Many women who use cosmetics look first at the brand name without being sure of the product's origin or components. After all, it could be a bogus product. The customer must know the benefits of using any cosmetic brand, as each skin and hair type has its own nature. It's illogical to buy a brand-name cosmetic, if it doesn't benefit your skin or hair. Many manufacturers forge make-up, hair and skin-care products, printing famous brand names on them. A lot of advertise products that will change hair or skin colour. "Products used to change skin colour are very harmful. Cosmetics should give you certain care, for example, if your skin is dry, use a moisturiser. If it is oily, use less oily creams for balance," says Nashwa Allam, a chemist with Maxim International pharmecuticals company. "Another example is the culture of using shampoo to change the type of your hair; shampoo can't change curly hair to smooth hair, as the purpose of shampoo is to remove dirt and oil. "Then, you can use a conditioning balsam to restore essential elements to the hair after washing," she explained to the Egyptian Mail in an interview. Make-up and facial products sometimes exploit the name of natural raw materials like green tea or milk, for example, but they're only used for flavouring the products. For a brand name or franchise to succeed, it needs a good marketing strategy, a good formula for the product, a competitive policy and dealing with an aware customer. According to Nashwa, marketing and advertisements cost companies huge money – the same amount as the profit they make – which is why the original costs so much. The US company for pharmaceuticals Johnson and Johnson came up with the logo ‘No tears after today'. It also insists on producing a separate shampoo and lotion, even though the culture of ‘2 in 1', a product that includes both a shampoo and a balsam, has become widespread. "Although a separate shampoo and conditioner is preferable to ‘2 in 1', many people prefer the latter," adds Nashwa. The competition in the market is very fierce for the original components, especially as the fake manufacturers may imitate in either a positive or a negative way. "The imitation may be legal if the company has sealed an agreement under certain conditions and certain marginal profits to give its franchise to a young entrepreneur who keeps its formula," she stresses. The other sort of imitation is a very cheap way of cheating, usually done by changing just one letter in the original name, then using a completely different formula and marketing it by relying on the impact of the very similar big name. The main target of the forged brands is to make as much money as possible with low costs, focusing on low-income categories. "The big difference in prices confuses my customers," says Tareq Moustafa, who runs a cosmetics store in Heliopolis in Cairo. "But I always make sure about the licensed documents while dealing with the distributor of original brands." Moustafa advises the public not to be deceived, just because they buy products from big shopping centres or stores in upmarket districts, unless they've used this brand before and trust that it's original.
