[Kathe]

Suze and the rest...

What I think you are not getting is the quality of the ingredients that Arbonne uses. You all know there is a difference in that. Anyone can put aloe on a bottle of tanning lotion but there are different amounts and different grades.

There are 3 things that go into making a product:

1. Ingredients. There are different grades of ingredients. Especially when talking about nutritional products you can have anything from the best of the best to something that doesn't even contain an active part of the plant. On the ingredient label it is all going to be listed the same. You, as the consumer, really don't know the difference. You also don't know the amount used and whether it is an amount that will even add a significant value to it.

A good example of this is St. Johns Wort. This plant is used a lot in nutritional products. The plant itself is huge but only a small part of it is active and will do anything. Companies like Arbonne, who only buy gold standard ingredients, buy that part of the plant. The rest is sold at auction to the highest bidder. When you are buying something with St. Johns Wort you have no idea if it is an active ingredient or not. Unless you buy from a reputable company like Arbonne who only uses the best.

2. Formulation. This is how said ingredients are put together in order for them to work properly. This is important in the case of skin care but even more important in vitamin and nutritional products. For example, when you have iron you must have vitamin C in order to help the iron absorb properly. You need magnesium with calcium, etc. So just because a company adds an ingredient to their product does not mean it is going to be doing anything.

Arbonne has its own research and development facility in Switzerland. It is run and managed by Pierre Botiglierre who is one of the most respected men in the industry. He has a team of scientists, botanists, chemists and herbalists who constantly work to produce cutting edge products that work better than anything else out there. This is not something run out of someone's basement like a lot of them out there. They havea standard of excellence that must be met. The product must work. Period. It must perform to the highest standards.

3. Delivery system. You can have the absolute best ingredients and best formulation but if they can't get into where they need to go there is no point. Arbonne uses cutting edge delivery systems in order to get their products - both skin care and nutrition - where they can do what they need to do. This is why we don't want mineral oil in our skin care products. You can have great ingredients but if there is mineral oil in there the product will just sit there and not absorb. There is no delivery in the layers of skin below the surface. It's why people are addicted to chapstick and the like. The petrolatum in the product causes dryness and even if there are good ingredients those are not getting absorbed in to do any good.

Do some research on this company. It is why I am so passionate about the products. Because they work.

Just because something else might have some of the same ingredients does not mean it is going to work the same way. Too many factors come into play. Arbonne is a company with integrity.

I am friends with the Sr. VP of product development. Her name is Candance Keefe. She is amazing and refuses to compromise on the integrity of these products. They use organic whenever possible and go around the world to find the best of the best. If for some reason, for a time, the best is not available, they stop selling that product until it is. They con't compromise by using a less effective or lesser quality product. It's not worth it to them.

You get what you pay for in Arbonne products.

OH! And the # thing must be something from being my age. We used to use it all the time growing up. LOL