Watch Makeup Expert Guesses Cheap vs Expensive Blush | Price Points

[gentle music]

A higher price tag in makeup

doesn’t always mean higher quality.

I’m about to be presented with pairs of mystery blushes

and after a series of tests,

I’ll try to determine which was the most expensive.

[upbeat music]

Product A I notice a nice smooth even finish.

I don’t really see any surface glazing.

This looks to be a really nice product.

Surface glazing occurs when there’s too much of a binder

used in a powder product

and it creates kind of a shiny appearance on the surface.

When I inspect product B,

I noticed that it is a little more dull than product A.

However the pigment looks very even

so it looks to be a fairly nice product as well.

Before I apply powder blush,

or any powder product for that matter, I apply a primer.

Primers are made with silicone polymers

that help grip the powder product on your face.

I’m looking to see how much product

is picked up on the brush

and how much is applied to the skin.

It feels very soft and smooth and blends easily.

I really like the feel of this product.

Most blushes don’t really have a whole lot of coverage,

because you want a natural appearance on the cheek.

Unlike say, a foundation or a concealer product,

where we’re trying to hide something on the skin.

I notice this product feels extremely smooth and soft,

really indicating

that there’s some high quality filler materials.

Now on to product B.

This one doesn’t seem to be picking up

as much product on the brush,

so I feel like this one might be a little harder to apply.

I’m not noticing as much color being deposited

and feel like I’d have to apply quite a bit of this product

to get the color I want.

[upbeat music]

Now I’m gonna do a dusting test.

A dusting test is really going to show me

how much of the product actually moves

from the pan onto the brush.

And I’ll start with product A.

So I’m gonna take the brush

and swirl it around in the product a few times

and then I’m gonna tap it off on the paper.

You can see in this product I’ve got quite a bit of powder

that dusted off onto the paper

and there’s actually some sitting on the product as well.

You really don’t want a lot of your powder

being distributed all over the place,

so you’re wasting powder when you’re using the blush.

Now we’re gonna test product B.

I’m gonna swirl the brush in the blush

the same amount of times.

Unfortunately, this one doesn’t have a whole lot of pickup,

so I’m not seeing much of the product dust,

but it’s also not transferring to the brush as well either.

So that indicates to me

that this might be a little bit of a lower quality product

because I’m not getting the transfer from the product

to the brush that I would like to see.

This particular product might have a higher level of fillers

or a lower level of pigment,

as indicated by a lighter shade of the product.

Based on the feel, based on the the pigment levels,

I really think product A is the more expensive product.

Now let’s look at the price.

Product A is $26, product B is $6.49.

Definitely feels, that one feels a lot nicer.

On this one I was right.

Product A is probably a higher tier cost product.

Product B would be more in the range of a product

I might buy at a drug store or grocery store.

I really preferred product A, it had great color payoff,

and it felt really soft on my skin.

I think this product really delivers.

Key ingredients that help product a perform the way it did,

were boron nitride and talc.

Talc is the primary filler, a low cost filler

that’s used in just about every powder product.

Because it’s low cost

doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad material.

Talc is actually one of the softest materials we can use

as a filler in cosmetics, so it’s really useful.

But I also noticed,

that the fourth ingredient is indeed boron nitride,

which I thought I could tell by skin feel.

Boron nitride also has optical blurring effects on the skin,

so it helps reduce the appearance

of pores and blemishes as well.

Boron nitride is also a more expensive ingredient,

so it’s going to be used in more prestige products.

In looking at the ingredients for product B,

I also noticed talc is the number one filler in the product.

Fillers can be up to about 60% of a powder product,

so they really contribute a lot

to the skin feel as well as the cost.

There are some other materials used in here as fillers,

like synthetic fluorphlogopite,

one of my favorite words to say in cosmetic ingredients.

Synthetic fluorphlogopite is synthetic mica.

And while it’s useful as a filler

because it’s highly transparent,

it also is a lot harder in skin feel

than something like talc.

