YAWN. It’s (after) midnight here at the Cheap But Not Easy Empire, but I’ve got many cheap miles to blog before I sleep. I promised the lovely and talented Alyson from Authentic Beauty I’d post a post about frugal beauty before she goes on the radio tomorrow morning at 8:15. AM. EASTERN Standard Time. So instead of trying to be witty and clever in the dawn’s early light (which I never am), I’m blogging at night, when I think I’m still full of the smarty-pants. Please, let me have my illusions.
The post I told her I’d write was to be a list of my top ten beauty products and tips. What she’s actually getting is this – My Top Ten Fave Beauty Tips, plus the products (ones that I personally use and love) that go along with said tips, when applicable. It’s like a two-for-one deal. I am a giver like that.
CBNE’s Top Ten Tips For Being Beautiful On A Budget. You May Want To Bookmark This Page. Yes, It’s That Good. Promise.
10. Try the store brands. Once upon a time, these products were called Generics, and were printed with an ugly black and yellow (or white) label. Bleah. Nowadays, they’re called store brands, and feature unobtrusive labels on the outside and excellent products on the inside. Like this one:
Target-brand Cetaphil. For $6 and some change, I got a 16 ounce bottle of the best cleanser known to man and dermatologist – instead of forking over $9.14 for the name brand. I also like Target’s self-tanner, lotion, and body wash knock-offs.
9. Speaking of knock-offs, try the knock-offs. When I say ‘beauty product knock-off,’ only one name should pop in your head. Suave. If a beauty product exists out there, chances are Suave is ripping it off, at a fraction of the cost. As I’ve mentioned before, I particularly like their Damage Care shampoo and conditioner, available at Target for under $2 a bottle:
This stuff works better than anything I’ve ever put on my head in the history of ever. It’s even better than, wait for it, the original formula of Sunsilk’s Anti-Flat Plumping Cream. Seriously.
8. Bend down to the bottom shelf. The bottom shelves of drug stores, big boxes like Target and Walmart, and your local Ulta are filled with interesting and effective products. Best of all, these products cost mere pennies (okay, mere $5-or-less-usually), like my all-time favorite oil sucker, Queen Helene’s Mint Julep Mud Masque:
If you have adult acne (which is just MEAN), this stuff will kill your zits dead, while leaving the rest of your skin un-ravaged. All for just $2.99 for that ginormous tube. I also like Queen Helene’s other facial products, but Mint Julep is the best.
7. Seek out drug store finds. Have you ever wandered the aisles of your local drug store and stumbled upon a brand you’ve never heard of, only to read rave reviews about it later online? Well next time, don’t just be a looking-loo. Pick up the product in question and give it a whirl. Like Milani Eye Shadows –all priced under $10, including this huge compact:
You can find Milani at select Walgreens and most Ultas. Don’t believe me that Milani rocks? Fine, go here and see what Bionic Beauty has to rave say about their eye shadows. See if I care.
6. Look for cool combos. I hate Oil of Olay and I love it. I hate the cost, I hate their teensy bottles, and I hate how hit-or-miss their skin care is. But I deeply love their uber-expensive (for a drug store brand) lines like Regenerist. Which is why I was beyond thrilled when Olay joined forces with drug store stalwart, Cover Girl, to create my new favorite foundation:
Advanced Radiance Age-Defying Makeup. For around $9 (a very good price for a foundation, in my opinion), you get great coverage, plus Olay skincare ingredients! The expensive ones! That usually cost around $20, but are in my foundation for under $10! Oh happy day.
5. Do It Yourself, you DIYer. Why pay someone an arm and a leg for a beauty treatment/service you can do yourself in the privacy of your own bathroom? For example, why get a $35 (including tip) pedicure, when you can remove layers of grody foot skin at home with this:
Ah, me. The Ped Egg. Everyone I know, including my mother, has one of these. And yes, for $10 a pop, they work pretty well. Not as well as having the staff at L.A. Nails shave my gnarly heels, but much cheaper – and probably safer. I also wax my own eyebrows with Sally Hansen’s waxing kit, and self-tan with any number of gradual-tan products. Sometimes, I combine two tips into one and buy a store-brand tanner and do a DIY tan at home. Now that is triple-letter-score frugality, folks.
4. If you must visit a salon, make it last. Salon treatments aren’t cheap (or are they? wait for number 3), so you want the work to last as long as possible. For example, use a cuticle oil (or not, see tip number 2) and daily applications of top coat to protect a manicure or pedicure and make it last longer. Also, keep your hair color or highlights fresh and true by using shampoos and conditioners formulated for colored hair. If your color does start to fade, or your roots need a little blending, try this:
John Frieda may be a bit more expensive than Suave (that bottle is about $7.50), but his Luminous Color Glaze covers my roots well enough so I can wait an extra week or two before I visit my stylist.
3. Go half way. Like I said, salon treatments aren’t cheap, but you can avoid paying full price by avoiding a full head of foils. Speaking of heads, you’re scratching yours right now in confusion, right? Here’s what I mean – I get my hair highlighted (normally expensive), but I only get a partial foil (normally cheaper). The tops and sides of my head are streaked, and the underneath bits in the back (i.e. where I can’t see them) are left my natural color.
