Beauty on my Budget #2

August 2012 - The Budget

Budget Goal: $50-$100. $50 would be great, $100 I can live with, more than $100 and I lost my reason.

The Purchases: 

$10 Glam Bag Subscription

$10 Birch Box Subscription

$25 Sephora Give Me Some Lip

Look at it, isn't it beautiful? A sampler of 6 lip products, including 2 full size products all in pretty pinks and nudes. How could I resist? Something so beautiful is bound to make me beautiful too (<-- There in lies the root of my cosmetics spending problem). 

2 - Toki Doki Roulette Gloss Trio $7 each

I LOVE the Toki Doki brand, I think it's adorable, and I have wanted some of the TD stuff from Sephora for awhile but it was always pretty pricey. However, Sephora is currently phasing out the TD stuff so it is all on clearance. When I saw that these were marked down to $7 I couldn't resist. They each have 3 mini glosses clipped on to a central black plastic piece. The glosses snap in and out so they are removable but they also just slide up so you can remove the cap of the one you want and use it without removing it fro the center piece. Each gloss case has a TD character pictured on it. It is so cute. I got the pinks and nudes.

FREE - Peter Thomas Roth Cleansing Gel and Bare Minerals Foundation with mini Kabuki Brush

Sephora gives you samples if you make a purchase.

BH Cosmetics Contour & Blush Palette $18.02

I have contour powders but have had a hard time finding an inexpensive highlighter so I picked up this.

FREE - Keranique

This stuff just started turning up at my door. It is addressed to me, but I didn't buy it and it didn't come with any type of letter so.... I also have no idea what I am going to do with it. It is a serum for women with thinning hair and anyone who knows me knows that my hair is far from thinning. I have a ton of hair and don't need this, so I am not sure what I am going to do with it.

FREE - Crest Complete and Cover Girl Queen Eyeliner

Proctor and Gamble were kind enough to send me these products, so expect reviews later.

Revlon Color Burst Lipstick in Soft Nude $6.99 & Revlon Super Lustrous Lip Gloss in Peach Petal $5.79.

If you are an avid Pinterest user like me then you will recognize this photo as the combo touted as the perfect nude. Well I couldn't resist that line so I bought it. It some ways it is the perfect nude and in others it isn't. Stay tuned for a review.

Physician's Formula Nude Matte Eye Quads in Canyon & Classic Nude $3.34 each

I love nudes, I very rarely wear bold colors it's just my style. I also love mattes, when I am in a hurry or don't want to work hard at applying my make-up I find a matte shadow is most flattering. You can just throw some matte shadow at your eyes and still look good in a way you can't with shimmers. What all that means is that when I saw these I couldn't resist, that added to the fact that PF was buy 1, get 1 50% off at Ulta and I had a coupon for $3.50 off a $10 purchase and I couldn't leave them in the store.

Charming Charlie Handbag $35

I had no intention of buying a handbag, but I was in the mall alone and stumbled into Charming Charlie's for the first time. I was immediately sucked in by it's charm and beautiful displays, the next thing I knew I was walking out of the door with this. Practical, pretty, and inexpensive I couldn't resist. Plus I had just gotten paid and you know how that goes.

Lush CACA NOIR Henna Hair Dye $24.95

I have used drugstore dyes to cover my grays in the past but having been natural for 6 years now I am always looking for new, natural, healthier things to use in my hair. I want to try this to cover my grays but I have also heard online that for women with natural hair using henna can help condition the hair, as well as loosen the natural curl pattern. I will let you know how it goes.

THE TOTAL: $156.43 EEK! I had a bad month, a lot of down moments and boredom that led to too much money being spent. I love everything I got but $156 in a month on stuff I don't NEED is ridiculous. =(

What was your month like?

Beauty on my Budget #1

July 2012 - The Budget

BUDGET GOAL: $50-$100. Spending only $50 would mean I had an excellent month full of self-restraint and self-confidence. I could live with spending $100. Spending more than $100 would mean I let the insecurities get the best of me and wallowed in them at Ulta.

THE PURCHASES: 

$10 Glam Bag subscription

This is born out of that YouTube guru fascination I mentioned. The thing I don't really like it that much and should cancel, but I'm afraid I'll miss out on something good if I cancel. Check out my unboxing post.

$10 Birchbox subscription

Check out my unboxing post.

