 Can you improve yourself as an Asian guy even if you hate spending money? Here are some tips on how to get the male self-care products, but for cheap. Oh, we got to talk about it because Andrew, it is consumer season. Long story short, I was looking through some Reddit posts. I was looking through some men's help channels on YouTube. You know some men's magazines. And I was just thinking, listen guys, I love all the advice that you find in these videos. But oftentimes, they are trying to sell you a product that is way overpriced. And you know what happens when it's overpriced, David? People look at it and they're like, well, I got to buy this and this and this and this. What? My skincare's got to be $200 if I want to look better. Well, I'm just not going to look better. This is not for me. I'm not going to buy anything. You're right. People get overwhelmed. So today, guys, I'm going to give you some budget look smacking advice that literally is going to be good for anybody. I'm not saying the way more expensive items are not better, but they might not be worth it. So anyway, make sure you like, subscribe, and turn your notifications. But you know what is not overpriced? Small ass sauce made with real truffle, made in the USA, very delicious, out of a squeeze bottle, easy to use, will make your meals more tasty. You know what, Andrew? Just to give people an example right off the bat, Andrew, here's the bro mask off amazon.com. It is $14 a piece for a face mask. I'm not saying it's not quality collagen hydrating or whatever, but you can get them for as cheap as 30 cents a piece on AliExpress or 60 cents a piece on Amazon because I know some people might be like, dude, I'm not going to get something and put it on my face from AliExpress. I don't trust it. But I'm like, listen, we're talking about something. I'm not saying the more expensive face mask, Andrew, is not better. But is it 3,600% better? Yeah. And you can tell that they're totally marketing it towards guys and marking it up because they're like, oh, you're a guy who wants to wear a face mask. We'll call it the bro mask. Put it in black and white, make it look masculine, and then we'll upcharge you. But to be honest, it's probably not that different, maybe a little bit better, but really not that different than a mask that's a dollar each. Right. So today, what we're going to be doing is breaking down items that are 70 or 80% as good as the expensive version, Andrew, but as cheap as 10, like 10% of the price. Yeah. And I think, again, I want to reiterate that oftentimes, a lot of guys are overwhelmed at some of these routines and some of the pricing of some of these cool high-end products. And it's like, guys, you don't have to get that product. If you get the product that is 70% just as good, but you start using that product, you start using moisturizer, you wash your face, you get a face mask, you get a haircut. It doesn't have to be a $200 haircut, a $40 haircut. Because especially a lot of Asian guys, Andrew, were raised frugally, value-minded. If we get like a $100 moisturizer, we might not even feel comfortable using it enough for it to be consistent and sink into our skin. Dude, I had the same issue, man. I have a $40 moisturizer and I started using just a little bit of it because I'm trying to be conservative. But then my girlfriend was like, what are you doing? Why'd you buy that if you don't use it? You have to use a lot of it, your skin is important. And I was like, oh, good point. Hey, listen, guys, a lot of this advice, I would use it myself. I personally use 50-cent Amazon face masks for myself. So I'm not like a stranger to taking my own advice. Andrew, I took a look at GQ, Esquire, Maxim, Men's Journal. And I analyzed a super low cost, but high quality version of all the things that they advertise in men's magazines. What do you think that they advertise, typically? I mean, high-end stuff. Watches, fragrances, liquors, wines, puffer jackets, sneakers, like all types of headphones, fancy home decor, TVs, projectors, and quality of life improvement things, like $200 doppel bags for when you travel. Wow, look at that lamp. I bet that lamp is at least $200. And of course, Andrew, most of this stuff is based around consumption. However, we do have to acknowledge, Andrew, would you say that you do need some of these things in life, right? You can't write off everything in men's magazines, but you just don't need to buy the tier that they're advertising. Yeah, you don't have to buy the 10 out of 10, no way. Yeah, so anyway, guys, Andrew, well, let us just start with liquor. Okay, right now, tequila's really big, right? Andrew, a 750-milliliter bottle of Don Julio, and this is even if you get it not at the club, by the way, you just buy it from the liquor store. 