Monday, May 27, 2013

StarLooks - A Look At The Brand


A Facebook friend of mine, Sarah, posted this picture on Facebook. While we all know that many different brands can buy their packaging from the same place, she found it really weird that her colour she got from Starlooks was ALSO on the list of available colours at Studio 277. "The black box the Studio 277 came in is identical to Starlook's black packaging too" she pointed out.

So that seems like a little bit too much of a coincidence. A little further digging reveals that liners, blushes, and other items also are identical in both lines. So how does it happen?


Well, as it turns out, both brands purchase their stock from Modern Basic Cosmetics. What this means is, brands can go through a big long stocklist of items from Modern Basic Cosmetics, and choose which products they want. They then pay for special custom brand packaging and resell it as their own products.


Now this is by no means an unusual thing. MANY brands do this. The thing it DOES mean is that the brand has no input on the products formulations. They choose the products they like, but they are not involved in the formulating of the items. Now this information IS written in teeny letters on the packaging. They are not denying it.

Now Starlooks has this in their FAQs:


Now, Modern Basics has factories in BC, ON and California. So if you consider the statement from Starlooks "our manufacturing" as where their manufacturing comes from and not as their own that they personally own, its not a lie. It may be misleading, but really, what brand would ADVERTISE this? This does not take away from the quality of their products by any means. But it does take away from the exclusivity of the products.







Above is the Studio 277 blush in Cuty Peach which can be found HERE. And here is the SAME blush from Starlooks as seen in their January Starlooks box. The ONLY difference? Starlooks charges $17 for the blush!



Now as already mentioned, Studio 277 also sells the same products under THEIR logo. Who else does? My guess is scores and scores of companies. Here are a few more product shots from different brands:



Heidi D Cosmetics uses the same supplier too:


Now all the above blushes have the following ingredients.
CPC INGREDIENTS: talc,mica,magnesium stearate,titanium dioxide, methylparaben, dimethicone,BHT (butylated hydr-oxytoluene),[may contain:yellow 6 lake(CI15985),red 27 lake(CI45410),iron oxide (CI77491,CI77492,CI77499),red 7 lake(CI15850)]

STARLOOKS INGREDIENTS: talc,mica,magnesium stearate,titanium dioxide, methylparaben, dimethicone, BHT (butylated hydr-oxytoluene), [may contain:yellow 6 lake(CI15985),red 27 lake (CI45410), iron oxide(CI77491,CI77492,CI77499),red 7 lake(CI15850)]

As you can probably guess, the Stuido 277 blush as well as other all have the exact same ingredients. 

Now do I think that this means that you should NOT buy Starlooks? No. This changes nothing about the brand. Except it gives you the knowledge and the power to shop around for the best price. The same foundations, concealers, lip pencils, glosses, lipsticks, blushes, shadows and palettes are all available under MANY different brand labels even thought they are the same product from the same company; made in the same place.

1 comment:

  1. I wish companies would disclose this sort of thing instead of behaving like some new formulation. I get a monthly Starbox and like it so like you, I don't mind per se but don't like the smoke and mirror type advertising.

    ReplyDelete

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