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The SHOCKING Prices Of Everyday Items Around The World

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A $17 tube of MAC lipstick in New York runs $36 in Sydney — and that’s not even the widest gap on the list.

Everyday items don’t come with a universal price tag. The same lipstick, the same cup of coffee, the same one-bedroom apartment can cost double, triple, or more depending on which country you’re standing in when you buy it. TheThings Celebrity’s breakdown of “The Price Of Everyday Items Around The World” walks through exactly why, using real retail numbers to show how taxes, tariffs, shipping costs, and local purchasing power reshape what consumers actually pay at the register.

• MAC Cosmetics’ standard lipstick retails for $17 in the United States, but climbs to $31.20 in Germany, $34.73 in Japan, and roughly $36 in Australia — more than double the U.S. price.
• Apartment rents in premium global metros swing from around $1,000 a month on the low end to as much as $6,000 for a comparable unit elsewhere.
• A basic meal can run $5 in one market and $50 in another, with similar spreads for Starbucks coffee, Uber rides, cars, and shoes depending on the country.

The Lipstick That Costs Double Overseas

MAC’s lipstick is a useful test case because it’s the same formula, same packaging, same product code no matter where it’s sold — which means any price difference comes down to what happens after it leaves the factory. At $17, the U.S. price reflects the domestic retail markup with no import duty attached. Ship that identical tube to Germany and it’s suddenly $31.20; send it to Japan and it’s $34.73; land it on a shelf in Australia and shoppers are handing over close to $36.

That’s not a quality difference or a currency-conversion illusion. It’s import tariffs, value-added taxes, and distribution costs stacking on top of the base price before the product ever reaches a register.

The same $17 lipstick sold in the U.S. costs Australian shoppers almost $36 — more than double, for the identical tube.

Rent, Meals And The Real Cost Of Living

Housing shows the same pattern on a much bigger scale. The video contrasts apartments renting for around $1,000 a month against comparable units elsewhere going for $6,000 — a gap driven by local demand, land scarcity, and how much disposable income residents in a given city actually have to spend on rent.

Food tells a similar story. A basic meal priced at $5 in one market can cost $50 for a roughly equivalent plate somewhere else, a reminder that “eating out” means something very different depending on local wages, ingredient costs, and how much of a market a country’s food service industry actually is.

Coffee, Rides And Wheels: Everyday Spending Adds Up

Smaller daily purchases add up to the same lesson. Starbucks coffee, Uber fares, personal vehicles, and footwear all carry meaningfully different price tags from country to country, according to the breakdown — sometimes because of import costs on manufactured goods, sometimes because local competition (or the lack of it) lets prices run higher without pushback from shoppers who have no cheaper alternative.

Cars are the clearest example of tariffs doing the heavy lifting: a vehicle built and sold cheaply in its home market can carry a steep markup once it crosses a border and picks up import duties, registration fees, and shipping costs along the way.

Reasons For Product Price Variation

Strip away the specific products and the video’s real argument is about the mechanics behind the numbers: local taxes, import tariffs, shipping expenses, and regional purchasing power don’t just nudge prices around, they can more than double them for an identical item. A country with high import duties and lower average income can end up charging more for the exact same lipstick, meal, or ride than a country where wages are higher and the product never crossed a border at all.

That’s the part worth remembering next time a “shop and compare” post from an American company goes viral overseas — the sticker shock usually isn’t the brand gouging anybody, it’s the paperwork.

So the next time someone brings back a MAC lipstick from a trip to Sydney and complains about the price, the math checks out — they paid nearly $19 more than they would have at a counter in the States, and none of that extra money went into the tube itself.