Mark up on Jo Malone and other high end stuff

[MuchasSmoochas]

So a member of my family works at Jo Malone and gets 75% off everything and same with other Estée Lauder group companies which includes Creme De La Mer, Clinique. Flip me I have been naive! If they're still making a profit at that rate they're doing alright. Why do I lust after this stuff! Am a marketing dream.

I used to work in a popular high street dress shop and got 50% off full price and sale, so it's not just fragrance. Although Lord Sugar usually is right when he says that the beauty game is a license to print money.

I agree! The first two ingrediants in many high and low end moisturisers are water and glycerin
All have the same chemicals for spf
And silicones are cheap too
Likewise shampoo in the main is all the same
Creme de la bull is just baby oil plus seaweed - not expensive ingredients
I love reading the ingrediants list and after the first 5 or 6 chemicals the amounts are tiny

It's unbelievable how much a brand is worth. So a candle that costs a fiver could be just as good quality but wouldn't feel the same. Right I am going to have a look at my spending on face care!

I wish more people would talk about this.
I do really like high end skincare, I enjoy the luxury smell/ feel/ richness of it on my face. I guess there is some placebo effect. They were nice things to have but not miracle workers and I have quite happily switched to many other mid-range and cheaper alternatives.
I have friends who buy a lot of Sisley and Creme de la Mer. But they can afford it so... it's their choice.

Makeup on the other hand- the markup feels ridiculous! 20 quid for a tiny pot of eyeshadow, god knows how much it's actually worth.

Most mass market perfumes, including Jo Malone, cost just pennies per bottle to produce. The rest is hype, branding and marketing.

I've stopped buying a lot of the high end stuff and moved to Asian beauty instead, where you usually pay around $20 for most products - so far with equivalent or better results. I got so fed up reading beauty blogs extolling the virtues of the latest £60 cream, only to find it did nothing much.

Scandichick. I'm in the lounge waiting to board a flight to Tokyo. Can you recommend any Japanese products?

So does anyone know which perfumes cost more than pennies to produce? I hear that Jo Malone has gone downhill now it's part of Estee Lauder, but presumably there are some other brands which are smaller and still use quality ingredients that are a bit more worth the money?

Yes can we please hear more about the Japanese products? And for good quality perfume I would go to the perfumista thread.

Things I have tried and loved
Tony moly panda hand cream
Dollish veil vita BB cream in purple
Innisfree red wine sleeping pack

Has anyone tried "JoLoves" stuff, from the firm that Jo Malone set up after selling "Jo Malone" to Estee Lauder? (I'm kind of surprised the sale didn't include a requirement not to set up another Jo Malone shop selling the same stuff, but eh, clearly not.)

I used to buy loads of this stuff when I was younger and couldn't afford it - now I can I don't!

Thanks Hollin. Re the real Jo, she had a restrictive covenant preventing her from setting up for five years but that's finished a while ago.

And they never do sales/offers/discounts- too "exclusive".

Some niche outfits invest in naturals. I feel Tauers and Kilians are quite nice. However, you need synthetics too to make a good perfume. I think Chanel and Guerlain pay attention to quality.

A fascinating story on raw materials. Tauer also sometimes talks about batches of intriguing materials on his blog.

41690 Tuesdays is a fabulous hand made artisan perfume brand. She makes them and bottles them herself. Also Papillon Tauer and Pell Wall. All are indie brands where the cost covers the ingredients and not marketing or advertising or spokesmodels.

Sorry Papillon and also Tauer. My post made them look double barrelled

Thanks for the recommendations! Will have a peep over at perfumistas too

You just need to look at how much of department stores' ground flora are now given over to perfume and cosmetics, and bags, to realise where the mark ups are.

For those interested in asian skincare, do be aware that animal testing is much, much more prolific in asian products.

At least EU companies only "allow" animal testing to be done as part of the requirements of selling in China - they don't actually test on animals themselves or as part of the production.

Still sickening, but not quite as bad.

TPel, probably too late but Hada Labo is brilliant!

For those interested in Asian beauty, there's a long-running thread in Style & Beauty here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/style_and_beauty/2455548-Obsessed-with-Asian-Korean-stuff-taking-your-skincare-to-level-5

There's an Asian Beauty sub on Reddit totoo that I'd really recommend, they're a lovely bunch and very helpful. I'm pretty sure there's a sticky there on brands not testing on animals too.

Here's a link to Reddit:
m.reddit.com/r/AsianBeauty/

Much in beauty and skincare is a license to print money with smoke and mirrors to convince us there is some magic out there or dress it up as a luxury experience.

Especially at the high end, it's just a way to remove money from the super rich while allowing the super rich to show other people that they are rich as they own all the right brands. Those of us who aren't super rich of course want to buy a piece of it too because we think it's better... Cash all round for the beauty multi-nationals.