these are depression era prices )....a profit of 80 cents. Or was that Helena Rubenstein? Arden said that no one should ever pay under one dollar for a product. Pure marketing and arrogance!
Given today's world economic situation, what do you think? I think I will eventually stop buying prestige brands and just stick with Revlon, a company who is making some nice looking products. What makes the prestige brands truly any better?
Bunny