THIS is the perfect example of the eternal beauty question...are you buying the product, or the packaging? Take the iconic @Christian Louboutin lipstick. When it launched it was around $90. Now it’s closer to $105. And to be fair… it is one of the most intricate custom lipstick cases ever made. Remember when they marketed them to be worn as necklaces? But when you zoom out, it raises an interesting conversation about luxury beauty, because the actual cost to manufacture a bullet lipstick is usually somewhere around $2–$6 for the formula. Even the packaging might land around $6–$7, depending on volume. So at a certain point, you’re very clearly paying for something else: the object, the design, the fantasy of it. And honestly, beauty queens... that’s okay!! Beauty has always had a little bit of collector energy. But personally, my threshold for a bullet lipstick is around $50. Anything above that starts to feel like you’re buying the case… and the lipstick just happens to come with it. ...