So it may be contributing somewhat

to the increased compaction of product B

and maybe somewhat contributing to the fact

that it didn’t transfer as well to the brush.

[upbeat music]

Let’s try some cream blushes.

When I look at product A, I see a nice smooth finish.

It also looks like it has a lot of chroma

or high intensity of the pigment.

When I look at product B, it also has a nice smooth finish.

It looks a little shinier.

The color on product B

doesn’t seem to be as intense as product A,

maybe indicating there’s lower amount of pigment.

The pigments often contribute a lot of cost to a product.

The lower amount of pigment

might make this a less expensive product.

I’m first gonna try product A.

I’m going to swatch the product on my inner arm.

This product has a really bouncy skin feel.

You can see the intensity of the pigment on my skin.

I’m gonna blend it with a makeup sponge.

You can see the color blends nice and smoothly.

Cream blushes contain more waterproof ingredients.

They contain a lot of waxes as well,

so they’re not gonna move around

as much as a powder product,

so you don’t really need that grip

that comes with the primer.

Now onto product B.

This product feels a lot more oily and waxy

and I’m needing to apply more product

to get the same level of payoff.

Now I’m gonna blend it with the makeup sponge.

[upbeat music]

When using the makeup sponge,

the product really blended out.

I feel like I’m gonna need to apply more of this blush

to get the higher intensity color that I’m looking for.

I think product B may have some lower cost emollients,

making it a little bit more of a greasier, oilier feel

compared to product A.

[upbeat music]

Now we’re going to do a melt test.

You want the product to melt on the skin

and human skin temperature

is about 36 to 37 degrees Celsius,

but you don’t want the product to melt too much,

so that it slides, melts in a hot car,

or any other warm condition.

We have the hot plate set to 50 degrees Celsius,

which is above skin temperature,

to see where the product melts.

We’re gonna start with product A.

I’m going to remove the product from the pan

and scrape it into the beaker.

The product all came out in one piece.

It’s really interesting.

It has sort of a bouncy texture to it.

It was kind of springy.

And now I’m gonna place it on the hot plate

and wait for it to melt.

Yeah, this one doesn’t,

it’s like the texture of Play-Doh almost.

This doesn’t appear to be a traditional hot pour formula.

It might mean that it’s a completely different base,

like a silicone polymer.

The texture was really springy and bouncy

and I don’t think there’s a whole lot of waxes

at all in this formula.

This could indicate

that maybe there’s some silicone polymers

or other materials in here

that would be indicative of a higher cost.

Now we’re going to test product B.

This is behaving

much more like a traditional wax based formula.

This formula behaves similar in many ways

to like a lipstick based formula stick.

It’s starting to melt.

I can see it on the bottom

and you can see the product starting to slide too.

So you can see product B really melted,

compared to product A,

which has this really interesting texture.

It’s still solid and has a pretty springy feel to it.

Because product A has a much different feel and texture,

I think this might have some unique ingredients

that contribute to that product performance

and this might be the more expensive product.

Let’s look at the price.

Cream blush A is $33.

Cream blush B is $17

And I was right,

product A is the more expensive product.

Product B appears to be a mid-range price for a blush,

whereas product A is definitely more prestige price.

I preferred product A.

It had a good amount of playtime,

it blended easily, and it had a good amount of pigment.

The first ingredient in product A is talc, a filler,

and I think fillers get a bad wrap in most formulations.

They actually do a lot for the formula

in terms of how it feels on the skin

and this probably contributes

to a powdery skin feel of the product.

The second ingredient is dimethicone,

and dimethicones are silicones that give you

a high amount of spreading on the skin,

allowing you to blend the product easily.

There’s a dimethicone/vinyl dimethicone crosspolymer,

is really what’s contributing to the skin feel

and the texture, that bouncy feeling,

of this particular blush.

Product B appears to be

a traditional hot pour wax based formula.

