"7 Things the Makeup Industry Doesn't Want You to Know"

[enorth]

No real surprises but thought I'd pass it along.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxP_3MbdS2E

1.  High-end and drugstore products are made at the exact same manufacturers.  What dictates price more than the formula itself is where it's made.  A foundation made in Italy vs one made in China will have two very differed price points.
2.  Most of the time you're paying for just the name and reputation
3.  Blushes have a really high profit margin.  Blush is basically an eye shadow.
4.  Eyeliners are almost all made at the same exact place and are very similar in formula.
5.  When you buy makeup you're mostly paying for the packaging. The product is the cheapest thing to make. 
6.  When brands go to retail stores vs being independent, the quality is almost guaranteed to go down because now they have a middle-man.  So they either have to raise prices or cut quality.
7.  Talc is still a risk for having slight traces of asbestos

[CardiacRN]

Regarding point #6: That happened to Urban Decay when L'Oreal bought them. Their quality and edginess have gone down. The collab they did in 2021 with the Prince estate sucked. Where were the purples? How could you do a Prince collab and only put in three weak purple shadows? The best color in the two palettes was Raspberry Beret. (I liked the eyeliners and pressed powder in the collab, and the fluffy brush was also decent.)

[enorth]

A hundred years ago, I bought Laura Geller baked eye shadows from QVC.  They went on like silk.

LG started to be sold at Sephora, then moved from Sephora to ULTA.  The LG shadows I bought at ULTA were nowhere near the original quality.  Instead of silky, they were dry and grainy.

I later learned she had sold the company.   

Thankfully, I can wet the poor-quality shadows and use them as eyeliner.

[Mountaineer95]

I used those Laura Geller shadows back in the mid-2000s and loved them as well.

One thing I’ve experienced about Made in China products (not cosmetics, but other things like electronics…small fans, TENS units, electric candles, etc) is that when an American company has their products made in China, they do so to get the cheapest costs available, and the product quality (or lack of) reflects that; but when I buy Chinese-made products from the actual Chinese manufacturer, the quality has been terrific. Like, buying such things on Amazon straight from the Chinese manufacturer…every single such thing I’ve bought has been very well made. Granted, the product description translations are often hysterical, but the items themselves have been great.