';Beauty'; Creams, etc?

Is there really any benefit to be derived from purchasing/using high-end creams for wrinkles? I don't seem to notice any difference when I use Ponds cold cream versus Strivectin!';Beauty'; Creams, etc?
The below answer is taken from www.cosmeticscop.com.





';Lots of doctors and chemists are involved in creating all kinds of products in the world of cosmetics, but all cosmetics contain standard cosmetic ingredients. They can't contain anything else, as drugs do, or they would be regulated quite differently.





My favorite example of this type of claim is Estee Lauder Creme de la Mer. Quite a story accompanies this very costly little cream ($165 for 2 ounces)! It was created by Max Huber, a NASA aerospace physicist, supposedly to take care of burns he received in an accident. He sold and marketed this product himself. After his death, his daughter continued selling the cream until recently, when Estee Lauder purchased the rights to manufacture and distribute it.





The reality is that this very basic, and I mean really basic, cream doesn't contain anything particularly extraordinary or unique, unless you want to believe that seaweed extract (sort of like seaweed tea) can somehow be worth this much money, or that it can in some way heal burns and scars. According to Susan Brawley, professor of plant biology at the University of Maine, ';seaweed extract isn't a rare, exotic, or expensive ingredient. Seaweed extract is readily available and used in everything from cosmetics to food products and medical applications.'; Creme de la Mer contains mostly seaweed extract, mineral oil, petrolatum (similar to Vaseline), glycerin, waxlike thickening agents, plant oils, plant seeds, minerals, vitamins, more thickeners, and preservatives. How expensive can it be to stick some seaweed and vitamins in a cosmetic? According to the cosmetics chemists I've interviewed, it costs pennies, not hundreds of dollars.





Moreover, several additional products with formulas that are unrelated to the first now accompany Creme de la Mer's original miracle product. If the first one was so spectacular why did it need company, and why did the subsequent products have completely different formulations? I guess the original wasn't quite the miracle formula they thought it was.';