Shampoo Conspiracy Theory

[copied this over from my main blog]

I dunno if this has been said before, or whether I think too much because I spend a LOT of $$ and a LOT of time buying bath products or I’m the only person left in the world to figure this out on my own… but behold! Two conspiracy theories I came up with when I was showering and thinking about my shampoo.

Firstly, I’m really pissed off that I have to spend a LOT on haircare products. In this case, it’s not about shampoo, but stuff like hair serum, anti-frizz serum, hair masks, etc. If I don’t spend money on these items, my hair is dry as hay. Sometimes, even though I spend so much, it’s still like hay, but slightly better hay quality, I suppose. I can’t help but to wash my hair a lot, which results in the hair becoming even drier. This is because I go to the gym ALMOST every day. Therefore, I have to wash my hair ALMOST every day. Before I even went into the crazy world of rebonding and coloring my hair, my hair was super good. No need to buy all this crap to nurture it. But because girls oi leng moi meng, I have to spend $$ to make my colored / rebonded hair look nice nice. What’s the use if it’s a nice color and it’s all straight but the ends look like I got electrocuted, right?

Anyway, recently I read this Tim Hartford economics book, and he was going on about how companies, when they can, they will try to charge “customers who are willing to pay more a higher amount, and customers who are not willing to pay more, the normal amount”. The problem, he said, was how does a company identify whether a customer is rich and doesn’t count pennies, therefore willing to pay a higher amount? In the end, he said it was due to the customer’s own choices that identify him as a rich-and-dun-care feller, by choosing additional premiums for a certain product. E.g : in a coffee joint, the store might offer you RM2 extra if you take whipped cream with your frappucino. If you don’t count pennies, you will say no thanks to the extra cream. If you do, you save yourself RM2. However, if you are rich and you chose the whipped cream, you are paying RM2 for maybe something that costs the coffee joint only extra 20 sen to give to you. Therefore, you are practically wearing a neon sign saying “rip me off!” to the company. They love it! That’s why they give you so many “choices” to give you the chance to identify yourself as a rich and so-called “willing to pay more” customer. Premiums like supersizing, additional shot of espresso, additional flavoring, etc.

So my theory for this haircare stuff is that, in the first place, we girls who color or rebond our hair have already highlighted and marked ourselves as vain and “willing to spend” customers to the haircare company. Who knows, maybe they have already developed hair dyes or rebonding methods that will NOT result in our hair becoming like hay. I know, you think that it’s not possible because chemicals are so harsh, etc. But when we put hair serums and hair treatments into our hair, isn’t that chemicals also? Possibly they have developed this super good hair dye in super good colors that when we color our hair, our hair becomes softer and more manageable than ever! But why would they sell this when they know that we are “willing to pay more” to them by buying their hair treatment products? I’m sure they’re earning BILLIONS extra from this industry. No way are they going to release the super secret formula for the super hair dye that actually makes our hair better when we use it. So the more we buy into the idea of how coloring the hair and rebonding / curling the hair = great, the more the companies rub their hands with glee because they know this will not be the end they see of us! Soon, we will be returning to buy stuff to keep our hair in good condition… by the way, I also believe that those shampoos for colored hair generally cost more than regular shampoo right. I bet the cost of manufacturing the shampoos are the SAME…

My next theory is on why the heck my shampoo and conditioners never finish at the same time. I have 3 bottles of conditioner in my toilet, but only 1 bottle of shampoo. Obviously the company purposely makes it so that it CANNOT finish at the same time because when you are left with 1/4 more conditioner, you generally wanna buy back the “matching shampoo”.. which would be from the same brand. Cos SUPPOSEDLY it works better if you get both from the same brand, right? So to keep you coming back for more, they will always make sure that they cannot finish at the same time. How ah now… am I suppose to slather on my conditioner like crazy from now on? So that by using more conditioner, then perhaps I won’t need the hair treatments? Hahaha….

Okie, I’m just talking crap. Think I spend too much time looking at shampoos.