‘I Spend All My Money on Expensive Beauty Products—Even Though They’re Not Always Better’

I’ve lived on this earth long enough to know full well that pricier does not necessarily mean better. In fact, price and quality only occasionally go hand in hand. Sure, those pricey boots made of buttery Italian leather will probably last longer than the ones that look just like ’em but are $50 and 100 percent polyurethane, but the $25 T-shirt is virtually the same as the $80 one.

I know this. It’s common sense. But it hasn’t ever stopped me from buying into the marketing claims of very, very expensive beauty products. I’m known among colleagues and friends alike as someone who rarely uses, or even tries, anything from a drugstore. It’s not because I think my expensive, well-packaged products are inherently better based on their price. It’s because I enjoy the luxury and frivolity and outright ridiculousness of spending $50 on a lipstick that looks pretty or $80 on a moisturizer that smells like roses … and I’m not entirely sure why.

Most beauty editors love a good bargain find; discovering a cheap drugstore product that holds its own against similar choices three times its price is the equivalent of winning the lottery. It’s a bragging point. For whatever reason, I’m missing this chip, and I almost exclusively gravitate toward luxury and niche brands that are, well,overpriced.

I have a few fallback ways of justifying these expenditures. One is pretty legit: I have extremely sensitive, fickle skin that freaks out if you look at it the wrong way. But with so many big drugstore brands now coming out with gentle, “natural” products that eschew the harsher ingredients of formulas past, it’s becoming more difficult for me to reason with myself here. For example, I’ve been avoiding sodium laureth sulfate in shampoos and cleansers for years, which is why I opted instead for fancier options that were ahead of the game in using safer alternatives. But now those same budget brands I steered clear of for that reason are reformulating their products to replace those ingredients. Legitimate excuse for spending more money on a “better” product no more.

It’s fair to say that I am a victim of the marketing ploys that I, as both a Millennial and someone who works in the women’s lifestyle sect of digital media, am supposed to be too savvy to fall for. I guess that my self-awareness is what separates me from being a willing consumer rather than a total idiot; I know spending $30 on a black eyeliner just because I like the packaging or the brand is absurd, but I can’t stop doing it anyway, and I have no plans to.

I like the feeling I get when I unbox a brand-new product that I didn’t need but really, really wanted. It may be excessive and even a little bit stupid, but I don’t feel guilty. It makes me happy; some people like to spend money on concert tickets, or nice meals, or drugs, and they feel that their money is well-spent that way. My big expenditure, my money-sucking vice, is beauty products. And it’s fine. Better than crack, at least.