You personally did not bash the questioner, others did. I don’t believe it’s insidious to follow a question through rather than simply dismissing it.

I know that sandalwood and rose oil have not been proved to have amazing affects, the point was hypothetically if they were, they would not be used due to market forces.

Reiterating my previous post I do not think the arbitrary class of “natural ingredients” are better or worse than the arbitrary class of “synthetic ingredients”. But likewise one should not fool oneself that synthetic is somehow better. Some are, some aren’t.

It hasn’t been proven that Sandalwood or Rosa Damascena in large concentration have an amazing effect. That’s why no one (even expensive brands) use them at high levels. Other, synthetic, ingredients work better.

I have the advantage of getting samples of any ingredient I want. Chemical companies send them to cosmetic chemists for free in hopes to get them to use them. I would love to create products for myself using these extremely expensive ingredients and I used to make them all the time. But they didn’t work any better.

Like I said, if a natural ingredient is superior, we would find a way to use it. For the most part, they just don’t provide a significant enough benefit to be worth using.

Incidentally, the irony of you complaining about us “bashing” the questioner then launching into your own criticism & insidious innuendo about the Beauty Brains motivation isn’t lost on us.

We have no agenda except to educate people. You can buy whatever product you want. Just don’t fool yourself into thinking “natural” is somehow better. There’s no evidence that it is.

-Left Brain

“when oftentimes the ingredient is so low on the list of ingredients as to have no effect whatsoever?” – MoxieHart (2009)

A low concentration does not mean it is will not be affective. Many chemicals, drugs etc are given in extremely low doses, how many times have you taken a large tablet that clearly weighs a fair amount to read it contains 10mg of the active drug. (This applies to topical drugs too; take BPO (2.5%) or ZnO (0.35%) for example).

Also:
“I will take synthetics over the naturals of those products any day.” – MoxieHart(2009)

I personally will take whichever has the most evidence and efficacy behind it with the lowest potential for damage. Being a fervent chemical lover is no better than being a blind natural follower. And by “at any given time in the past” you mean at a fixed point in the past i.e. quite a while ago. The fact is that while belladonna worked (as it is an antimuscarinic) it was found (a long time ago) to cause blindness (in 1867). As we’ve come a long way since 1867 and the fact that many of the natural products have been around longer than their synthetic counterparts you can see how it would be possible for someone to assume that the natural one would most likely be safer (though extensive use in the past and possible testing).

The important thing is too make sure you have key active ingredients that do stuff (chemical or natural) and then ensuring that the ingredients they are carried by are as safe and not antagonistic (and possibly synergetic). And I’m pretty sure the BBs will agree with me here.

“Cosmetic chemists would be happy to use natural ingredients if they performed as well or better than synthetic ones” – left brain

Which is clearly dependent on the chemical and most importantly the price of said chemical, for example if it was proven that sandalwood and rosa damascena in large concentrations had some amazing effect, I can’t see them changing, except for the high end products. It’s a market, the companies have shareholders and the shareholders care about return. So, cheaper ingredients are used. The organic/high end products are affected by the same pressures they just play the game differently, they use high quality (if your lucky) ingredients, but have a much higher mark up to make up for the fact they will have a much lower market share. Which model you endorse/choose is up to you but don’t pretend there’s no market.