1942. Yes, is $150. Yeah, it's expensive. For that same price, and I'm just gonna go extreme here, guys, I'm not saying get, you know, Costco tequila, you can get a entire half gallon of Blanco tequila or Reposado, Andrew, from Costco for $50 each. Right, and that's gonna be comparable to Cosmigos. Maybe not the same, but it's gonna be comparable. Yes, yes, yes, like close enough. Like close enough that Andrew, with your leftover savings, you can literally buy these like decanters or like liquor holders that look like agaves from Amazon, right? You could buy a lime cutter, you could buy a margarita slash tequila shot salt rimmer and a Himalayan sea salt shot glass for the same price as that one bottle of Reposado, that's way smaller. I'm just saying you can purchase an entire almost bar set and the tequila for the price of just one bottle of tequila. And you could have way more tequila. And I guarantee you, if you have the Reposado and the agave, you know, theme bottle, nobody's gonna really stop you and be like, wait, wait, are we drinking 1942? Are we drinking Don Julio? I don't know, that's just my thought. Andrew, moving on to wine. Andrew, for the price of a cheaper, higher rated wine, and I know you know about wine, Andrew knows about wine, he doesn't show it on the channel. You know more than average person. I know something. These are aerators. Yeah, if you go with a cheaper bottle of wine, but it's still highly rated, whatever, just go off the one on the website, you could buy decanters, you could buy an entire bar cart, and you could have room for all types of fun things that your guests are gonna like. Yeah, I'm gonna be honest guys, don't spend too much money on wine, great wine comes at like 30 bucks, max. Right, and literally you would have to be what? A nine out of 10 or 10 out of 10 expert to start tasting the more he doesn't know. People, even most girls, most guys who say they like wine, they can enjoy a $30 wine, it's totally possible. And we say this as people who are really into sneakers, I'll admit that if you just have a seven out of 10 sneaker and you're better at someone than basketball, like anything short of a torrent, terrible, you're still gonna be better than them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't matter that much, it's just we're into sneakers, we're sneaker aficionados, but it doesn't really matter. If you're better at basketball, you're just better. Listen, Zara, H&M and Forever 21, they actually carry everything. Did you? You do fragrances. Yeah, they carry lotions and everything. However, generally I'm not gonna say that the all in one solutions are the best solution, but yeah, probably of all the three, if you wanna just have a one stop shop for like a men's magazine, it would be a Zara, right? Zara I think is probably the best play, it's a little bit more expensive than H&M, but slightly higher quality. Right, right, right. Of course you can keep going down the line, Andrew, F21 used to be the cheapest, now there's Cheyenne, and now there's, there might even be levels cheaper than Cheyenne, like a Cheyenne budget outfit. So David, what do you think about buying the moisturizers and fragrances from these fast fashion stores? Could it get the job done? Not that it's better, or that it's better than the more expensive stuff, but could it get the job done? It's highly unlikely it's going to dry out your skin. Yeah, it's not gonna hurt you. It may have more of like cheaper ingredients or fragrances that you know, it depends on you as a person, you could be sensitive to it. Is it better than nothing? It's better than nothing. However, today, Andrew, we're giving you the 4.5 out of five rated cheap tier replacement items. Okay. Let's get to the fragrances. Yeah, the fragrances are big. A lot of these men's channels say, oh, well you gotta spray, you gotta tap it on your neck and then have your hands. So when you talk with your hands, you're getting that, how do we, we need to spend $250 a bottle? All right, here's the thing. You don't wanna be a guy that is eating Cheeto dust with pimples on your face in front of three screens saying, dude, fragrances don't matter. It does matter. But do you need to spend $420 on a 3.3 floral ounce bottle of Creed Aventus? 