This is a legacy post that has been given a facelift for clarity and readability. Opinions are the same; in fact, I laughed as I re-read it because I wouldn’t change a thing aside from adding headers. Enjoy!
Sometimes, I don’t even have to look for ridiculous marketing.
Sometimes, it walks right into my inbox.
Email from Ulta advertising some new, shiny products includes this:
Ulta e-mail ad for COOLA Organic Makeup Setting Spray
Oh, setting spray! Good. Even better, it has SPF. Wait. Organic? Organic setting spray?
But oh my god, I totally can’t use a makeup setting spray that might have had ingredients derived from GMO plants! My face will die!
Thank you, COOLA Organic Setting Spray for saving my face.
Really? If you’re worried about that kind of thing, you aren’t shopping at Ulta. You probably aren’t buying cosmetics, period, if you are genuinely concerned about that kind of thing.
Playing the BS Card
Marketing like this is what inspired me to write this blog. If you would choose this setting spray over, oh, any other setting spray solely because it claims to be, “organic,” you will probably buy anything that claims to be organic…and are therefore encouraging marketing teams to keep up the BS. Please don’t buy this because it claims to be organic.
The Bottom Line
There is no approved definition of that for the cosmetic industry and it is being used as a marketing buzz-word to take advantage of people.
The SPF component is pretty cool, but if I could make a recommendation for a similar product, Supergoop has one that costs less for more product, and is SPF 50 rather than 30.
The more you know.
Both this and Supergoop contain high amounts of the type of alcohol that’s really bad for your skin. I was super interested in a setting spray with spf, but both of these probably cause more harm than good.