How important is quantity for the price?
For most products, it doesn’t make a big difference to me personally but that’s as someone who does not expect or aspire to finish anything due to the nature of my job. If I was just a consumer, I’d likely feel different to an extent – I don’t need the buy most products in bulk but wouldn’t want to feel like I was getting ripped off either.
I think it goes together with quality. I’m sometimes willing to accept a smaller product if it is that much better in quality, which includes the packaging. But that’s not always the case…
Last year I was trying to decide which powder to get and discovered a huge price difference between two products I had been using. MAC Prep + Prime Translucent Powder is $29 for 0.3 ounces while Laura Mercier Translucent Powder is $38 for 1.0 ounce. I was shocked to find out that the MAC powder, which is the inferior of the two (in my opinion) costs so much more!! I stopped using the MAC and now use LM for nighttime looks and RCMA No Color Powder ($12 per 3.0 oz) for daytime looks.
For things like base and brown products that are constant across most looks for me, I do somewhat care. I definitely care when it comes to brow pencils and things like BB creams. Powders I care but not quite as much because I’m a light user for those. Color products it’s not a big issue to me; for eyeshadow especially I’m perfectly happy to pay less for a smaller size even if the cost/oz isn’t as good as something in a massive pan that I’d never finish before getting bored of it.
For lip products I am back to being in the middle – if we’re talking the oxblood I wear a few times a month in the winter, it doesn’t matter. If we’re talking the warm nude I wear 4x a week 3 seasons of the year… actually no I still don’t care because a slightly smaller size just means finishing before it goes bad. Arguments that a $100 eye palette, say, is a “great value” because the pan size is big just don’t make sense to me. If you were a working makeup artist I can see that being an attraction, but for someone like me who has more eyeshadow that I need already I am not going to actually realize that value by using them all up.
For brow pencils for me the formula counts way more than quantity.
Benefit Goof Proof is 0.34 g, lasted me a year of regular use (I own a brow pencil at a time)
Wet ‘ n ‘ Wild Ultimate Brow (which I tried as a possible dupe) is 0.2g, lasted me barely 3 months.
I use up an Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Wiz (0.085g) in 2-3 months, . Just treied the new NYX Micro Brow Pencil (0.09g)… barely a month…
The Wet ‘n’ Wild and NYX are decent dupes, don’t get me wrong… but given the use I get and the slightly better quality, I tend to always go back to Benefit and ABH.
I’ve never finished anything that wasn’t a base product (foundation, setting powder, primer, eyeliner, mascara) so I guess it’s not that important to me!
Hi Christine! This is such an excellent question. The quantity by weight is meaningless to me because it’s really just a (poor) substitute for what I really want to know which is: how many times can I use it? In order to get that answer, I’d need to know how much product I consume per use to create the desired pigmentation level over the desired surface area. One way might be to weigh the product before and after several uses and average the amounts consumed, then divide the total weight by this average. If you could give some kind of ballpark figure (even for just yourself) of how many times you would be able to use a product, that would be pretty phenomenal. <3
That’s exactly my point (I commented already on Instagram on this 😛 ).
Quantity is not always a good prediction of how long it takes to use a product. I personally have a minimal make-up collection and hold just one item of a product at a time (except lipsticks, eyeshadows, blushes, etc.) so I can tell approximately how long a product lasts. But even pressed powders (for example) of the same quantity can last me either 5 or 8 months depending on the pressing, milling and how oil absorbent they are.
For most colour cosmetics, I’d prefer smaller quantity and a smaller price tag that reflects that as well. I’ve yet to finish up an eyeshadow so the huge pans (MAC Pro Longwear shadows of days gone by or the previous version of the MUFE shadows) was pointless and I’m much happier with MUFE’s smaller sizes now (though why they had to mess with the formula still annoys me). About the only cosmetic products I finish are lipsticks, pencil liners and IT’s CC Cream (for which I bought a jumbo some time back).
It matters to me ONLY when the amount of product is noticeably small, even paltry in certain cases, for the price. *cough*, those Hourglass cigarette holder lipsticks? Shiseido’s new lipsticks? *cough*.
Otherwise, if something is very high quality, but has a weight that seems too low because of how it’s formulated, ie; baked Chanel eyeshadows, then I take that into account when making a decision.
All said, I don’t need some crazy huge amount of product for my $ either. Many times, the quality suffers in those offerings.
Not a whole lot, especially for color cosmetics. It really depends so much on the product, the price, the quality, how easy is it to dupe, etc. I have to take that question on a case-by-case basis.
Not too much. I rarely finish products before they go bad. The one exception would be concealer, which is why I didn’t repurchase the Nars creamy concealer…just too little product for the price imo.
Not so much tbh. However, if there is a product I like and I use daily (base products like foundations, BB/CC creams, primers) I prefer not to be in a too small quantity vs. price.
It’s not quantity for the price that I care about, it’s quality.
Very well said Genevieve!
Ditto! and I’ll add two other variables, do I like it, as in am I drawn to it usually colorwise? And will it be unique to what I already have?
Depends. If Nars offered, for example, a super-size Orgasm blush for a better per unit price that standard, I’d be excited – I’d be able to use it up, it would last me a long, long time, and be a great deal. So yes, I’d appreciate that. If a company had a gift set, and offered me more good quality items for the price, yeah, I’m in. Will be more likely to buy from a company that’s giving me 6 minis vs 4 in appealing colors, or an extra skincare item or two in the set from a brand I like.
I don’t think it matters for me, I barely ever finish products other than foundation, mascara, eyeliner, brow pencil, MAC fix plus and skin care, occasionally lipgloss or liquid lipstick. I prefer to have a better quality product then lots of it. Saying that, I wish brow pencils and eyeliners lasted longer but I won’t forgo the quality for a product that contains more for cheaper.
I’d prefer the have smaller amounts and pay less, so yes quantity is important (but not in the sense of more quantity for a cheaper price). What bothers me is waste. If we’re supposed to keep our products for given dates (which we’ve discussed before that many to most of us don’t keep this rule except for certain items), then smaller quantities make sense to me. I never “pan out” of eyeshadow. I finish a foundation in a half year to a year at most. And I have numerous choices in everything (eyeshadows, blush, foundations, etc…)
Bring to mind when you buy sour cream or some other product where you’re only going to use a couple of teaspoons of it and never finish it before the due date is past. Unlike food (where you can plan to use it up to save those few coins you spent), you likely won’t keep reusing a makeup product just to use it up before buying a similar product. So, the idea of lots of product for a given or even lower price don’t much influence my makeup product choices at all.
It does matter to me, more so in this very ailing economy. I don’t appreciate purchasing a product which has a big box and large bottle/jar and finding a huge dip in the bottom. An upward concave, which cuts down the product by a fourth or even third, maybe. Or simply a tiny bottle or a tiny container. These days products are the sizes of trial samples around the early 2000’s. I’m really thinking of going with drugstore prod. lately. And that’s something I haven’t done too much for many years. It’s funny; my wardrobe is so basic. But I’ve always used ‘fine’ cosmetics. I’m wondering if I should rethink that…