It contains a high level of emollients,

like ethylhexyl isononanoate,

and waxes like candelilla wax and carnauba wax.

These waxes will be combined

to create a lower melt point product.

If I look further down on the ingredient list,

I see a lot of extracts,

and typically when a lot of extracts

are put at the bottom of an ingredient statement like this,

they’re what we call pixie dust.

These ingredients might make a nice claim

for the front of label,

but based on their position in the ingredient statement,

they really won’t be contributing much

to the product performance.

They just sound nice on the front of the product.

[upbeat music]

Let’s try some tints and stains.

When looking at a tint or stain,

I’m looking to see the intensity of the color.

Product A looks like a pretty thin liquid product.

I notice a good intensity of color

and it does look a little tiny bit translucent

which suggests this might contain dyes.

And there are actually a few dyes

that we can use in cosmetics that do stain the skin.

These are called fluorescein dyes.

Product B is also quite liquid.

You can see the product flow in the tube.

It looks like there’s a higher intensity

of color additives in this material,

’cause I can barely see through the product.

It’s really dark.

I think this product has a higher percentage of dye

in the product because of the deeper color.

I don’t use a primer with tints and stains either

and that’s typically because a tint or stain

might be primarily water-based.

And because it’s water-based, it’s gonna be incompatible

with the silicones that are used in primers.

I’m going to try product A first.

I’m gonna put a small amount on my arm.

This product contains dyes as opposed to pigments

and in the cosmetics industry,

we can categorize color additives by their solubility.

So a dye is soluble in either water or another solvent,

like ethanol, which is alcohol.

Or a pigment, conversely, is something that’s insoluble.

And now I’ll try Product B.

This appears to have a lot more color

and it feels a lot smoother.

I’m feeling some more emolliency in this product,

compared to product A.

It’s gliding a lot more easily on the skin

and it has a shinier appearance.

And it didn’t dry quite as quickly

compared to product A as well.

And you can definitely see the difference

in the intensity of the color.

Product A did look a little bit streaker

when I applied it to the skin.

I could see the product

kind of pool into little spots on my skin,

compared to product B, which was very smooth and even.

Now I’m going to do a solubility dispersibility test

to help understand more about the nature

of the base ingredients in these formulas.

I’m gonna add a few drops of product A to the beaker.

And you can see the product fully dissolved,

indicating to me that this is indeed a water-based product

using water-soluble dyes.

And I would say based on the color,

this is indeed one of the fluorescein dyes

used in this product.

Fluorescein dyes actually do fluoresce,

so they will glow underneath a black light.

Let’s move on to product B.

Well, you can see this behave differently.

The product sunk to the bottom.

There is some dispersion in the water itself

and you can see the product

is just kind of swirling around on the bottom.

So this product does not appear to be entirely water-based.

It probably contains some emollients in the base,

which because they’re more expensive than water,

might make this more expensive

than the water based product.

Now let’s look at the price.

Tint A is $33, tint B is $4.99.

Sorry, tint B is $4.99.

I’m really surprised that product B

is so much less expensive than product A,

just based on the fact

that the formula contains more emollient materials

that are water insoluble.

I actually did like product B better.

It had a longer play time

to distribute the product and blend it in,

whereas product A dried really quickly

and didn’t give me much time to blend.

Product A is primarily water based.

There’s actually not a whole lot in here.

There’s a little bit of polysorbate 20,

which is acting probably as a surfactant

to help solubilize some of the other materials,

like fragrance or preservative.

One of the interesting ingredients in product A is Carmine.

Carmine is a color additive

that’s actually derived from beetles.

So while it’s natural, it’s not necessarily vegan.

But Carmine is very expensive.

It takes thousands of beetles

to produce tiny amounts of dye.

While product B is water-based,

we have many other ingredients in here like glycerin,

panthenol, sodium hyaluronate, that may be contributing

to the insolubility of some of the materials.

