Money matters

What advantages do companies that use synthetic ingredients have over companies that have chosen to go 'all natural'?

Transcript

Wellington College Does making it natural make it more expensive for the consumer?

Karen Farley: It certainly is for the producer. You actually do pay a lot more for the ingredients when you’re using natural. That is why people use synthetics really. The synthetics are dirt cheap.

It would probably be quite an eye-opener if you were to find out how much some of these skincare companies are actually producing their product for. I mean, they have huge price labels on them, but the actual cost of a lot of the synthetics they’re using in them is very, very small.

To use natural skin-care ingredients is more expensive, but for the consumer, you can’t really pass on a lot of that cost because you’re competing against big brand names who might use cheaper ingredients, but they can market. They’ve got huge marketing arms behind them. I think one big company, I think L’Oreal, have a five million dollar advertising budget just in New Zealand alone!

It probably just means that we just don’t quite make as much money as if we were in a big, huge conglomerate.