St. Ives Medicated Apricot Scrub Vs. Equate Medicated Apricot Scrub

I've been using St. Ives Apricot Scrub since I was thirteen years old. Nearly twenty years. When they came out with the medicated version, I switched to that because I tend to have very oily skin at times. I had never missed a day using this product. In fact, I forgot to pack it once on a trip and at midnight, my husband ran into a twenty-four hour WalMart and bought it for me so I would have it to use the next morning. Even he knows how important the stuff is to me. I let him try it once and he joked that he could buy sandpaper at work for his face and it would work the same. I love it anyway.

I bought the St. Ives Medicated Apricot Scrub faithfully every two to three weeks. At a little over $3 for a tube, it wasn't a huge expense, obviously, but never the less, it was a consistent expense. The St. Ives Medicated Apricot Scrub was the only beauty product I demanded for myself and the only product I bought without fail. I couldn't live without it.

I shop at WalMart. It's my store. They sell everything and even though their obvious monopoly bothers me to an extent, they sell cheaper than everyone else and there is something to be said about one-stop shopping. It's convenient and no one can argue with that fact.

Equate is WalMart's brand of most products. A few years ago, by mistake, I picked up a tube of Equate Medicated Apricot Scrub instead of the St. Ives Medicated Apricot Scrub. I used the Equate several times before I even noticed I'd bought the wrong stuff. When I did finally notice I was using a different scrub, I was stunned at the similarities in the tube the scrub came in. Literally, the St. Ives Medicated Apricot Scrub and the Equate Medicated Apricot Scrub were in tubes that looked nearly identical. The only difference was the name. And, for someone who'd been using the St. Ives product for years and years, I was surprised that I'd used the Equate product a couple of times before even noticing that I was using something different. When I told my husband, his response was, "How'd that get by you?" I wasn't sure.

It took a lot of searching, but that evening I figured out I was using something different, I managed to locate the receipt for that shopping trip. I scanned it and quickly found the Equate Medicated Apricot Scrub. It was $1.67. About half the price of the St. Ives Medicated Apricot Scrub. As insignificant as the cost seemed though, I decided to see what it did when I calculated it for an entire year.

At a two week rate of purchase, at $3.10, the St. Ives Medicated Apricot Scrub costs me $80.60 per year to keep myself stocked in the product. At a two week rate of purchase, at $1.67, the Equate Medicated Apricot Scrub costs $43.42. That's a difference of $37.18. Saving $37.18 per year may not seem like a huge amount, but it prompted me to begin to search for other products under the Equate brand that I could be saving money on. I've found a few products to replace with the Equate and although I'm not breaking the bank with my savings, every little bit helps, especially when they want just a little less than your first born child for a tank of gas these days.

I encourage anyone who shops at WalMart to give their Equate brand a chance. I notice a lot of times, the Equate brand tends to be nearly half the price of the other brands. I'm not nuts about the idea of making WalMart richer, but as a consumer and parent, I feel it's necessary to save where I can and I fully intend to take advantage of it. I've stuck with the Equate Medicated Apricot Scrub for a couple of years now and I don't feel like I'm missing a thing.