The radish root ferment filtrate

is probably preservative in this guy.

When a product is water-based,

we absolutely need to include preservatives

and those preservatives are there to protect the product

from microbial growth, which is yeast, mold,

and bacteria that can grow in the product

and cause an infection.

Let’s try some liquid blushes.

[upbeat music]

When I’m looking at a liquid blush,

I am looking at the intensity of the pigment.

The product looks pretty thick.

I see a lot of pigment

and looks like it might be something

that’s an oil based product,

based on the way that it moves in the package.

It’s not overly liquidy like a water based product,

so I’m not seeing much movement when I tip the tube.

Product B looks rather pigmented as well.

I think I might notice

a little bit more fillers in this product,

because it has a bit more of a white appearance to it.

So maybe some titanium dioxide as well,

and it appears to be something emollient based.

I’m not seeing the product move in the package,

like I would with a liquid or water-based product.

I’m first going to try product A.

[upbeat music]

Product A feels really thin.

It glides nicely, has a lot of emolliency.

I may have applied too much,

but this seems like it is a emollient based product

with a high level of pigment.

It has a very nice gloss as well on the skin.

Now to product B.

Product B looks to have a higher level of pigments.

I can really see a lot of opacity here,

so there’s probably a greater level of the colors itself,

but also maybe some fillers like titanium dioxide

that may be contributing to the high degree of opacity

I’m seeing with product B.

[upbeat music]

Now I’m going to do a playtime test,

but first I’m gonna calibrate myself using mineral oil.

In a liquid blush, you need a sufficient amount of playtime

to blend the product.

If you don’t have enough time to blend the product,

you might end up with splotches or streaks on your face.

By testing this first,

I can get a reference point to judge the other two products.

Okay, I placed a small amount of product A on my arm.

[upbeat music]

It feels like product A is fully rubbed in.

It had a fair amount of playtime, so it was easy to spread.

The color looks very nice and even and well pigmented.

Now I’m going to test product B.

I’m gonna put a few drops on my arm.

[upbeat music]

Product B feels a lot thicker and a little bit stickier.

It has really even pigment coverage,

very opaque as well.

I can already tell that product B is a lot more emollient.

It is a lot glossier than product A

and it’s taking a lot more time to rub in,

so it really has a lot of playtime.

Maybe a little too much playtime.

I might use a lot less of this product

if I was going to apply it to my face.

I think product B might contain some clays

to help suspend the pigments.

Something like a Bentonite or a hectorite clay.

It also feels a little bit tacky.

There might be some more glycerin

or a higher concentration of maybe occlusive emollients

that are contributing to that tack of the product.

I think product A performed well,

but I think it has a higher degree of oily materials

and might be a less expensive base than product B.

Product A seemed to also have a slightly lower pigment load.

Now let’s look at the price.

Blush A is $8.

Blush B is $23.

On this one,

I think cream blush B was definitely worth the money.

I preferred product B

because it had a higher level of pigment

and it had a greater amount of playtime

to blend the product in.

Product A actually appears to be an emulsion based,

so water is the number one ingredient

and I see Peg-10 dimethicone as the third ingredient,

which would be acting as the emulsifier

to bring the water and oil phases together in this product.

And product A also contains some,

what we call effect pigments,

like synthetic fluorphlogopite,

and calcium sodium borosilicate,

which is essentially a glass effect pigment,

so it gives you a high level of shine.

Product B is not water based.

The first ingredient is something called

hydrogenated polyisobutene.

This is a really thick and shiny emollient.

This is a product also used in a lot of lip glosses,

so it kind of has some similarities to those products.

The other ingredients here we see trimethylsiloxysilicate.

This is a very high gloss silicone material,

which is contributing to the level of sheen

you’re seeing in product B as well.

There is also a disteardimonium hectorite.

This is a type of clay

that we use to help suspend the pigments.

Product B had a higher level of pigment

and I think that equates to a better bang for your buck.

[gentle music]

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