Do expensive products have higher quality ingredients?

R

Roy

Messages
618
I love top end soaps such as SV, MDCand Musgo creams.

However, I get excellent results from some of the cheapest creams such as palmolive and proraso, although some cheap products give me a bit of irritation.
Do the expensive products contain better ingredients? Scents are not a factor as my sense is smell isn't great.
 
Compare, say T&H refill cake at £19 to Mitchell's new formula, which if I was a betting man I'd say was now made by the same factory, that retails at £7.50. Yes, T&H also sell that same cake in a wooden bowl for £34 and again, if I was a betting man, would say do not cost anywhere near a £15 to produce.

MWF is a folksy, cards and tat shop soap. T&H is a premium London brand and that is reflected in the mark-up.
 
I used to work in the food manufacturing industry. I remember seeing the packing line, they would have a certain amount of boxes required on a pallet to fulfil an order and when the order was done they would change to packaging and label indicating which supermarket the product was to be sold in, alter the price and the line would start up again until that order was fulfilled. Exactly the same item but one had posher packaging and label, I can only imagine the same happening throughout all of the food and cosmetics industry. It’s all about marketing and brand image.
 
Roy said:
I don't know if it's coincidence but I've used my treat of aqua di parma this past week. My skin feels wonderful, not a hint of irritation.
Click to expand...
That’s because it’s a good product. But I’m also sure that Palmolive in a tube under 2 euros is just as good. It’s mostly marketing obviously. At the end of the day a good cream is a good cream irrespective of price.
 
NeilJ said:
I used to work in the food manufacturing industry. I remember seeing the packing line, they would have a certain amount of boxes required on a pallet to fulfil an order and when the order was done they would change to packaging and label indicating which supermarket the product was to be sold in, alter the price and the line would start up again until that order was fulfilled. Exactly the same item but one had posher packaging and label, I can only imagine the same happening throughout all of the food and cosmetics industry. It’s all about marketing and brand image.
Click to expand...
There’s an upscale department store close to where I work. I sometimes go there in my lunch break just for fun. Just the other day I couldn’t believe my eyes. On display were rather small tubes of Dior Homme shaving cream at 53 euros a tube!
 
pjgh said:
Having worked in industrial food production engaged in practices which I guess are repeated throughout most industries, I can emphatically say "no". Same product ends up in a dozen different packages with a price range from premium to bargain basement.
Click to expand...
@pjgh True for “industrial” and factory produced stuff. As a small-scale maker, quality ingredients do matter and do make a difference to the quality of shave IMO.
 
Mostly, the ingredients are the cheap part of a product.
An easy formula can be 30-50 €/kg ... and a complex one can be 100-150.
After this, It needs more steps (milling, time) to have a long lasting soap.
I mean hundreds of shaves. So It's not expencive in the end.
With better performance.

BTW, Proraso is a great product in the first category.
For a similar performance, more expencive goes in marketing ...
 
Reading this thread and seeing the hyper financialisation of almost everything, I am suprised that soaps and razors have not moved fully on to the subscription model of business, perhaps it will come.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom