When will women recognize that they have been sold a lie? If we listen to the cosmetic manufacturers, we have to believe that the more money we spend for face creams, the younger we’ll look.

I've bought creams that cost an arm and a leg, as well as the stuff the average bear uses, and have discovered that the cosmetic industry is based on an untruth. Cost doesn’t necessarily indicate that a certain face cream will make me look any better than I did before I tried it. All that has come of my purchase of the brands that carry a big price is that the face I wake up with each day hasn’t changed a month after I started using them. Generally, my experience has been that my allergies go bonkers, and my bank account suffers. That’s unfortunately what has happened.

From what I am given to understand, most of the cosmetics women buy contain the same ingredients. All that appears to change is the price we pay for them.

If someone could promise that the cream they sell will make me look twenty years younger, and guarantee that if it doesn’t do the job as promised, they will return my money, maybe I’d reconsider, and go out on a limb and buy some. Unfortunately, things don’t appear to work that way. If I take something back to a department store and ask for my money back, the salesgirl will try to sell me something else her company makes.

Having been around in this world for a long time, I can speak from experience. I’m no different from the rest of the women who want to buy that cream that will make their skin look the way it did when they were young girls. What is sadly true is that the stuff that I’ve bought in the drug store seems to do as good a job as the one that a lady on television promises me will make my skin look so young that I can kiss my husband goodbye, and find myself a young man who will think I am his contemporary.

Why is it that we judge the value of things based on cost, not quality? That seems to apply to most of the things we buy. I keep asking myself, whom can I trust? Where in the world is that company whose primary interest is in selling a good product and not make women like me spend a fortune?

A friend of my daughter's is manufacturing a new line of cosmetics. I was shocked to hear that her major interest is in giving women like myself what I am looking for. Her products apparently won’t be high priced, but will be quality based. The question is whether the average woman will buy her cream if it is priced fairly. I sure would like to try it, and have lived long enough to understand that cost does not determine quality.