Are Expensive Skincare Products Really Worth It?

Price. It’s something we all think about when it comes to purchasing goods, products, and everyday essentials. But the price of an item or thing is so much more than just the dollar amount you pay. 

The thing about price is that it isn’t indicative of the quality of ingredients, craftsmanship, production costs that went into making the product, or the overall benefit that the product has on your life. Prices can be low, fair, or high and can often be set at the judgement of the provider or vendor. 

This has been a BIG eye opener for us here at Bend Soap Company and, really, something we think is worth highlighting. 

Since day one, we’ve worked hard to offer quality, skin-loving products at reasonable prices. We research each and every ingredient we put into our products, carefully dissecting their pros and cons, and looking at things like cost and availability. We try to be good stewards of our resources and look to source local ingredients right here from Central Oregon as much as possible in an attempt to help support the community who’s been so good to us over the years. We do our best to keep costs low for our customers without compromising on quality, opting to do things like hand-label our bars of soap until we could raise enough money to buy a labeling machine debt-free. 

These things might seem small and insignificant to some, but they all have an impact on the products that you choose to buy, bring into your home, and share with your friends and family. To us, the affordability of our products comes down to a trifecta between the quality of ingredients, pride in our craftsmanship, and our mission to help people find a better alternative to the chemical ridden products that can so easily be found in stores. 

Do You Get What You Pay for with Expensive Skincare Products?

For sake of simplicity, let’s take a closer look at the most popular product we offer here at Bend Soap Company: goat milk soap! Soap is actually our flagship product, originally created to cleanse our son’s skin while also helping to naturally manage his eczema after searching desperately for a product and realizing there weren’t any affordable, all-natural options. 

But what makes our soap so different from another comparable soap you could find in your local grocery store or even a high-end bath and body shop? It’s simple: the ingredients we’ve chosen to use. 

When it comes to the ingredients we use to make your products, we’ll never skimp on quality. 

Most people are shocked to learn that our goat milk soap formula has not changed since we first launched our business back in 2011. While the scents we offer have changed over time, the two original “scents” we offer (which are actually scent-free) — Oatmeal & Honey and Unscented — haven’t changed at all since we first launched them. Today, these are two of our most popular scents! 

But we were curious about how our ingredients stood up against those of other comparable brands, so we decided to do a little research of our own. When comparing similar goat milk soap products on the market,  we were shocked to discover similar products that were selling for upwards of $10-$15. Just for a single bar of soap! 

The untrained eye might think, “Well, if the soap costs that much, it must be a really good soap!” But don’t be fooled. Upon further inspection of the labels, we saw some not-so-high-quality ingredients listed out. Ingredients like...

• Ethyl alcohol
• Soybean oil (often GMO!)
• Dyes
• Vegetable shortening 
• Detergents
• Fragrance (there’s so much we could say about this that we wrote a whole blog about it!) 

The list could go on (and was indeed quite long on some of the soaps we looked at!) But, why does this all matter? The reason that these ingredients stood out to us is that they’re all cheaper, low-quality, or potentially dangerous ingredients. They’re often added to products to help companies cut corners and save money during production. 

Ultimately, people who purchase these products are shelling out a lot of money to potentially harm their skin and overall health. Why would you spend $10-$15 dollars on a bar of soap that’s filled with unnecessary chemicals, mass-produced ingredients, and contains toxic fragrances when there are more affordable options that are made with quality ingredients and offered at fair prices? 

Now, we don’t want to brag, but we think it’s worth mentioning that we’ve hardly raised the price of our soap since opening our doors. We’re extremely proud to be able to offer you a quality bar of soap that can be used countless different ways and costs between $2-$5.95. 

For those who are curious, we’ve only raised the price of our goat milk soap products once back in 2018. We fought hard to keep the prices the same, but the rising costs of our ingredients forced us to update our pricing. Though the cost of ingredients had gone up on all our products, we chose to keep the retail price of our Unscented and Oatmeal & Honey products the same since these are the primary soaps used by our customers with sensitive skin.

We only raised the price on the soap products (bar soap and milk bath) that contained essential oils as well as a few lotions that contained natural and organic scents. The essential oils and scents we use are extremely high quality and are quite expensive and our updated pricing accounted for these ingredients. Ultimately, it was our way of not compromising quality and craftsmanship for ingredients. 

Comparing More Bend Soap Co. Products on Ingredients & Price

After discovering the price and ingredient differences with the soap, we knew we couldn’t just stop there. We did a high-level comparison of all Bend Soap Co. products and found comparable alternatives that were priced 2-3x higher. Not only that, but they were all using low-grade ingredients. And these were popular products! Found in stores like Ulta, Sephora, Target, and many trendy online shops that take over our Facebook and Instagram feeds. 

• Body scrubs — made with unnecessary but cheap ingredients like glycine soja (soybean) oil, polysorbate 20, paraffin, and dyes — can cost you anywhere from $5 (for some really low-grade options) to $30+. 

• Deodorants containing aluminum, artificial fragrances, and propylene glycol (just to name a few) ranged anywhere from $7-$15. 

• For herbal salves and balms containing petroleum, alcohol, glycerin, mineral oils, lanolin, and silicone, you could be swindled into paying anywhere between $10-$20.

• Goat milk and other “natural” lotions were packed with perfumes, retinyl palmitate (a dangerous form of vitamin A), parabens, and phthalates could cost you between $10-$30. Check out some of the other toxic ingredients hidden in body lotion here. 

• Bubble and bathtime products ranged anywhere from $5-$10 for a single use bath bomb and $10-$25 and often contained a laundry list of chemicals known to dry out the skin and strip it of the vital nutrients it needs to look, feel, and perform at its best. 

• And let’s not forget the small but mighty lip balms! We found way too many other brands that we thought were natural but had packed ingredients like petroleum, menthol, salicylic acid, and alcohol (which literally zaps moisture from the delicate skin on your lips, making them dry and brittle!). All available anywhere between $4-$12. 

Now, we didn’t write this blog post as a long winded way of claiming that “all other skincare products are bad, so only use ours!”. To us, our products speak for themselves. We list all of the ingredients used to make each product on our website and are always looking to find the purest, most nourishing ingredients from nature that we can find. We don’t mix up our product formulas and strive to make our products affordable and accessible to those who need them most (and help out a few people in the process). The results speak for themselves. Just take a minute to read one of the thousands of reviews left on our website. 

Back to You 

So, as a consumer, what does this mean to you? To us, it means that people are being swindled into thinking that pretty labels and claims of being “all-natural” have a direct correlation to the quality of the end product. And that’s simply not true. 

Ultimately, this all circles back to one of the most important things we try and encourage people to do: start reading ingredient labels. The quality of the ingredients in your skincare products is not something to be taken lightly as it not only impacts how your skin feels but the actual dollar amount that you pay for each product (more on that here).

When it comes to skincare, keeping it simple and natural will often yield the best results. Don’t be fooled into thinking that an expensive skincare product will offer your skin the best results. You work hard for your money and deserve well-crafted products that are available at reasonable, fair prices. Just remember to check the ingredient labels!

And if it all seems too overwhelming or hopeless, your friends at Bend Soap Co. are here to help guide you through it all. Our customer support team is available to answer any questions and help point you towards the best products for your skin or desired outcome. We love helping our customers find the perfect scents and products!

As we continue to grow, it's our goal to continue to offer bars of goat milk soap and other natural skincare products that nourish and hydrate your skin like no other product you've tried before. We want you to LOVE your skin... One bar at a time!