Click here to visit the Beauty Brains blog.
Welcome to the new Forum. Please feel free to start a new discussion.
Has there ever been a good study on the effectiveness of a beauty product?
  • bluecatbaby

     The post about Nuvosa lotion has me wondering.....

    Can anyone describe a well-designed study that has been done on a real beauty product by its own company?

    If there is one, can you estimate the cost to the company of conducting the study?

    Finally, I have read articles about Consumer Reports testing various beauty products so that they can give ratings. Their methods seem to be good, but are they really? They often have people trained as raters (who are not using the products themselves) to assess things such as, for example,  the changes in the appearance of a patch of skin after using a serum for 2 weeks.

     

  • rozy
    The best are done by big companies like loreal they even make brand new chemicals like the sunscreen mexoryl. Smaller companies often make false misleading claims because they dont have the resources I guess to innovate even big companies like loreal still sometimes make false claims because they know their main audience may be mostly scientifically illiterate and they can make just as much off the marketing as they could off good research.
  • rozy
    and mostly the studies are on specific ingredients and not on the product itself.
  • bluecatbaby
    You're absolutely right, Rozy. But, you know, I think that many readers of this blog would appreciate a product with a good study behind it, and would be willing to buy it (if it met their needs). I know I would.
  • BrainHeartBeauty
    I sometimes wonder how stupid the companies think their consumers are. "Millionize your lashes", L'Oreal? Really?

    I think studies on ingredients are very helpful, especially when it's a more widely used one like vitamin E or certain plant extracts that's applicable to multiple products. It's a good starting point for a brand to be able to say, yes, this ingredient is known to do X, but if it's last on a long list of ingredients, it's probably not so relevant.

    Also, as far as actual product testing goes, I'm not necessarily against anecdotal methods as long as it's blind and has a large enough sample size. I'm critical of products with fine print of "tested by 16 women over 4 weeks" but if they can supply proof of a large group, a control situation and enough variation within that group (I know a few do, but I can't think off the top of my head who they are) then I'll take that into consideration.
Add a Comment