Not Placebo, but Neuroscience: The Magic Called Masking

When choosing skincare, what do we base our decisions on?

An image seen in an advertisement. Beautiful packaging. That smooth feeling the moment it touches the skin.

Value Village began by questioning all of it, just once.

“Feel on the skin” can be created

In the world of cosmetics, there are formulation techniques that create smoothness and moisture the moment a product is applied. By layering ingredients that refine the texture, a “pleasant feel” can be designed. We call this masking We call this.

To avoid misunderstanding, feel on the skin itself is not a bad thing. Comfort is one of the important values of cosmetics. The issue is that some products continue to be chosen based on feel alone alone. Competing through the effect created at the moment of application is, by nature, the mindset of makeup. If products built on that same mindset are lined up as “skincare,” then is that really engaging with the skin, or is it simply decorating the surface?

Placebo and neuroscience are not the same

“It was expensive, so it feels like it works.” “It is a famous brand, so it must be good.” It is well known as the placebo effect that assumptions can create satisfaction. Large advertising budgets can also be seen as investments in cultivating these assumptions.

The “neuroscience” perspective we value is the opposite. We aim to make products that are evaluated not by relying on assumptions, but by the experience itself when used: changes in how the skin feels to the touch, changes in the time spent looking in the mirror, and the accumulated feeling of wanting to keep using it.

Products chosen through assumptions are replaced the moment a new assumption appears. Products chosen through real experience become hard to let go of. We aim only for the latter.

Would it still be chosen if the brand name were hidden?

We intend to hold ourselves to this idea.

Soon, we will run a project in the Value Village Community where you can try several products without seeing their brand names. In a place with no advertising, no packaging, and no brand preconceptions, what will your skin and your brain choose? Whatever the results may be, we will publish them all. That is what we mean by transparency, and it is our resolve when we say, “You’ll understand once you use it.”

Truly good things are simple. They do not need decorative words or massive advertising. Use them, and you will know.

Without that conviction, we have no right to accept money from customers. That is what we believe.

—The Value Village Editorial Team