Cost Effective Clean Beauty Products? Let's just stop BS now.

Everyone has an opinion and there are a lot of opinions floating around in the realm of beauty and clean beauty specifically.

This morning I woke up and read a few posts on Instagram about 'clean' beauty. There were a few posts about 'cost-effective' green beauty products and one of them was about rose water toners.

Love is one thing. If it works for you and if you love it, that is wonderful and amazing; and I leave you alone. But what I do not agree with is that clean beauty can be cheap. And spreading this opinion is not helpful for anyone. It makes people like me who bring quality products to the world of clean beauty feel that I have to compete on price.

I cannot and I will not.

It is not cheap to make anything that is good. You can either get cheap or good. Pick one. Both do not exist in this universe or in any other. 

I am talking from experience. 

As a brand owner who actually goes around the world and finds the ingredients, I know first hand how expensive some ingredients are and how hard it is to make some of them.

And when someone shows me a $6 bottle of rose water, I just have to call BS on it. 

Let's break it down, shall we?

1. Rose water is not made in the USA. So it has to be brought in. This means customs, logistics, packaging, duties, local taxes (VAT) or otherwise, which are 20%+, etc. 

2. You have to pay your artisans. FAIRLY. What is fair? But if you are selling a bottle of amazing rose water wholesale for $3, there is no room for any wages, let alone fair wages.

3. Rose water is heavy, unless of course, someone just purchased rose essential oil from AliBaba or some supplier who got it from who knows where and added it to water and now calls it rose water. It is not. It is water with oil in it. So, this means you have to ship a container with rose water via ocean (start thinking crazy logistics to get water safely to the port and get to your warehouse where you can package it).

4. To sell something for $6 at a store means that you have to sell it to the store at at least 50% off so that stores can keep their doors open. This means you just sold that bottle with a label, and with a spray top, and with rose water in it for $3. 

5. The cost of bottles and labels is not as cheap as you might think. Yes, you can buy huge quantities and get a pretty big discount, but really, it is not going to be less than $1 per unit and probably more that $1 per that one $3 bottle.

6. Add labor to package, advertise, marketing, take photos, do the website, ship, aps to take photos and videos, salaries, warehousing, etc, etc, etc.

7. How much out of the $3 bottle do you have left to buy good rose water? Can you buy good rose water for $1 and keep your business going? I am sorry, you cannot. 

8. Proper rose water is not produced in huge quantities, because it is impossible. You need to collect all the fresh rose petals that are available only a few weeks in a year and then vapor distill the petals to create the rose hydrosol. And places that make rose water, can make a few hundred liters at a time. That's it. Some produce only a few liters at a time because equipment does not fit more. So, no matter how much you want it, rose water will not be made all year round in unspecified quantities. It is finite.

9. If you received my rose water for a discount or got it for free, it only means that I gave it away below my cost for whatever reason - gift, promotion, giveaway. It does not mean that rose water I have costs me so little. On opposite. BUT to consistently sell my rose water for $6 will not work to keep my artisans happy or Katari in business. To keep price so low I will need to get into a business or selling THAT rose water described in that Instagram post about a 'cost effective' clean beauty rose water and I do not have it and I am not interested in finding out where it comes from because it is not rose water. 

What I have is Katari decadent vapor distilled rose water with preserved rose essential oil in it.

I do not know why I got so worked up about reading those posts about 'cheap' clean beauty products. I just do not believe in them. I do not know what other companies put in their products and how do they manage to make rose water in the USA apart from blending oils and H2O.

I DO know what is in my rose water and why it is not cheap and why it is THE BEST.  Some things cannot be mass produced and what is not mass produced, cannot be cheap. 

Sincerely,

Your very opinionated and stubborn about quality brand owner, Kate.