$11.86 Physicians Formula  Happy Booster Blush in Warm and

Physicians Formula Shimmer Strips in Nude Eyes

Notice the cost $11.86 that is because CVS had a sale $7.00 off all Physician Formula products. So I only paid $6.29 for the blush and $4.79 for the eyeshadow. A sale has the ability to make me lose my reason. Also, the blush...OMG! Mood boosting blush. In my article I mentioned sadness and the desire to feel better as a reason I and a lot of women spend so much on cosmetics. So PF cut to the chase and went straight for a blush that claims to make you feel better. I'll let you know in a later review if it works. The nude eyes I bought because everyone is obsessed with Urban Decay's Naked Palette but I refuse to spend $50 on 1 eyeshadow palette so I have been looking for a dupe. Again I'll let you know what I think about this one in a review later.

$0.85 Flower Fimo Sticks for nail art

Youtube strikes again. I am so on board the nail art trend, but at least supplies like these can be purchased really cheaply on ebay.

$50.53 1- 16oz. Pomegranate and

1- 16oz. Sweet Almond WEN by Chaz Dean

OK, so much for the $50 end of the budget, but at least these won't need to be purchased every month. Why this purchase? I, like everyone else in America, have seen the infomercial. Hands down though this is the BEST beauty purchase I have ever, ever, ever made. Keep watching this blog for a future rave review. This stuff is amazing. 

FREEBIES - New products that didn't contribute to my monthly bill, but I still want to mention.

$0.00 Influenster Box

Influenster is a company that provides free samples to people for the purpose of testing and promotion. Check out my post for more details.

$0.00 .24oz sample of Estee Lauder Perfectionist CP+R

If you follow me on Facebook then you saw my post about Estee Lauder counters giving this freebie away. I update my blog every Monday but I post beauty news, contests, and announcements about freebies throughout the rest of the week on my Facebook page, if you don't already follow me then click the link at the side and like my page.

$0.00 Nail Tatoos

I love nail art and I won these great nail tatoos on a nail blog I follow called Glitter She Wrote. I'm sure there will be a tutorial in the near future.

THE TOTAL: $83.24 Not bad. I feel like this was a good month, especially since $50 of that was spent all at once on the WEN.

Beauty on my Budget #1

July 2012 - The Why?

The cosmetics industry earns a huge $160 billion dollars a year and in America we spend more on cosmetics than we do education. You would think that when times are tough, like our current economic recession, women would tighten their belts and spend less. However, a recent study shows that actually the opposite is true. During financial lows women spend more on cosmetics. The study also showed that the average woman age 16-24 has $108 worth of make-up in her collection and the average woman age 25-34 has $111. 

My exact thought when I saw those numbers was that I don't even want to know how much my collection has cost. I know it is more than $111 but I don't know exactly what and I am not sure I want to. The study proved that contrary to expectations women actual spend more on cosmetics during a recession, those conducting the research have theorized that it is because women spend money on things to make them look better, so that they will feel better. I know that is my problem. Sometimes I lack confidence, and I just don't feel attractive, or successful and I want to. So I "fix" myself by doing my nails or make-up and buying the latest trendiest thing. At the end of the day I know that I could buy L'Oreal's entire line but that none of it would make me look like Beyonce. I know it, but it doesn't stop me from trying. It is as if somewhere inside I believe that one day I will pick up that one bottle, or palette that will magically transform me into the woman I have always wanted to be. Watching Youtube gurus also hasn't helped. Most of them are about 15 years younger than me, reinforcing my delusions about finding youthful beauty at the bottom of a make-up pan, and they all have huge cosmetics collections that would put even my bloated one to shame. Unfortunately, I do not however posses and endless stream of cash and I need to put limits on my spending. I restrict myself to mostly drugstore cosmetics which allows me to make frequent "feel better" purchases without breaking the bank and lets me try out the latest trends without much risk. I also try to limit my spending. 

So one of the things I want to do on this blog is really examine this issue for myself. Try to curb my spending habit and try to examine what keeps me on this cosmetics hamster wheel when to be honest I have enough. So at the end of every month I will publish a "beauty and the budget" log, a list of purchases made that month along with how much I spent. Along with that log I want to publish a monthly article like this one, examining the reasons behind the spending and issues of women's confidence and self esteem and how the cosmetics industry cashes in on and in some cases can cause our insecurities. 

SOURCES: 

Recession Makes Women Spend More

The Economist

Do you know how much you spend on cosmetics? Have you ever examined your spending habits or the reasons behind them? Do you have any beauty insecurities that you struggle with? Share your feelings in the comment section below.