Beauty firms find ways to sell luxury for less
Soap that costs $125 a bar, $130 home dermabrasion kits and $150 lash conditioners may have slid down most shoppers’ lists of beauty essentials these days. But brands across the price spectrum are still trying to find new ways to score those beauty dollars. Mirroring what has long been happening in fashion, beauty brands are repackaging and reformulating their products to make them less expensive, hoping to keep old customers and win new ones.
The people behind Cor Silver Soap, which contains real silver and at $125 for 120 grams (about 4.2 ounces) is among the most expensive facial soaps available, last year brought out a 30-gram (1.06-ounce) version for $40. Company founder and Chief Executive Jennifer McKinley said that the smaller size is “flying off shelves …. we can barely keep the thing in stock.” The company has always offered a small sample size for $15 but wanted to bring out something more substantial yet still affordable. “It was always a huge jump, psychologically, to go from $15 to $125,” she said. “But a $40 bar has made a world of difference.”
Over the long run, buying the compact size might not seem to make economic sense. Four bars of the 30-gram Cor soap would add up to 120 grams but cost $160 instead of the $125 for the original larger bar. But the concept does enable people, new customers especially, to try the brand without an initial big outlay.
Next month, French fragrance house Histoires de Parfums will launch smaller versions of its signature $185-a-bottle perfumes. “Buying an expensive perfume is a financial investment, and if after a while you decide you don’t like it, what are you going to do with it?” said Gerald Ghislain, company founder. “This is not a time to trash anything. Everything costs money.”
For less than $40, customers can buy into the brand without feeling guilty, he said. When the economy picks up, Ghislain says, they might trade up from the 14-milliliter (0.47-ounce) bottle to the 120-milliliter (4.06-ounce) one. The cheaper variations will also see wider distribution: The $185 bottles are at very select stores around the U.S., but the smaller one is bowing at J. Crew in New York and is expected to be rolled out to the chain’s other branches.
NeuLash, a popular lash enhancer product, was originally only available in a 6-milliliter (0.2-ounce) tube for $150. Recently, the brand launched a 3.2-milliliter (0.11-ounce) size for $85. Liz Earle’s new Try-Me kits run $32 for a smaller-sized, four-product hand- and feet-care offering, compared with that much for just one full-size product.
Some brands are looking at the product formulations as well as size. “We wanted to find a way to have customers who hadn’t tried us before and who didn’t want to make a big commitment,” said Dera Enochson, president of self-tanning brand Xen-Tan. The label’s Dark Lotion Absolute Luxe runs to $56 for an 8-ounce tube. But for $26, customers can buy the brand’s Deep Bronze product, slightly smaller and with less DHA — the ingredient that reacts with the skin’s amino acids to result in tanning — to make it more price-competitive.
Other brands are creating less expensive lines that will naturally appeal to a different demographic. Murad, the clinical skin-care line created by Dr. Howard Murad, is best known for products like its Intensive Wrinkle Reducer, which can cost up to $150 and appeal to mature women. But in July, Murad launched Clean Scene, a collection targeting teens and young adults — with price tags from $16 to $24.
Lower-priced alternatives are happening with beauty appliances as well. Microdermabrasion kits typically cost more than $100. But a newer version from DermaNew, called i-Skin, has two systems that retail for $30 and $36. The product was made more cost-effective by changing the shape and number of the heads on the tool. The skincare products that go along with the kit have been reformulated to be about half the price of the originals by making them one-formula-fits-all instead of targeting specific skin types.
The lower-price movement is not restricted to women’s products, either. Sharps, the trendy men’s grooming brand, recently relaunched its Happy Me All Over Soap Bar. Previously, the soap sold as a two-pack for $16 a set. Now it’s a single piece, at $6.50. The bar is the same size, but, according to a company spokesman, the price came down moderately because of redesigned packaging. It’s now in more cost-efficient waxed paper instead of a box.
Shawn Tavakoli, chief executive of Beauty Collection beauty stores, said that businesses are having to find inventive ways to keep their customers from trading down. “Brands are just trying to keep the customers that they have,” he said. “At the end of the day, the consumer is looking for results from their beauty products, but they are also taking into account the value proposition.”
image@latimes.com
