Is the cosmetics industry very secretive?

[Davespecifico]

The reason I ask is that I’d love to know, for example, if the Aldi Caviar cream is as good as something I’d pay £100 for.
I’ve been able to find very little part from subjective reviews to tell me if it’s worth buying cheaper products. My partner knows someone very knowledgable science of sort of thing and he seems to think E45 will do just as well.
So where online will I find the most honest and detailed information about what I’m buying?

Well they protect their formulas very well but ingredient lists are mandatory and they are in order of concentration so it reveals a lot. A cosmetic chemist (there are a couple active on social media) whose job it is to formulate these things can give a lot of insight.

The Beauty Brains podcast do that (two cosmetic chemists) but they don't do product recommendations as they feel it would impact their impartiality. They'll say the same thing though, a moistuiser is pretty basic and its function is limited (literally to moisturise) so you don't need bells and whistles, a bland fragrance free one formulated for your skin type is all you need.

As good as a £100 cream is subjective though, there's a sensorial aspect to skincare and for some the added bells and whistles make something worth it. But from a strict aspect, spend your money on active ingredients if you care to (not in your moisturiser, but standalone products, usually serums), most other things can be bland and basic, but take care to incorporate sunscreen as this is the most important when it comes to maintaining skin health.

*sunscreen as in a daily standalone products, not as part of your moistuiser, for clarity. You'll never get the advertised protection on a moistuiser with SPF as you just don't use enough of it.

If you are just looking for a moisturiser any normal one would do depending on skin type (lotion/cream). I think basic products are fine for cleanse, moisturize and protect routine.
If you are looking for extras like vitamin C or Retinols other actives then you can browse a range of products from high street to big brands and it's a trial and error thing.
Personally prescription Retinols work best is my guess. My friend is 50 and looks really young she has a dermatologist appointment at every couple of months where she gets her Retinols and exfoliating peels. She uses basic Cetaphil and sunscreen for cleanse, moisture and protect routine.

The 'truth about looking good' on bbc iPlayer is very interesting program on the beauty industry.

Yes I think a lot of it is brushing reality under the carpet because the things that work are cheap, out of patent & not exciting.

The ads amuse me when you see multi-millionaires like Geri Haliwell advertising L’Oréal moisturiser or Claudia Schiffer advertising box hair dye 😂.

@Fluffycloudland77

Yes I think a lot of it is brushing reality under the carpet because the things that work are cheap, out of patent & not exciting.

The ads amuse me when you see multi-millionaires like Geri Haliwell advertising L’Oréal moisturiser or Claudia Schiffer advertising box hair dye 😂.

Yeah, it's interesting the very small handful of ingredients available OTC that actually do something are often carefully worded by legal to under-promise as stating what it could do would classify it as a medicine and be forced off the shelves.

That same legal department then carefully embellishes the claims of so called star ingredients within the absolute limits of marketing, selling you on dream promises. If there's a celebrity involved, it's pretty much all you need to know that it's likely the hope in a jar (but full of empty promises) variety. Understanding an INCI list gets you a lot farther though.