Fear and Loathing: Why People Buy Cosmetics
Perhaps this is a seditious thought, especially from the mouth of a beauty editor, but nonetheless I will express it. 95% of jars and vials that people regularly buy in cosmetic stores and corners, if you look at it from a purely practical point of view, are completely unnecessary.
From this very point of view, the beauty industry is generally the most mysterious of all the industries I know. The volume of production, sales and the volume of money supply that is spinning in this industry are completely incompatible with its real need for you, me and all other buyers. Meanwhile, buyers regularly vote in rubles, dollars, euros and other currencies for it to further develop, flourish and fool our heads. And all because this industry has long felt for the buttons that should be pressed to cause us an unconditioned reflex.
1. "Buy, and it will be worse!"
Scare to death, and then offer a pill that will save you from future misfortunes - a method that is widely used by manufacturers of pharmaceutical drugs, medicines and ointments, dispensed in pharmacies without a prescription. Some cosmetic brands that position themselves as "cosmocentical" or simply emphasize their proximity to medicine work on the same principle. The most striking example is the Vichy brand. In the recent past, one glance at Vichy’s advertising images was quite enough for a normal person to feel uneasy: the half-face model had some scabs (moisturizer advertisement), half-priests in sofa rivets (advertisement for cellulite ). The second half, fertilized Vichy, while looking, of course, excellent. And at the presentations, which the brand arranged for journalists, the nervous and impressionable entrance should have been banned altogether. The aging process of the skin there was shown with clarity, close to cruelty. And when the spectators of the palm became wet, and the look was disturbing, they were offered a solution on how to avoid such metamorphoses - with the help of the Vichy jar, of course. Now the brand is gradually moving away from such barbaric methods, lowering a dose of fear and increasing the dose of beauty on its images - advertising for NormaDerm Tri-active is much more humane than the previous ones, but the horror genre is still noticeable.
In general, the most common beauty horror stories are age and cellulite. Girls are desperately afraid of both - although, in my opinion, if it were not for the efforts of my glossy colleagues (including my own), they would never have looked with such zeal in their faces for signs of "premature aging" and on the thighs - traces of the "orange peel", which actually (and the producers themselves admit it) is in fact a secondary female sex trait. But the industry works without failures: you first need to find a problem, then make sure that the problem is found by the conjunders, then - to offer a means to solve it. As a result, we have a huge amount of funds that have the words “anti-age” and “anti-cellulite” in the titles - simply because these two words affect hypnotically customers. The options "anti-wrinkle" (wrinkle), "lift" and "lifting" (against the loss of elasticity) also work well, but with the "anti-age", of course, can not.
The pinnacle of this successful marketing discovery is the Alterna and Aldo Coppola anti-age hair lines and the Sally Hansen Age Correct Growth Treatment anti-age hair care product line. No doubt, the hair and nails, too, of course, are aging. However, the usual good shampoos and nail products strengthen them no worse. Since the names are proper names, there are no laws regulating which means have the right to be so called, and which are not. And nothing prevents manufacturers from putting "anti-age" at least on a chair, even on a chest of drawers. Therefore, I look forward to the appearance of "anti-age" mascara.
How marketing works: Sally Hansen and Alterna came up with anti-aging nail (1) and hair (3) remedies, and Vichy (2) uses frightening pictures in advertising campaigns.
As for the notorious "premature aging", there is generally a mysterious story. Not a single specialist was able to give me a clear answer to the question of what aging can be considered premature. Wrinkles around the eyes at 25 are caused by a million factors, from facial expressions to genetics, as well as loss of tone at 35. All attempts to influence genetics that cosmetic brands take from time to time, vaguely claiming that they “work at the gene level” look from the point of view of serious scientists, ridiculous. However, the brands are actively developing the theme of "fighting premature aging" and under this cover offer us to buy a 155th jar of cream.
In fact, no anti-age cosmetic will save you from the age when it comes. And no means of "anti-cellulite" will not remove cellulite, if it is programmed genetically. The most that creams, serums, lotions, essences and emulsions are capable of is to maintain a normal level of hydration in the skin, relieve irritation and eliminate the feeling of tightness. And it really doesn’t matter if they have any magic phrase in their name or not.
As the legendary woman cosmetologist Joelle Siokko recently said at a press conference: “There are no bad creams in the world. You just need to find a tool that will be right for you.” So if we conduct searches, then it is in this direction, without being distracted by beautiful advertising slogans and without acquiring another bank with an appropriate inscription.
2. "Buy it because it is expensive!"
