product. But the “angel duster” would save up to 1,000 percent on the active ingredient without
breaking any laws or rules.
While there’s nothing harmful in this practice in itself, abuse in angel dusting can be a harmful
practice (figuratively and literally) because it deliberately misleads consumers and dissipates the
trust in cosmetic innovations. The only way to spot the “angel-dusted” ingredient is to look at the
label. Reputable companies always list the concentration of the active ingredient. For example,
Prevage by Allergan is made with 1 percent idebenone (a very potent synthetic version of CoQ10),
and Strivectin SD by Klein-Becker is made with 5 percent Striadril, a proprietary blend of
pentapeptides.
Lesson 2: Understand What You Are Paying For
Before you ever reach for your hard-earned cash, keep this in mind: of every dollar paid for mass-
market skin care, sixty cents goes to the manufacturer and forty cents goes to the retailer. No matter
what you buy—a pair of jeans or a lawn mower—the proportion remains pretty much the same.
Manufacturers pay for production, packaging, storage, and transportation. For eighteen cents, they
hire smart marketing advisers who tell them how to make women pay $50 for 1 ounce of
petrochemicals, preservatives, and synthetic fragrances. These marketing geniuses hire teenage
models or starlets to market the product to forty-year-olds. Eleven cents goes toward packaging: a
team of artists is picked to design a stylish, expensive-looking bottle. Two cents pays for interest and
other boring things, and eighteen cents pays salaries and covers administrative expenses. The retailer
pays the rent, designs attractive window displays, and gives gift bags to the media to make them write
about the new store event. Forty cents pays salaries to salespeople, bookkeepers, and security guys.
Of every buck you spend on a beauty product, only seven cents will pay the real cost of the
ingredients. Another four cents will cover the production—the process of mixing, whipping, and
pouring. That’s it. The remaining money feeds the army of professionals who do nothing to improve
the quality of the beauty product.
I learned this formula from product-development textbooks when I started creating my own skin
care line, Petite Marie Organics. Since I am a small business, I can avoid many organizational costs
and invest the money where it must belong in skin care—in high-quality, organic ingredients.
Let’s examine the ingredients list of a popular moisturizer marketed for sensitive skin. The formula
is loaded with humectants and film-forming agents that do not penetrate skin. Even though the lotion is
called fragrance-free, there are some synthetic fragrances to mask the real (most likely, filthy) scent
of the ingredients, and there is a “food-grade” preservative added to extend the shelf life. In my
opinion, this is a better formulation, since it contains no synthetic dyes, paraben preservatives, or
strong penetration enhancers. It is moderately priced around $9 per generous 16-ounce bottle (almost
a half-liter).
So how much would the ingredients cost if you and I tried to recreate the lotion at home? Let’s just
take a look at the first few ingredients that make up the bulk of the lotion. Water is nearly free,
glycerin costs $1.70 per 8 ounces, emulsifier ceteareth-20 costs $2.20 per 4 ounces, another
emulsifier and thickener, cetyl alcohol, costs $1.27 per 4 ounces, and macadamia oil—a strong
allergen, especially for those with nut allergies— costs $6 per 8 ounces. We will use only a few
teaspoons of each ingredient, so the whole formulation ends up costing $1.50, even if you replace