OLAY DIARIES: $30 Cream VS. $300 Cream- Which is Better?

Olay asked me to share a photo of my skincare graveyard. I thought it was fun so I participated. If not for this, I would never realize that I have A LOT of skin care products that I don’t use any longer. Most of them, I tried once or twice and shoved back into the cabinet. I calculated the cost of my unused skin care products (For the record, I buy at least 90% of my skin care products. I do not request from brands!) and the result was a whopping P15,000.00+ worth of wasted money. I shouldn’t have done that because I felt my heart break into pieces upon seeing the amount! This is why you rarely see skin care reviews on my blog because it’s either the products don’t work (so there’s nothing to write about!), I prefer not using them further to know how far my skin can tolerate them, or I have observed little to no difference on my skin. Oh, and writing about something that you wasted your hard- earned money on is just like rubbing salt to the wound if you know what I mean!

Olay did a poll on their Facebook fan page and asked women if they have their own skincare graveyard, or a place (or paper bag) where you stuff all your disappointing skin care products without remorse. When I was in Sydney for Olay’s Blogger Event, we did a video about it. Watch this:

There is a follow up question by Olay and that is: Can a $30 cream beat a $300 one?

It is no secret that I’m a fan of luxury brands and that includes skin care products, but honestly, most of my staples are the affordable ones (and they’re passed on to me by my mother) because I’ve proven, through long- term usage, that they work. When something works wonderfully on me, I find it hard to let go!

Now speaking of better ingredients, the second and final day of the Olay Bloggers’ Event was spent on discussing a (re)discovery in the skin care industry: Niacinamide.

More about Niacinamide after the break!

Niacinamide has been around for so long, but tends to be overshadowed by more fancy- sounding plant- derived or rocket science extracts, extracts that promise collagen overdrive, skin reformation, age reversal, and so on and so forth whereas Niacinamide promises to power up your cells. Doesn’t seem convincing enough for you to buy, but I just found out that Niacinamide holds the key to greater- looking skin or to some extent, skin that responds better to beauty products.

Artistic presentation of energy in cells. Screen shot from Olay's video

Olay explained that our skin cells, as we age, tend to lose their power-this manifests through dull, dry, wrinkled, and gritty skin. What Niacinamide does is it acts like a charger by going deep into the energy system of the cells to recharge it completely. Come to think of it, how can your cells function properly and utilize skin care products if they do not have energy? In the conference I attended, I learned that Olay is one of the pioneers in Niacinamide research and incidentally, this is used extensively in Olay’s skin care lines namely AquAction, White Radiance, Total Effects, and Regenerist.

Photo Credits: Olay

If it pays to read the ingredients label, it also pays to know the ingredients better. Dr. John Oblong said that it is truly possible for a drugstore cream to outperform a prestige cream because it’s not all about the latest ingredients out there-it’s about what works and targets the root problem.

This is not to say, however, that Prestige brands are not at all effective because I’ve used some and they have worked wonderfully on me and there are some drugstore brands that ended up in my skin care graveyard too. I still believe you just have to find the right product and ingredient combinations that will help maintain your skin’s health and beauty. If there’s one very important thing that I learned in the conference, it’s that price is not always a determinant of quality, whether we’re talking about affordable or expensive products (at least in skin care)!

So that concludes the Olay Blogger Event in Sydney. Hope you've learned something valuable today!

So do you think a $30 cream can beat a $300 one? Do you also have a skin care graveyard? I’d love to know your thoughts on this.

Day 1 of the Olay Blogger Event HERE.

Please visit OLAY SINGAPORE on Facebook for further information.