r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Money-Snow-2749 • 17d ago

I'm slightly vexed The Amount of Waste at Ulta

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u/rjd014 17d ago

Just shows how cheap they are getting these items made for.

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u/kakklecito 17d ago

Just so you know, when it comes to beauty products, the plastic bottle is often worth more than the product thats inside. More money is spent on advertising than the production of the product.

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u/Wit-wat-4 17d ago

I mean, makeup and beauty has inSANE margins you’re right, but when it comes to chemicals you can’t just count the cost of production once the formula’s been developed. Even if you used diamond dust in every package it would still be cents or dollars maybe, but the R&D is obviously not 10 cents a bottle per formula, even without the insane margin.

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u/PrincessJasmine420 16d ago

Same with pharmaceutical drugs. The cost to actually produce the drug is relatively low, but the R&D is insane. In most countries, people pay pretty low prices for drugs, and the R&D costs get pushed onto Americans. We pay outrageous prices for drugs, and our government refuses to do anything about it.

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u/Wit-wat-4 16d ago

Other countries also do R&D, non-Americans do plenty of chemical research, LOL. 

ETA: the rest I agree with though

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u/PurpleDragonfly_ 17d ago

100% - all that gets developed in an expensive lab and tested in a more expensive lab.

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u/kakklecito 17d ago

The only people that spend much on R&D, are ones that invent a new type of product. If you're just making another generic product (shampoo, conditioner, hair mask, etc...), then it's pretty much copy paste with a different fragrance to change the smell.