420 is crazy. And we could go down and $33. There is a bottle of El Haramain Y de Purfume, whatever, that is a imitation clone fragrance that a lot of reviewers have said is a 90% match for Creed Aventus at $33. Wow. And if you wanna go cheaper, Andrew, there is a Creed Aventus impression. It's like a roll on. Did you just roll on your neck? You don't even spray it because it's so cheap. It's $9. So it goes to show you, literally I think having even the $9 one depending on the situation could be better than nothing. Andrew, for a Blue Day Chanel, this is a fragrance that we actually own. It's $184 at retail. It is pricey. Andrew, a considered a 90% knockoff version is $40 and you can get a 10% knockoff version that's still four out of five stars for $10. Wow. That's insane. Christian Dior, Salvage, Andrew, $155 at retail. The cheaper versions go down to $30 and then $10. Insane. Talking about athleisure. Athleisure is a really big segment for guys right now because you can wear it out. Guys wanna be simple, but in high quality, it's form fitting, makes you look good if you're fit. You know, no one's gonna complain. It's classy enough. If you want aloe yoga or you want Lululemon, which are, you would say these are sort of your brands that you get advertised in GQ or Esquire. Yeah, I mean a pair of shorts is like $68 at Lululemon. A performance T-shirt, Andrew, is $70 at Lululemon is $78 at Nike. And these are the better looking Nike tiers. Nike has so many tiers, right? Like $55. Expensive. Yeah, you're starting to get down, Andrew. Thab athletics. I'm not saying, you know, because they kind of scamming with the subscription model. No, just make sure you cancel your subscription. If you cancel your fab athletics description right after you make your big order, Andrew, you know how much a similarly shaped and like the cut is similar for like athleisure, dry wicking, moisture wicking shirt is? How much? $7.50. Woo! Andrew, that's one tenth of the price. And you know what I wanna tell people about this? The cut of the athleisure really means a lot, right? Because you can buy sort of like the Dick's Sporting Goods Nike tier and it looks even worse. Like you know what I'm talking about? Like the whack Nike. Oh yeah. Like the cheaper Nike tiers. Yeah, because there's different tiers. Yeah, there's different tiers. Moving on to just jackets or shirts. You know what I think is gonna be a great solution for most guys who don't wanna spend a lot of money but wanna look better? A shirt jacket, a jacket. Okay. Or an over shirt, you know why? Because you can, you wear it like a jacket or you can layer it so you have the optionality. Right, right, right. I think that for most guys that's gonna be the best play, Andrew. Look at this shirt jacket slash over shirt from Zara. It's $90. The Kith version is 250. Woo! Do you think your average person can tell the difference between the Kith flannel over shirt and the Zara one? No way. Moving on, Andrew. The YSL version is, no, we have an all saints version of a bomber jacket, 200. Right. You have a YSL version that's way more than 200. And then you can go to Zara and get one that is $110 on sale for $80. Easy. Moving on to this long button like brown over shirt. The YSL version, $800 on sale. All saints, $180. The brown Zara version, Andrew, on sale for $50. Woo! Why do you think people think, okay, I gotta get one version or I gotta get nothing at all? Right. I think it's intimidating. I think it's overwhelming. I think when you watch some of those channels and they're like, oh, this is what you gotta do. This is what you gotta do. Do this with your hair. Get this makeup, blah, blah, blah, blah, or skin care. Ah, workout, blah. It's like all these things and just someone who's just trying to get started is gonna look at it and be like, man, that's too much, man. Maybe I'm not meant for this, man. Maybe that's just meant for people with more money. I'm a dude. I only make like, I make $12 an hour. How can I afford any of this? Right, right, right. I mean, that's like me saying, yo, you gotta start at the gym. You need to go to Equinox for like $175 a month right off the bat. Right, I'm just not gonna go to the gym. I'm never gonna get a gym membership. Did you guys know that Planet Fitness, it's $10 a month, right? It's 24 hours a day. A lot, it depends on your region, right? Did you know that a lot of Planet Fitnesses have added a platinum add-on for another $10 a month? You can get a sauna access. Sauna access for $20 a month. Yes. Somebody said, occasionally, H&M