Shopping Fast: Beauty and Skincare

via Pinterest

As I mentioned last week, the decision to go on a cosmetics and skincare shopping fast was an easy one. I have a general habit of using shopping as a way to alleviate stress and stress has been a fairly common feature of the last few years of school. Although beauty and skincare was an area in which my impulse shopping was a particularly pronounced problem, I believe that it will be fairly easy to draw up and comply with a realistic plan that allows for drastically reduced shopping for beauty products this year. I know my "trigger" (stress from school) and why I sometimes get on the slippery slope of adding extra items I didn't initially plan on (adding products to bring up the order price by a last $7-$10 to get to free shipping at Sephora). I also know my own beauty needs fairly well. The rules are essentially the same as for my clothing and accessories shopping fast: I can buy things I "need" to replace what runs out and I will allow myself room for "wants" that I have thought about carefully. 

For context, I was only about $150 off from Sephora VIB Rouge status last year, which is not reasonable for me given my actual makeup needs and my graduate student budget. This is particularly true when I take into account the fact that most of my skincare products are not from Sephora and that quite a few of those skincare products were not cheap. I don't necessarily regret most of my individual purchases, but as an aggregate whole, it was all too much. Beauty and skincare are categories of my spending and consumption that are possibly most desperately in need of an overhaul. 

I am particularly low-maintenance when it comes to makeup. Even when my skin was not in particularly good condition, I elected only to wear makeup on occasional weekends when going out. I will likely wear makeup more often for work, but on most work days I only use concealer, a little bit of tinted moisturizer if necessary, eyeliner, and setting powder. 

In terms of skincare, most of the problem came from stockpiling excessively to take advantage of sales or other promotions. I plan to continue with my fairly extensive routine (the cost of which I calculated and estimated here), but all that stockpiling last year allows me to get away with very few purchases in the next few months. 

Planned Purchases for 2015 (Makeup) *indicates products that replace items I will use up

• *1 concealer
• *1 tinted moisturizer
• *1 translucent setting powder
• 1 lipstick (a "my lips but better" type shade for work)
• 1 new eyeliner brush 
• 1 lip brush? 

Planned Purchases for first half of 2015 (Skincare) *indicates products that replace items I will use up

• *2-3 dozen sheet masks (already purchased about 2 dozen)
• *1 eye cream or anti-aging serum
• 1 sleeping pack/mask
• 1 bottle of the P50 Biologique Recherce to try?