I'm Making My Own BB Cream!

Now, recall back when I wrote my post a few months ago, comparing BB creams ingredients versus their actual skin benefit? I was pilloried for that post, as I might have guessed. Nevermind that in my original post, I had caveated, "I'm not saying ALL BB creams suck, and I'm not saying ALL BB creams will aggravate sensitive skin. Some brands have better formulation than others, and some brands have more restrained marketing than others, so like any other beauty product, you will find those that live up to the hype, and those that just plain suck." A lot of people thought I was unfairly criticizing their beloved product. After all, I sometimes see a very cult-like following for BB creams. You can't really tell from the comments on the original blogpost of course, as I felt even the ones that disagreed with me posted respectful comments. So it's not like everyone who disagreed was a childish troll, and yes, I do appreciate constructive criticism, and respectful debate (hey, what do you think I spent my time doing at University?). But elsewhere on the web, there were critical posts full of sarcasm, and people just dissing me as stupid or gullible. (Because a gullible consumer looks past the marketing and hype and reads the ingredients list and does her own research - yep!)

(Image source. Text by me.)
So anyway. I figured, as the adage goes, if you can't beat them, join them! So, based on all the really crappy but popular BB cream formulations there are out there, I plan to launch my very own BB cream, have it made in a standard private label cosmetics manufacturer, put some Korean celeb on the ads, and voila - make LOTZ OF MONEEYY! Because, after all, that's what the BB cream companies are doing. As another ex-industry beauty blogger put it, "Can you really imagine MAC [having] its own brush factory or Shu Uemura [having] its own curlash making machine? They don’t. In fact, no cosmetic company does. We all source from brush manufacturers, [who] offer no exclusivity, except of course that they will not stamp the MAC brand to another brush customer." She was talking about brushes specifically in her post, but a similar principle applies to cosmetics as a whole, too - anyone recall Napoleon Perdis?


So, now, on to the important question: what should I name my BB cream? Well I had a field day with names because there are all sorts of ridiculous BB cream names out there. Just check out these real names, with the brands removed: Super Magic 6 in 1 BB Cream, Hot Pink BB Cream, Vital Super+ BB Cream, Precious Mineral All Day Strong BB Cream, and my favourite, Essential Source Snail BB Cream SPF30 Soft Matte.

Drawing inspiration from all my favourite names is hard, but I finally settled on the following:
Sweet Pink Shiny BB Magic Cream SPF 50 with Sweet Almond Oil and XYZ-Random-Plant Natural Extract

I'll replace XYZ-Random-Plant Natural Extract with an actual plant, of course, and pimp it out to the max, but the graphic I've created below explains my choice of name better than I could do it in words:


Now, on to formulation. You guys know that when I looked at the BB creams ingredients, one of my conclusions was that there wasn't all that much significant difference between one brand's BB cream and another brand's. So, drawing on the ingredients of other BB creams I've seen, here are some of the ingredients that you will probably see in my BB cream. In fact, these ingredients already all appear in existing BB creams!

Water, Cyclopentasiloxane, Cyclohexasiloxane, Dimethicone, Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate, 4-Methylbenzylidene Camphor, Mica, Propylene Glycol, Isopropyl Myristate, Isopropyl Palmitate, Glycerin, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Hydrolyzed Collagen, XYZ-Random-Plant Natural Extract, etc.

Now, you may ask. What do these ingredients do? Once again, check my table out! I'm so helpful, I created it for you guys!


Lastly, colour. I don't know about you, but some of the really popular BB creams out there seem to have really pink and/or ashy looking shades. Most of those I see in stores don't look anything close to realistic Asian skin shades, and I'm an Asian girl living in Asia! So, I will create two shades of unrealistic ashy pink - light, and dark. Given that most BB creams come in a grand total of ONE colour, I figure that's got to be an attraction in itself. It seems to me that there is a minority of Asian girls who deliberately buy BB creams that are too fair or pink for them, as they seem to hope that applying that shade will make their skintone look fairer or pinker, so I think I'll have a good ready market. (For what it's worth, I think the equivalent in the West is people going all oompa loompa orange with their foundations and self-tanners to look more tanned - so it's not like this is an Asian only thing!) So, here are my shades! I really lifted them off another brand's foundation colours, but well, if you only really need one or two shades, why bother going through all the shade-matching process?


So there you have it! I hope to retail this for $29.99, which is on par with most BB creams out there. Maybe it's a little in the higher-end category price-wise, but I figure some sucker is going to buy it, right? And from what I can tell, some of the most popular BB creams have the crappiest formulations. So I don't really have an incentive to try too hard, really! Anyway I hope to launch it soon sometime over the next 2-3 months. If you visit my blog again tomorrow, you'll get a more concrete launch date from me, so check it out and tell all your friends!