Thoughts on Geologie?

[mynameGeoff]

Hey friends!

 

I wanted to get a temperature check on a brand I came across while watching YouTube called Geologie as they've reached out about potentially sponsoring some of our channels.

 

Geologie provides skincare products for men such as face wash, ache night cream and eye cream for those pesky eye bags.

 

Reviews online are positive as their products look to be of high quality but I wanted the forums opinion if anyone has tried them out! If anyone has any experience with Geologie, I would love to hear from you

[adarw]

never heard about them, never am going to use them, but i was curious what this company does, i find the pr team interesting lol

 

[LWM723]

This product has nothing to do with tech. What's next, tampons?

[Middcore]

3 minutes ago, LWM723 said:

This product has nothing to do with tech. What's next, tampons?

I mean, they've already done Manscaped sponsorships. I don't see the difference. Although I think Linus would probably have to figure out what tampons are before he did a sponsorship for them. 

 

[dilpickle]

21 minutes ago, LWM723 said:

This product has nothing to do with tech. What's next, tampons?

Who said sponsors have to be tech?

[Roswell]

These absolute clowns are actually selling 0.5 oz containers of moisturizer for $30. That's a whopping ONE TABLESPOON... jfc. 

 

If you filled a can of soda with said moisturizer at that price it would come out to like $720. What a joke.

 

[DANK_AS_gay]

7 hours ago, Roswell said:

These absolute clowns are actually selling 0.5 oz containers of moisturizer for $30. That's a whopping ONE TABLESPOON... jfc. 

 

If you filled a can of soda with said moisturizer at that price it would come out to like $720. What a joke.

 

 

That's because science, while they spew the big words for "we put a bunch of Keratin and fat in this". "triglycerolanine beta 69 is the new chemical to keep your hair looking fresh!"

[DANK_AS_gay]

For me, even being a teen, and all the skin care complications that brings, I can just use Neutrogena. I know that some people need more, but this is needlessly complicated:

needlessly expensive, as read above in @Roswell's post, and ultimately not a great choice for this demographic. I don't know how your plan would be set up, but if it is based on number of hits they get, I wouldn't go for it. But if they are paying the big moneys at a rate dictated by LMG, go for it, it's not like I can't ignore it. Advertisements give me time to get food, this one is particularly awesome because now I don't even have to think about if it is something I would use. It isn't actively negative, like credit card ads tend to be, nor is it something I find myself needing, even if I could afford it.

[Lurick]

11 hours ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

That's because science, while they spew the big words for "we put a bunch of Keratin and fat in this". "triglycerolanine beta 69 is the new chemical to keep your hair looking fresh!"

Look now, SCIENCE be the devil!!!! Down with the science

 

/sarcasm at junk science to be clear

[Spotty]

As @Roswell said I do think their prices are rather high.

 

Looking at their prices I noticed it was $40 USD for a 75mL tube of SPF 30 sunscreen which I think is pretty outrageous. Most other brands of sunscreen will be around $5-$10/100mL from the supermarket or chemist. I'm sure they have some justification for the price of it being some fragrance or premium product or something, but you won't ever catch me spending $40 for a tube of sunscreen.

 

As far as make up and skin care products go there's a lot of other products on the market with outrageous markups as well so if they can sell $1.30 worth of sunscreen for $40 with the power of marketing and fancy packaging then power to them - it's a free market. People pay even stupider prices for perfume.

 

I personally don't like buying from companies where it's obvious that most of their cost is in the marketing they pay social media influencers and not in the actual product, but I don't have any concerns with LMG advertising them. I don't think products being expensive are a valid reason not to advertise a company. Some companies offer value-orientated products and other companies have high margins on premium-focused products.

Not something I would be interested in but I wouldn't have any concerns with LMG advertising them.

[Ultraforce]

15 hours ago, LWM723 said:

This product has nothing to do with tech. What's next, tampons?

I can't find the video but I believe there was a LMG clip that explained it a bit. It is better not to be solely relying on sponsorships from groups and products within the industry as it could lead to assumptions of bias when recommending them. That's why having stuff like the Roast video was sponsored by Madrinas coffee or the most recent clips from the Wan Show are sponsored by a popcorn brand. There would be no assumption by viewers that biases about popcorn would effect content.