Stamps that work at the top of the price Olympus go the other way. They treat their customers reverently and no one, God forbid, do not frighten "premature aging." (Especially since their clients, as a rule, have already crossed the threshold when wrinkles are perceived as a universal catastrophe.) They convince with a ruble, setting a price for their money at which you can buy a half-car or at least a moped, and run into your head simple mechanism for the buyer: "So expensive can only be what really works!" The ReVive brand follows this path - individual funds cost about 40,000 r. and contain, if you believe everything they write, the component of EGF (epidermal cell growth factor), the discovery of which was awarded the Nobel Prize. There is also a set of Guerlain, called the "Royal Orchid" - worth a total of 35 000 p. There is Beauty Diamond Carita cream, which is a little less than 100 thousand rubles, and cream from the "Platinum" line La Prairie (27 000 rubles).
And finally, the peak (at least for today, tomorrow someone will surely climb even higher) - the Luquid Surgery Serum tool from Medical Beauty Research (211,000 p.). At the same time, the bottle is not at all striking in its decoration, as is often the case with expensive brands, but on the contrary, it is pointedly modest. The tool has a nickname - "Liquid Surgeon", and it claims to work no worse than a scalpel. Solid surgeons (ie, living professionals) are skeptical about him - they say, only a scalpel in good hands can be better than a scalpel.
ReVive (1), Medical Beauty Research (2) and Carita (3) are convincing in the effectiveness of their funds by selling them at an incredible price.
And, nevertheless, funds in this sky-high price range is becoming more and more, and their value is getting higher. A few years ago, for example, the set of Estee Lauder Re-Nutriv Re-Creation Day and Night for $ 900 seemed like the height of insane luxury - and today it is almost perceived as the norm.
But nowhere has it been proven that funds that cost more than five of your salaries work an order of magnitude better than those that do not cost so much. It is proved only that the button "buy, because it is expensive!" for a certain audience works flawlessly.
3. "Buy because it is beautiful!"
But creams and serums are half the trouble. The real trouble and the real mass addiction is shine, lipstick, powder, that is, make-up. Although in general, if you think about it, you can use one palette of shadows for a year. One lipstick - at least six months. One lip gloss - a few months. Nail polish in general, as a rule, dries before it ends.
Then how - and why - hundreds and thousands of decorative cosmetics units are daily swept off the shelves?
Most beauty brands, tweaking under the fashion rhythm, produce two seasonal makeup collections a year, plus a special Christmas one. In them, as a rule, only the color gamut changes, and a certain star-product, a sort of hit, is also available in limited editions. Glitter is added generously to Christmas. The color scheme either repeats the color scheme, which can be seen this season on the catwalks, or is created with such an account that the new shades of shadows are mounted with the main colors of the season. However, any make-up artist will confirm that makeup should be in harmony with the color of the eyes and skin tone, and they have not yet mastered this trend - change every season.
Nevertheless, seasonal collections fly like hotcakes. Why? Yes, because it is beautiful! When buying decorative cosmetics, we actually buy our own toys, which in fact are not so much in adults, because only that which has absolutely no practical use can be considered a real toy. Having understood this, the brands focused on visual and gaming effects. And they have reached unprecedented heights.
The reason to buy new products Guerlain (1), Giorgio Armani (2), Chanel (3) and Dolce & Gabbana (4) is not only the contents, but also the packaging
My favorite toys of recent times are an eye-catcher from the 68 Champs-Elysees Guerlain Autumn-Winter Collection, The Lip Jewels from the Dolce Gabban Christmas Collection, a Chanel thing that is difficult to classify, from the Soho Collection, which was specifically released on the occasion of a boutique update. Chanel in the New York district of Soho. I am pleased that the packaging for Ecrin 6 Couleurs Guerlain was created by designer India Mahdavi, who made many unusual things and interiors, including the Hotel Monte Carlo Beach in Monte Carlo and the restaurant Le Germain in Paris. The functionality of the palette (although the colors are excellent, and it is convenient to apply the shadows) for me all the same takes a back seat. In the same way, I like The Lip Jewels Dolce Gabbana: the motivation to buy this palette is not so much the need for a new lipstick, but a heavy ruby lid. And the value of the star product Chanel from the Soho collection for me is not that it is both blush and shadows, but rather that it is a pure example of pop art in beauty interpretation. As well as the shadow of Armani Eyes To Kill. I hardly wear blue shadows. But to resist the beauty, alas, is not able to. And in this case, to be honest, I see no reason to train willpower.
Yana Zubtsova worked for 15 years as the beauty director of the magazines Domovoy and Harpers Bazaar, was a feature editor at Vogue, during her career she visited about 1869 presentations of new perfumes and interviewed almost all of the main perfumers of modern times. Despite the vast experience in the field of perfume industry (both positive and negative), loves fragrances. He is currently Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Sex & The City magazine. |