has one that's good, but it's rare. So I'll say this, once you get into the lower ones, you could still find some quality pieces, but there's just a lower probability, right? Like it's not to say H&M doesn't have quality pieces, but it's just a lower likelihood even than Zara. What do you think about these ultra cheap shirts, Andrew from She-N and Forever 21, where we're talking about like $10 jackets, $15 jackets? I mean, they work, man. If you can fit them, they fit. I'm not gonna say I love fast fashion in all aspects, but at the end of the day, if it helps you become a better man and be more productive and feel better, then you should buy She-N to buy it. I mean, listen, guys, you can just get a heavy, cheap coat at Uniqlo. Maybe you want to get a cooler color. And I'm not saying that I still don't keep up with fashion, Andrew. Recently, I hit up somebody because at a hype-beast store, I have a connection. And I wanted to get the BAPE Canada Goose Collab from this year. It's about, I could have got it under retail, right? Like I think the retail's $1,800. I could have got it for like $1,200. But ultimately, I thought about it and I was like looking at Uniqlo puffers and stuff. And I was like, Uniqlo makes some camo puffers that I could get for $50. Dude, $1,200 is still a lot of money. Yeah, and it doesn't look that different. Yeah, I get it. I could resale the BAPE Canada Goose Collab. But I was just like, dude, girls, they don't really care. You know, $1,200, you could buy a super, super sick tattoo for that much money. Yeah, change of life. Moving on, Andrew, as far as skincare products go, there's so many channels and even there's posts where guys are using like $100 products. Yeah, and listen, again, you don't need the $100 product, man, just get started. There's a great products for $10. I know even not all girls buy super expensive products. Some girls, they just buy in the clear a cell, you know, regular over-the-counter face wash. Like you don't have to get the Korean-Japanese skincare. You don't have to get it. Or normalize getting like the lowest tier of it. They still highly rank per dollar. Yeah, the cheap Japanese Korean one is still could be good. For example, Andrew, Cantu Hair Gel is $5 on Amazon. It's $15 at CVS, but Cantu Hair Cream is considered like the lowest tier hair cream, but it still has really good ratings for the per ounce. Right, right, right. You don't need the high tier stuff because at the essentially, you know, like the higher tier stuff, it is made out of better materials, but the most important thing is that you're just using a hair cream. Yeah. Bluetooth speakers, Andrew, do you think any girl is gonna get with you based on what tier of like audio file accessory you have? If you got the bang in Olson or you got the Wilkins. I think the only time that details like that really matter is when your entire lifestyle is built around that aesthetic. Like I know guys whose apartments... You're talking about the penthouse. Yeah, it would make sense if they have bows or AirPod Max pros like only... You're saying a JBL would look out of place like a purple JBL would look... There's certain people I know who maybe shouldn't be getting the lower product because they've built their entire lifestyle around high-end expensive products. Right, they got Mahogany all over the crib. But if you don't have a Bluetooth speaker, and this is your first one, and your lifestyle is not based around aesthetics, then just get a Bluetooth... There's tons of decent Bluetooth speakers out there. Right, worry about having one. If you got a girl over and if you're playing the right music, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can even get speakers refurbished, renewed on Amazon, you know, there's all these other websites Andrew 30 to 80% off already, you know what I mean? Like guys are just like, they're too caught up on like, oh, I gotta have Marshall. I gotta have this brand or that brand. I gotta have a Bose or something like that. It's just people too caught up in it. And I'm moving on to watches. Did you know that right now on Amazon, you can purchase a Hulk Rolex, right? We're talking about the Submariner for $23,000. On Amazon? Yeah, because you know how Amazon's like got all the resellers or whatever. But you can go down, Andrew. You can get a Seiko, which is a Japanese brand. You can get a SK SSK 003 for $400. So looks good. You can go down, you can get an Invicta Pro Diver that literally looks exactly like a Submariner or a GMT or whatever