I just looked over my huge makeup collection and realized what brought it all on – impulse shopping! I am still using items from years ago.
I talked to some of my other friends and they’re telling me that they have a ton of makeup (one girlfriend of mine has a HUGE trolley case filled with the stuff, 80% of it unused, and/or bought only because it was a special edition…
I found that I shopped for the following reasons:
It came with a FREE gift!!
A new vinyl bag, or a lipstick with any $50 purchase..
Sound familiar? The problem is when you see the cute new bag, and you were really there just to buy the lip gloss for $15, you have to spend $35 more just to get the free vinyl bag that probably cost only $10 to begin with. So you’re out by $25, spending $25 more than you had planned to, and that you didn’t have to begin with.
I bought it all on credit card
Cash is king in this case because it would’ve made it MUCH harder for me to spend the cash if I had it in my hands.
But with beauty items, it made it so much easier to pay on credit, and then balk at the amount later on when I realized I didn’t have the cash for it, but couldn’t reallllly return it since it would take another trip back to Sephora.
I didn’t have a budget
Or at least I should’ve PLANNED for it. I never planned for buying $100 set of Sephora brushes years ago, I just bought them on impulse.
When I was really tired, cranky, had a bad day, and was in NEED of something
This is kind of a no brainer. I used to do this with clothes too. And shoes. And jewellery. Enough said.
Buy only what you need and the time you need it
I have a real bad habit of this. I buy things when I see a new colour or type, even though I have many at home!
Use it up! But I do admit, if there was a promotion for 20x the points if you spend $50 or more, I’d stock up on lotions, shampoos and other things like that if you need them.
Know your shopping habits
Are you easily swayed? I’m not really persuaded without any prompting, but my good friend is.
If I see an eyeshadow and think it’s a fab colour, she will too, and she’ll buy it. What I’ve found works, is to appreciate the eyeshadow, then to put it back and put it on your mental list to pick up later if you remember and if you really want it at the end of the day.
More often than not (like 95% of the time), she forgets about it and/or doesn’t want to go back THAT badly to buy it.
Stick to your guns and be clear about what you came to buy
If you came to buy shampoo, buy shampoo. Put blinders on, and ignore the sales on makeup, and other ‘useless’ things (for now) that you see. For example, buying conditioner would be considered useless if you already have a bottle that’s 3/4 full at home.
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
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Buying make-up on impulse is so common amongst women my age, I often look over the abundance of make-up I have stored away in my cupboard and wonder if I will ever use it all? What a waste it would be to throw it all away. I am going to try to resist the temptation of buying new make-up because “it’s cheap” or ‘I’ve had a bad day’ and start using what I already have. You have definitely pinpointed the reasons make-up is bought!
The “I deserve this” trap. It kind of falls into the I’ve had a bad day, so I need this, trap but is a bit different. My husband is the sole income provider in our family. And he likes to spend. We’ve discussed his spending “habits” and what comes up is I’m tired, I hate my commute, I hate my job, I “deserve” a nice $20 dollar lunch every day. And that’s all fine and good, but at the end of the day “deserving” a splurge adds up to more than $600 a month and that is not helping us get out of debt.
I have an entire dresser drawer of make-up, a lot of it eye shadow which I rarely wear anymore. I keep thinking I might take up water colour painting one day (ha!). I used to buy make up as a pick-me-up when I’d had a bad day. Now I go buy what I’m out (or almost out) of, usually: base, moisturizer, mascara. I know there are all these lists of dates after which you should throw stuff out, but I’ve never paid much attention to those. At some point mascara dries out, so I’ve pitched the old stuff. I think I’ve ‘outgrown’ pencil eyeliners; once you get past a certain age, they simply don’t stay put. I use gel eyeliner now, if I bother with it at all. One thing I do recommend: use all the product you bought. If I have to, I cut open plastic tubes, wrench the tops off of pump bottles, etc. I use lipstick or other brushes to claim every last bit of make-up I can get, after all I paid for it and the stuff isn’t cheap. Given an even choice, I go for the container that will give me best access to all the product.
My biggest problem with buying makeup is that I usually only but it if I get an invitation to a manufacturers sale
Hurdle 1 – Everything is CHEAP!!!!
Hurdle 2 – Not knowing when or if I will get another invitation
Hurdle 3 – Lots of people around and not a lot of time to look closely at what I’m buying
Hurdle 4 – The lighting is awful, so the shades end up looking different when I get them home.
I’m much better than I used to be, I still go when I get an invite, but now I can escape only spending $50 instead of $250, and I feel that $50 on cosmetics, hair stuff and a few gifts per year is OK.
I think these things works for dudes, too, although not with makeup, haha. For me, it’s with tools. And actually any purchsaes. We buy stuff for all the reasons you say above, and really, we need to give it all a second thought first!
I tend to keep buying the wrong shades – especially in lip glosses! It makes it especially frustrating when companies discontinue a shade a really like & when I try to match it up – it’s just not the same. I can’t tell often I’ve done this. On the plus side, if I mix 2 or 3 of them together, I can usually get the desired color 🙂