Variable not being formatted with CSS - Magento - php

Question

When I echo my own variable to a div container it comes out as plaint text (unformatted). I don't understand why echoing a Magento variable comes out formatted but mine doesn't? Here's my code, in particular the <?php if(!isset($specialPrice)): { ?> section which I created. Here is the code:
<div class="product">
<a href="<?php echo $_item->getProductUrl() ?>"
title="<?php echo $this->escapeHtml($_item->getName()) ?>" class="product-image"><img
src="<?php echo $this->helper('catalog/image')->init($_item, 'thumbnail') ?>"
alt="<?php echo $this->escapeHtml($_item->getName()) ?>"/></a>
<div class="product-details">
<p class="product-name">
<?php echo $this->escapeHtml($_item->getName()) ?>
</p>
<?php $specialPrice = $productToCheck->getData('special_price');
$orignalPrice = $productToCheck->getData('price');
?>
<?php if(!isset($specialPrice)): { ?>
<?php echo $product['price'] ?>
<?php } else: { ?>
<?php echo $specialPrice ?>
<?php } endif ?>
</div>
</div>
Echoing $product['price'] shows up with its CSS like this:
but if it enters the ELSE statement to display my variable it shows like this:
Does anyone know what could be going wrong?

Answer 1

$product['price'] returns you a unformatting price value.
Maybe you can call a block function, for example $block->getPrice() and in getPrice() you need to format the price by your custom preferences.
If you want to add styles to your price value then you need to use a magento tag class