[mynameGeoff]

18 hours ago, LWM723 said:

This product has nothing to do with tech. What's next, tampons?

True, this brand has nothing to do with tech. However, many of our popular sponsors aren't either. Look at Vessi, Ridge, MANSCAPED, Hello Fresh, etc.

 

With a channel and company our size, it's important to have a diverse portfolio of partners than just pidgetholeing ourselves to just tech. That way, we're able to work with brands we've never considered before and ultimately fund new and excited projects or channels such as LTT Labs.

 

6 hours ago, Spotty said:

As @Roswell said I do think their prices are rather high.

 

Looking at their prices I noticed it was $40 USD for a 75mL tube of SPF 30 sunscreen which I think is pretty outrageous. Most other brands of sunscreen will be around $5-$10/100mL from the supermarket or chemist. I'm sure they have some justification for the price of it being some fragrance or premium product or something, but you won't ever catch me spending $40 for a tube of sunscreen.

 

As far as make up and skin care products go there's a lot of other products on the market with outrageous markups as well so if they can sell $1.30 worth of sunscreen for $40 with the power of marketing and fancy packaging then power to them - it's a free market. People pay even stupider prices for perfume.

 

I personally don't like buying from companies where it's obvious that most of their cost is in the marketing they pay social media influencers and not in the actual product, but I don't have any concerns with LMG advertising them. I don't think products being expensive are a valid reason not to advertise a company. Some companies offer value-orientated products and other companies have high margins on premium-focused products.

Not something I would be interested in but I wouldn't have any concerns with LMG advertising them.

In stores like Sephora where there's more of a focus on skin care, price range looks to be around that. For those who are actively looking for skin care products, it's not too bad tbh.

 

Thanks for the feedback

[Roswell]

14 minutes ago, GeoffLMG said:

True, this brand has nothing to do with tech. However, many of our popular sponsors aren't either. Look at Vessi, Ridge, MANSCAPED, Hello Fresh, etc.

 

With a channel and company our size, it's important to have a diverse portfolio of partners than just pidgetholeing ourselves to just tech. That way, we're able to work with brands we've never considered before and ultimately fund new and excited projects or channels such as LTT Labs.

 

In stores like Sephora where there's more of a focus on skin care, price range looks to be around that. For those who are actively looking for skin care products, it's not too bad tbh.

 

Thanks for the feedback

I’ve never seen any sane company sell 1 tablespoon of moisturizer for $30. Are you seriously suggesting that $500-$1000 a month is “not too bad”?

[DANK_AS_gay]

7 hours ago, Lurick said:

Look now, SCIENCE be the devil!!!! Down with the science

 

I could have misunderstood your post, and I'm sorry if I did (I have Aspergers, and on the interwebs it is difficult for normal people to tell if others are joking or not, let alone someone who cannot tell in person). In my mind you either A. were joking along with me, or B. were laughing at me for saying that science is bad. In case A. Obviously I have nothing to clarify, but in case B. I want to clarify what I was saying, since I can see why you took it that way.

 

I was stating (and making fun of) why it costs so much. It was a commentary on A. every company claims to have the best shampoo, that is revolutionary in every way, using secret ingredients the Egyptians were using. (this ad doesn't claim the egyptian part,that was exaggeration, but everything else holds true) and B. none of them work much better than any other, yet the cost disparity is huge. There are some specialty shampoos that are necessary for people like me who have excessive over productive oil glands on my head, that need aggressive shampoo to eat away at the massive amount of oil that is produced (and trapped skin cells as a result). I get that, but to claim that your shampoo is best, period, is disingenuine. 

 

A good analogy would be car companies saying that their car has "torque vectoring", when all it has is an ABS/TCS system that brakes the inside tyres (I've been watching Top Gear for too long, I'm from the US of A and I just naturally typed tyres instead of the correct spelling of tires). It isn't true "torque vectoring". But they can call it that because no one calls them out. Same thing here. This isn't "new" science, it's decades old chemistry. At its base level, more than 3 millenia old knowledge.

