Intro
As you know, I have been writing about “cocoa powder” for almost a decade. In that time, I have learned a few things:
1) If you want to make sense of all the nonsense and hype about cocoa powders and sephora, you should stop right there and read what I wrote on my blog.
2) Cocoa powder is not a real thing.
3) The hype and fad included in the name “Too Faced” is entirely untrue.
4) There is no way to make good cocoa powder at home.
5) You can buy it, but it is not worth it.
Features and Benefits of Too Faced Cocoa Powder
There have been a few posts in the last year or so discussing why Too Faced is so good at what they do, and how other brands fail to give us a strong enough reason to take their products seriously. While there’s probably some truth in what he says, I would like to add something here.
This is not the first time that someone has said this, but I feel it’s worth mentioning again: Too Faced is not just selling cocoa powder because it tastes good. They are selling cocoa powder because they believe it will make our skin look better, and that belief is founded on a very solid foundation of science (and science-y stuff, if you can believe it). There are lots of other cosmetic ingredients that look great on paper — D&C Yellow 5 (which is harmless), for example — but none of them actually improve skin health; they just make our skin look and feel better. This isn’t just some nice piece of marketing: we can (and should) judge products by their true benefits too.
It’s easy to get caught up in the marketing and market niches that Too Faced has taken on (chocolate, eye shadow) but our core product will always be about making skin healthier. Our goal from day one was to remove all traces of the stigma associated with acne — even though the cause of acne is often unclear and complex. That’s something we can do by addressing the symptom: pimples — or blemishes — not only as a consumer, but also as a consultant for Clinique and Maybelline (who produce high-end skincare products for us). In fact, our only real competition in this area comes from professional skincare companies who specialize in treating blemishes and acne issues; unfortunately we are not one of them because they don’t really understand what we can do for patients with acne-related problems. We will never be able to beat them at this game; we might be able to compete with them on brand strength; but when all else fails we still need to reassure people that there are natural products out there which help make their skin look better than any over-the-counter product ever could do.
How to Apply Too Faced Cocoa Powder
I’ve been using Too Faced products for years, and I really love them. I’ve been impressed by the brand, their products and the way they are marketed (always a good thing). But there’s one thing that has always bugged me: their name.
I recently found my mom had bought a Too Faced Cocoa Powder in her old Sephora bag, and was surprised to find that it was called “Too Faced Chocolate Powder”. (I guess they didn’t copycat the name from their site) I am sure you can spot this product in Sephora or Saks, but why are they calling it “Too Faced”?
The answer is simple: to get more people to buy it!
They call it “too faced cocoa powder sephora” because when people see too faced chocolate powder sephora on the shelf and think of Too Faced — so many people think of chocolate! They want chocolate; it is all too easy to confuse those two things.
I call this the “chocolate confusion effect”, and we see the effects very often at MacRumors (or anywhere else for that matter).People assume that if you don’t like chocolate, you can’t like Too Faced. This is true — almost everyone who sees too faced cocoa powder sephora thinks of chocolate! And as long as they assume any ingredient other than cocoa is bad for them, this has always proven a powerful marketing tool.
The problem is that people are not particularly interested in cocoa powder or anything else made with cocoa; they just want chocolate! So we have an opportunity here: if we can just convince people that these products are not just chocolate, but also candy and vanilla flavoring — then more people will buy them! If we could make sure that these were thought of as something different even though they contain cocoa… Then we had created another market segment entirely!
To do this, I have noticed certain trends on social media:
1) People will say things like “Ohhh… chocolate… I love chocolate… but this smells weird… it smells like old school cough drops or something.. maybe marshmallows? NOPE!! Not chocolates! LOL!! Don’t be dumb!! You know what’s better? Marshmallows!! That’s what they’re called!! Get over yourself!! Who cares?? Go eat
How to Remove Too Faced Cocoa Powder
I started using Too Faced cocoa powder a couple of years ago, and until recently I used their lipsticks. I liked them enough to repurchase them, but I also like a lot of different products from the brand (which is why I’m writing this post).
I have been using Too Faced products for years now, but some of their packaging got out of hand. They released so many variations on the same theme that it became impossible to tell what was in them.
They were also trying to sell expensive stuff that was not supposed to be too expensive. This is a brand that makes their own cocoa powder (which is actually expensive on its own), which they market as “chocolate” and make available in pretty much all kinds of collectible shapes and sizes. It would be nice if they added some fine print that said “this product isn’t really chocolate” or “this product doesn’t go well with chocolate,” or something like that.
I had started repurchasing Too Faced products because I found the packaging interesting; it was an interesting take on the standard shades/shapes/sizes/colors at retail. But by the time I got back into my old routine, I was over it. My lips are getting darker anyway, so there wasn’t much use for those little tubes anymore anyway — and if there ever were any left it would have been very hard to re-purchase them again anyway since they don’t carry such small quantities any more (they used to carry about 25 grams).
If you are new to this brand and you want an inexpensive lip balm with good color payoff (a nice shade range), here is one: Too Faced Chocolate Brown Sugar Lip Balm ($12).
How to Clean Too Faced Cocoa Powder Spills
This is the first post in a series that will be a little different from the others. I’m going to try and be less personal (because I know you don’t want to read about yourself) and more technical.
I really have no idea what happened here, only a few clues:
• The powder spilled while it was being finished, then landed on the counter. A lot of people were close enough to observe it
• The powder was still wet at this point
• A lot of people who were near (and not wearing gloves) were touching it with their fingers; though some, like me, were wearing gloves
• Some people who came in after the spill (who wore gloves) touched it with their hands; though some, like me, didn’t wear gloves (and didn’t notice any contamination on their hands)
So why did this happen? The short answer is that there are a lot of things that can cause powder spills. As I said above: there are a few clues but no definitive answers as to what happened here. One thing we can say for sure is that none of these “clues” point towards any one thing as being responsible for the spill: all are just falling out when you look at them. So let’s try and look at each one separately and see if we can figure out what caused this spill. What we know so far…
The Powder Spilled When It Was Being Finished The next clue is that the product was still wet when it spilled on the counter. This might seem like an obvious cause – but in fact there are two ways of looking at this: from either direction and from both ends. The first way is to say “it spilt over onto the counter because it had been left out too long”; but this isn’t quite true either – because once it got wet, it became firmly stuck in place by gravity. But gravity never does anything without pressure: so if you hold your finger up against water, gravity will ensure it remains in place until you take your finger away from the surface of the water – even if you have left it out too long! So neither theory describes how this happened, or explains why the product spilled over onto the counter. A second way of looking at this is to say “it spilt over onto the counter because someone put their finger into it while they were working on
Conclusion
If you’re reading this post, chances are you are a startup. And that is awesome!
Here’s an argument to be made: the most vital part of your business — your product — is not just something you own; it is something you build. You don’t own either your product or your customers. If it isn’t yours, then how do you know how to make money?
One of the first things I would recommend doing is to develop an understanding of both sides of the equation: how to make money and how to innovate. If you can do both well, it will save a lot of headaches down the road.
It’s easy to think that making money is all about getting paid for what you do. But — and this is a big but — making money means creating something worth paying for. And in order to build something worth paying for, you have to have customers who want what you have built (and who will pay for it).
That’s why innovation matters so much more than everyone else believes: by building things that people want, instead of just selling products that people buy, the way we get paid helps us define what we should build next. And as long as we can keep doing that, we will survive as long as people keep buying stuff they want (and maybe pay for).