A conversation with the lovely miss Yuliya (aka cutiegingerbread on Youtube!) on Twitter inspired me to take to the blog to get more feedback and opinions. Are you a snob? By snob, I mean product snob, lol. Please don’t get me wrong I’m not judging or even using snobbery as a negative term for the purposes of this post.
Are there certain beauty products where you feel the cheap stuff just won’t do? I don’t think being a product snob is necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes what works for one person just doesn’t work for another. I’m just curious as to what your experiences are.
One area I’ve seen a lot of snobbery is brushes. Like many tools of various trades, brush prices range from the sublime to the ridiculous. I do agree that having good quality tools is important to excel at your craft, but there comes a point when you absolutely can’t tell me that you need brushes that can cost $100+ each. And you can’t tell me that there is enough about a brush that costs that much to justify it costing that much more than a similar, cheaper brush. Spending insane amounts of money on brushes won’t make you into a celebrity makeup artist. I feel like to some degree you either have the talent/technique or you don’t, and your tools don’t matter if you don’t have it. It’s trainable; you can acquire the skills, but don’t try to compensate for lack of skills with expensive equipment. I’d see this sort of thing all the time when I was growing up around horses. Shiny brand new boots and saddles do not a great rider make.They’re not even always the best, anyway. When I was taking lessons, my favorite saddle was my trainer’s ancient, beat up old Stuuben. It had been an expensive shiny thing at one point, but those days were long gone. ;) Most professional makeup artists will tell you that there is no need to spend tons of money on things for your kit, and I completely agree. A talented makeup artist can make beautiful art without expensive brushes.
While I think being a brush snob is silly, I do acknowledge I am a product snob in some areas! For example, I have turned into quite the hair care snob. I will use cheapo $4 Revlon Colorsilk hair color no problemo, but when it comes to shampoo and conditioner, no way will I be reaching for drugstore stuff anymore. I have found a couple that are exceptions (like Alba’s rainforest line, and Organix’s acai berry argan oil shampoo), but the vast majority of drugstore shampoos and conditioners just do not compare to the high end ones I’ve tried. At long last I’ve found my holy grail combo in Alterna‘s Caviar line. And just like real caviar, this shit’s expensive. A set of caviar moisture shampoo & conditioner will set you back $62 at Sephora. Ugh. But I have to admit my hair has never been softer, smoother, or more manageable since I started using the caviar moisture shampoo & conditioner, and also some of the styling products. I know using these won’t ever make me look like a supermodel, but at least I can have good hair.
So how about you? What are you a snob about?
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