 

 

[Lurick]

3 minutes ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

 

I could have misunderstood your post, and I'm sorry if I did (I have Aspergers, and on the interwebs it is difficult for normal people to tell if others are joking or not, let alone someone who cannot tell in person). In my mind you either A. were joking along with me, or B. were laughing at me for saying that science is bad. In case A. Obviously I have nothing to clarify, but in case B. I want to clarify what I was saying, since I can see why you took it that way.

 

I was stating (and making fun of) why it costs so much. It was a commentary on A. every company claims to have the best shampoo, that is revolutionary in every way, using secret ingredients the Egyptians were using. (this ad doesn't claim the egyptian part,that was exaggeration, but everything else holds true) and B. none of them work much better than any other, yet the cost disparity is huge. There are some specialty shampoos that are necessary for people like me who have excessive over productive oil glands on my head, that need aggressive shampoo to eat away at the massive amount of oil that is produced (and trapped skin cells as a result). I get that, but to claim that your shampoo is best, period, is disingenuine. 

 

A good analogy would be car companies saying that their car has "torque vectoring", when all it has is an ABS/TCS system that brakes the inside tyres (I've been watching Top Gear for too long, I'm from the US of A and I just naturally typed tyres instead of the correct spelling of tires). It isn't true "torque vectoring". But they can call it that because no one calls them out. Same thing here. This isn't "new" science, it's decades old chemistry. At its base level, more than 3 millenia old knowledge.

 

 

Nah, just joking along mostly at how some companies will say "backed by science" and in reality it's just a bunch of junk the cobbled together using big words and a thesaurus to make it sound plausible to the average person.

[DANK_AS_gay]

8 minutes ago, Roswell said:

I’ve never seen any sane company sell 1 tablespoon of moisturizer for $30. Are you seriously suggesting that $500-$1000 a month is “not too bad”?

These last an entire month, I think it is similar to sunscreen where a small amount spreads thinly over a large area. It is only 30 bucks a month.

[DANK_AS_gay]

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

Nah, just joking along mostly at how some companies will say "backed by science" and in reality it's just a bunch of junk the cobbled together using big words and a thesaurus to make it sound plausible to the average person.

I thought so, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page!

[mynameGeoff]

12 minutes ago, Roswell said:

I’ve never seen any sane company sell 1 tablespoon of moisturizer for $30. Are you seriously suggesting that $500-$1000 a month is “not too bad”?

Well it's travel-sized so typically brands will charge more for the ability to take it on a plane. Realistically, you'd only buy this once and have a larger container at home.

[Lurick]

Just now, DANK_AS_gay said:

I thought so, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page!

Yup but good point, I didn't fully call that out so I updated my post.

 

Back on topic:

I'm not really the target audience for this stuff but provided the company is reliable/decent in terms of product quality and transparent in not shelling out cash for good reviews I don't see why they couldn't be a sponsor, haven't looked into them much though so take that for what it's worth.

[Middcore]

19 minutes ago, Roswell said:

I’ve never seen any sane company sell 1 tablespoon of moisturizer for $30. Are you seriously suggesting that $500-$1000 a month is “not too bad”?

You're greatly overestimating how much of this stuff you're supposed to use, and as already pointed out, travel size products are never good value. 

[Roswell]

39 minutes ago, Middcore said:

You're greatly overestimating how much of this stuff you're supposed to use, and as already pointed out, travel size products are never good value. 

None of their stuff is a good value... it's obscene. 

 

Their regular size (1.7 oz) costs $55.

 

Meanwhile on Amazon you can pay 95% less per ounce: https://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Clinicals-Professionals-Moisturizing-Penetrates/dp/B00DI9IIEK/ref=sr_1_6?crid=2RU27G4PTKCCO&keywords=retinol+cream&qid=1649789360&sprefix=retinol+cream%2Caps%2C88&sr=8-6

 

Even if you look at name brand stuff like Neutrogena it's less than half the price. There's no excuse for this pricing. It's just your typical exploitive monthly subscription nonsense targeted at zoomers that don't know how to manage their money.