for $65. And you can even get, you know, if you wanna get cheaper than that an OLEV for $39. Right, right, right. Right, right, you know, don't show off the OLEV necessarily to your friends with their Submariner, but like, it ain't wrong. Like if you don't have a watch, just pay for the $50 one. Yeah, listen, if you wanna get this G Shock aluminum angular face hexagon one or whatever this is, Andrew, compare this to the AP Patek that's also rainbow colored for $250,000. Yes, is it different? For sure it's different, but I'm just saying for the average guy to get it done in your life. Who knows? Maybe you get the base level one, you start your business or you do some good investments, then you go get the one later in your life. Right, right, right. Just start off with something. Luggage, do you think people care what luggage you have? Not really. But how come it seems like luggage companies, they spend a lot of money trying to convince you that your life is gonna change if your luggage changes? This is definitely one thing that I don't believe in. Like you can, yeah, I mean, there's something to be said if you have good luggage, but really I think it's like the last thing you do when you upgrade your life. Right, because people wanna just, what, stun on other people in the airport terminal or something like that. The only thing I would avoid is this soft side luggage that looks like it's from like TJ Maxx or like- Oh, like the one that's made out of fabric? Yeah, that one's not, it's not cool. You know the one from like Goof Troops, like Family Adventure from like 95. Yeah, it looks like a grand, like your mom from like Ohio used to say that. Right, right, right. But listen, Andrew, even the tote bags that fit on the luggage, right? You know, they have the luggage strap where you can fit your carry-on handle through it. You could get a $200 version or you can get a $25 version. But they both will have the exact same functionality. Right, right. Random quality of life gadgets. I mean, I think ultimately when it comes to this zone, people gotta identify if they really value having the Philips version of, you know, that sunrise alarm clock versus the cheap Amazon version. Right. Or what hue light bulb do you want? Do you want the Philips hue that costs you like 80, 90 bucks or you're gonna go with the Amazon that's like $25? Right, right, right. Because there's highly ranked projectors that still have Android TV built in for $100 or you can get the Samsung Freestyle 2 that is $600. Right, right, right. And you can connect it to a Marshall speaker that's $120 or you can get the Anker Soundcore Playtime for $20. So I guess what I'm saying is like people got options. Right. And you can get this TCL speaker TV setup mounted to your wall for $200. But you could get the same version for $2,000. Wow, man, David, you are really, you're really putting people on game. You can really have all these things in your life, maybe just not the brand name, but you can have all these things in your life for like a fifth of the price. Do you think a girl is gonna be like, is that a TCL? Did you, is that a TCL Soundcore? No one cares, very, unless you're a tech geek, no one cares. Right. And if you ever seen even in the highest end and like doctor's offices and stuff, they always buy TCLs and like Roku TVs because at the end of the day, they know, they don't wanna spend for a Sony. So anyway, Andrew, ultimately, listen guys, let me know what are your other like low, middle, high suggested points. I think that people gotta start off at the low point, Andrew. And then they just, I think anybody, literally, even the rich guys would be fine at the low point, right? Like literally, if you're wearing a face mask on Sunday night, you're good. But yes, there is different variants in quality. So it's like, I just tell people, stabilize yourself at a low point, take a look at what aspects you want to have at a middle or high point, but don't feel like you have to start at a middle or high point to get in the game. Right. Get in the game, get going, get the ball rolling. Let us know other suggestions you have for like, you know, budget looks maxing in the comments section below, these are ones I just thought of off the top of my head because I was looking at so many buyer's guides for the holiday season and I kind of got mad because I was like, bro, a lot of people, even if they got the money, this is not a good use of their money. Anyway, guys, let us know. Until next time, we're the Hop Hop Boys. We out. Peace.