The Beauty Brains are often asked if expensive beauty products are worth the money. We’ve blogged about high priced hair lines like Alterna and Kerastase as well as prestige skin care products like IS Clinical and Cor, the worlds most expensive soap. 
Cost does not equal quality
We’ve frequently stated our opinion that these expensive products are not necessarily better than cheaper alternatives, but many people SWEAR the more costly products are better. While this may be true in some cases, we believe that more often, people convince themselves that products work just because they spend a lot of money on them. Now there’s a new research study that provides a scientific basis for this theory.
The science of liking
According to an article in ScienceNow, products with higher price tags can actually fool you into thinking they’re better by manipulating the pleasure centers of your brain. Researchers Antonio Rangel from the California Institute of Technology, and Baba Shiv at Stanford University, have studied the effect of product price on the brain. They used magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brains of test subjects as they sipped wine. The brain imaging confirmed that people really thought the cheap wine tasted better when they were told it was more expensive.
According to the article: “Price can serve as a quality cue that guides enjoyment of a product, especially when one does not know enough about it.” That’s why The Beauty Brains are here: to help you learn the truth about products so your brain isn’t tricked by high prices.
–Mid Brain
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I just heard about this study myself. I’ve always wondered if I would really enjoy a $200 bottle of wine more than a $20 bottle of wine. It sounds like someone just needs to serve me a $20 bottle….but tell me it’s a $200 bottle!
I remember they had a related study on the TV news show, 20/20, a few years ago. It addressed people’s preference for “top shelf” alcohol. They got a group of people together who had definite preferences for a specific expensive vodka: Grey Goose, Belvedere, etc.. They asked them if they could pick out the vodka they drank from cheaper vodkas. They all claimed they could so the experiment began, with them being served glasses of vodka over an extended period of time.
You can probably guess what happened. They couldn’t pick their favorite. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of them picked one of the cheaper vodkas. They then showed footage of them as they tasted it, claiming how smooth it was, saying this was definitely THEIR vodka! They were shocked when they heard the results.
I do think I get headaches rather easily from cheap alcohol, though, so I stick with ones I can afford without the ill effects.
According to Halle Berry, “Beauty is meaningless and transitory”.
I believe otherwise. The concept of beauty has taken a whole new form. It has become the highlight of literature and the epicenter of our lives.
http://efm.lk/hometab/featuredarticle/index.php
Ah yes, sage advice that could only come from someone who’s already beautiful.