 

You know they're scumbags when they even offer 60 DAY FINANCING for their MONTHLY subscriptions: 

 

 

What's better than $55 for 1.7 oz of moisturizer? Getting roped into a financing scheme that will never be able to be paid down. Cool.

[DANK_AS_gay]

12 minutes ago, Roswell said:

ven if you look at name brand stuff like Neutrogena it's less than half the price.

Well, it's meant to be tailor made for you and your skin type. If you look close, you try a bunch of their products until you get the best one, then they start you on a subscription. The financing is a little sketch, but they don't push it, they offer it as an option, but you can just use PayPal or ApplePay or whatever else just fine. If you need financing, you shouldn't be looking at this product. And, if it isn't great value, that's up for the consumer to decide, the sponsorship here isn't that big of a deal, especially since if it is bad value, most people won't bother. I don't like Raycons, their build quality is worse than $50 Taotronics I got from Amazon, they sound mediochre at best, and they don't fit my ears well. They are terrible value. Does that mean I'm going to yell at LMG for having them as their sponsors? No. I don't agree with it, but someone might actually like them.  This isn't like that credit card that seemed sus, to say the least, it's a product, not a service.

[wanderingfool2]

It's not really something I would purchase, but not something that I am against though.  Overall it seems like they are just marketing themselves as a higher end product (no issues there), but personally as a guy who doesn't care about my quality of skin I wouldn't be paying the prices they are asking.

 

I do like that they aren't at least pushing a lot of stuff like the blue light products (which I am totally against that kind of marketing).  So yea, the tl;dr.  It's pricey but I don't see anything really wrong about using them as a sponsor.

 

 

46 minutes ago, Roswell said:

I’ve never seen any sane company sell 1 tablespoon of moisturizer for $30. Are you seriously suggesting that $500-$1000 a month is “not too bad”?

That is really a perverse example really.  You took the most expensive product, meant as a travel size and extrapolated it to a month usage.  Just based on what I can guess, from the images the travel sized probably would last at least 3 or 4 days...which puts it worst case $310 a month...but even stepping up to the proper size that you would purchase it's likely less than $100 a month.  If you go for their even cheaper version without the Retinol then that is likely well under $40 a month.

 

Do I think it's expensive, yea, but no point in doing a hyperbole in terms of $500-1000 a month when in reality it's no where near that.

 

10 minutes ago, Roswell said:

None of their stuff is a good value... it's obscene. 

 

Their regular size (1.7 oz) costs $55.

 

Meanwhile on Amazon you can pay 95% less per ounce: https://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Clinicals-Professionals-Moisturizing-Penetrates/dp/B00DI9IIEK/ref=sr_1_6?crid=2RU27G4PTKCCO&keywords=retinol+cream&qid=1649789360&sprefix=retinol+cream%2Caps%2C88&sr=8-6

 

Even if you look at name brand stuff like Neutrogena it's less than half the price. There's no excuse for this pricing. It's just your typical exploitive monthly subscription nonsense targeted at zoomers that don't know how to manage their money.

L'Oreal sells their equivalent bottle for $30.  So yes there is a mark-up but it is highly brand specific and it's actually hard just telling 2 brands apart by looking at what it's advertised as
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B099X8PVFL/ref=sspa_dk_detail_3?psc=1&pd_rd_i=B099X8PVFL&pd_rd_w=HlUZj&pf_rd_p=57cbdc41-b731-4e3d-aca7-49078b13a07b&pd_rd_wg=BPdR9&pf_rd_r=YRNV59YSXH64G3KTCFA6&pd_rd_r=b96a7b6e-dfbe-4303-acea-b2f3f787f179&s=beauty&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExNlJNTFdMTFk1RUZUJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNDkyNTMxMVBRUUZVVjdFUVNTWiZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMjI2MzE3MzRHMFVPU0I1SUREVSZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2RldGFpbF90aGVtYXRpYyZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

 

A perfect example is the L'Oreal one, it's difficult to see what percentage of active ingredients there are.  So overall it makes it a lot more difficult to compare, and starts getting back into name brand vs specialty brand kind of argument.

 

So again, yea it's expensive but it's not exactly fair comparing it to bulk items because there are plenty of people who will use products like this that won't be needing to buy in bulk as well (also the concept that some of these products have shelf lives before a product degrades)

[GhostRoadieBL]

Boutique, small volume products will always be expensive to manufacture and develop. It makes sense for the price when looking at competing smaller companies (not household names) in the same product lines like Mesoa or Joanna Vargas.

The market they are aimed at doesn't seem to be the same as what I assume LMG's audience majority is (based on the stereotypical tech enthusiast being an accurate stereotype) where energy drinks and looking like you pulled all nighters for your entire life is more common.

 

It looks like a decent company with some questionable statements about "personalized" routines. The lack of product variety doesn't support the combination of their products being personalized setups.

"normal" skin line of 5 products

"sensitive" skin line of 5 products

But these have multiple common or minimally changed products between so the personalization is simply normal vs sensitive.

 

Also,

Pick my skin tone.

[darknessblade]

When looking over their site I cannot stop hearing alarm bells screaming SCAM.

 

They portray cheaper brands as the "Bad guy" calling some "BAD" scientific names of ingredients, just to scare people, into thinking every brand uses those ingredients, while they themselves try to hide their ingredients as much as they can.

-----------

They also make it really hard to read their own ingredients

Trough using a Hover text, showing a small popup with the ingredients

For example the next product has the following ingredients

^{Copy pasting is also impossible without using the F12 screen}

https://geologie.com/products/unscented-exfoliating-cleanser-2-pack

 

Quote

 

Salicylic Acid

Water,

Cocamidopropyl Betaine,

Sodium C14-16 Olefin Sulfonate,

PEG-150 Distearate,

Isopentyldiol,

Coco-Glucoside, Salicylic Acid,

Phenooxyethanol,

Sodium Benzoate

 

 

The following product on walmark

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Neutrogena-Deep-Clean-Gentle-Facial-Scrub-Oil-Free-4-2-fl-oz/10849664

Has the ingredients Visible and easily readable, without any issue.

 

Quote

 

Ingredients

Inactive Ingredients

Water Cetyl Alcohol Ppg-15 Stearyl Ether Cellulose Glycerin Polysorbate 60 Steareth-21 Potassium Cetyl Phosphate Salicylic Acid Xanthan Gum Fragrance Agar Sodium Hydroxide Iron Oxides Mica Titanium Dioxide Red 30

Ingredients

Water, Sodium Methyl Cocoyl Taurate, Jojoba Esters, Glycerin, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Glycol Distearate, Stearic Acid, Sodium Chloride, Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Xanthan Gum, Salicylic Acid, Cetyl Alcohol, Phenoxyethanol, Fragrance, Magnesium Aluminum Silicate, Linoleamidopropyl Pg-Dimonium Chloride Phosphate, Methylparaben, Sodium Hydroxide, Disodium Edta, Propylparaben, Ethylparaben, Agar, Citric Acid, Titanium Dioxide, Iron Oxides, Mica, Red 30

 

 

Not forgetting the "other" Brand is over 10x cheaper. than Geologie

 

 

Also regarding Geologie's ingredients, Yes Having less "SCARY" ingredients Sounds "better" but if you go out of your way to try and hide said ingredients, then it is not even remotely better. and makes me think there are even more shady things going on about Geologie

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After pressing the "getting started" button, and go trough their questionnaire, they are very keen on selling a subscription, while this was not the case before. {You also have to give your email, before even getting any results, which I DID NOT. I used a temp mail, and a fake name}

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Then there is also the point of Import Fees if you live in the EU/ In any place other than the USA/Canada

_{{Please note the Listed Address is a random one I took, just to see what it would cost}}

 

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Their Refund policy reads as kinda shady to me.

https://faq.geologie.com/article/w2ffyahmeq-what-s-your-return-policy

 

As it is not fully clear how their "refund" Policy works. Like if you used 0.5ml of a 15ml bottle, do you still get a FULL refund?

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In my Opinion its better to stay FAR away from this type of Company.