A partial foil and cut at my salon only costs $72 total, which includes a 20% tip. And I love the slightly two-toned look the partial creates. Very cool, sort of edgy, but not visible on camera, so the Fox 9 folks won’t freak.
2. Beauty starts at home. You know how Rachel Ray says EVOO? You know how I hate that? It’s true, I do, but don’t confuse my hatred of an annoying catchphrase with a possible hatred of olive oil. Because I’m here to say, I love olive oil, extra virgin-y or not.
I rub a bit into my cuticles instead of using spendy cuticle oil. I mix it with plain old salt and use it as a salt scrub on my winter blah hands. Some ladies I know – the ones with MUCH thicker hair than my flatso strands – use it as a hot oil treatment on their dried-out tresses. And I’m thinking I may have to resort to soaking my nasty, splitting, cracking fingernails in a vat of warm EVOO soon. Love her or hate her, but Rachel is right. Olive oil rules.
Number One Tip. The One That Proves Just How Cheap I Am.
Water it down. We’ve all done it – poured a bit of hot water in our shampoo/body wash/hand soap/laundry detergent bottles, swished it around to gather up all the goo on the sides, and gotten one or more uses out of that old container before opening a new one. But have you ever tried this technique with body lotion?
You know that super-thick lotion you buy, the stuff that comes in an annoying pump bottle, so a good inch of goo is left clinging to the sides and on the bottom, resisting all your attempts to schoop it up into the pump? And you think to yourself, ‘self, how am I ever going to get that stuff out? Maybe I should just dump the bottle and open a new one.’ STOP RIGHT THERE. Try this instead.
Pour a small amount of very hot water into the bottle. Then, run the bottle (now sealed shut again with that annoying pump thingee) under the aforementioned hot water. Last, shake it up very, very, very well. All the goo stuck on the sides and bottom will be thinned out and ready to be sucked up the pump and into your waiting hands. Ta-Da! Victory in our time.
Question For The Ages: What is your favorite frugal beauty tip or product? Please share with the group below.
5 Comments
Ha, I just bought the Suave Damage Care because I remembered you said it was good ju-ju, and it's cheap. I've just used it once but I love it. I have thick curly hair that I blowdry, straighten and color, so it takes a beating. This stuff IS good ju-ju!
Love the frugal tips! One that I just came up with this week was about liquid body soap. Prepare to be amazed. We've been realizing that it's so much easier to clean the tub and/or shower if we use liquid soap instead of bar soap on our bodies (as you know, bar soap leaves sludge wherever it sits). So we switched over to those liquid body soaps in various yummy scents and with various yummy scrubbing beads. But then I got a little tired of the prices, even on the "cheap" brands. I started wishing that they sold the stuff in big refill jugs like Softsoap hand soap. And THEN, I read the back of the Softsoap hand soap refill jug, and compared it to the back label of the Dial brand liquid body soap. Whaddya know? The ingredients were almost identical (other than the scrubbing beads, which the Softsoap Milk & Honey liquid hand soap didn't have). So I did a little mathy-mathy and discovered that it's less than half the price to get the gender-neutral-but-still-yummy-smelling Softsoap refill jug and use it to refill our body soap bottles, than it is to buy even the cheapest brand of liquid body soap on the market. This is one of those ways that marketing really tricks us, as we think we're buying different kinds of soap, but really… we're buying the same soap in different packages. Why not beat them at their own game, and save ourselves a few bucks in the process? (I'm thinking I should blog about this.)
Love the tips, thanks! I've been making shampoo and body wash bottles last a little longer for years, by getting water into them and swishing them around, to loosen more prodcut for usage. I also love Suave. I get their Sweet Pea & Violet body wash. At $1.87 a bottle, I can easily buy a few at a time. I like it way than Softsoap! Lasts longer too. Sometimes, you can even score TWO bottles wrapped together for a special sale price. Only problem with Target body wash is, they seemed to have greatly watered down the sensitive skin formula (green label), and changed the bottle design, so that the cap is harder to get off (and add water to!) in the last six months or so. NOT cool. I'd humbly add a tip: If you find yourself using a body wash that's too fragrant, try mixing in a little fragrance-free body wash, to tone it down. I did this with some Ivory stuff that was too fragrant, in my opinion. One last one: Use plain Chapstick on your eyebrows to make them stay in place. Just go light on them, and then brush them into place (got that from "Good Company" eons ago).
Great list. I might just try out that mint mask – looks awesome. Also, I hate to be a know it all, but they aren't called OIL of Olay anymore… just OLAY. They changed the name of the company years ago because OIL doesn't sound very good when you are talking about something you put on your face.
I'm bookmarking this! You, darling, are simply fabulous!
See, you're productive while up at night too. I'm glad you love Milani too… aren't their eye shadows super cool? (okay, that's showing my age.)
I can't use the Mint Julep mask, but SO wish I could because it has sulfur which is why it's so awesome at kicking acne! (I'm allergic to the glycerin in there.) Instead I use that cheapy $8 tub of Aztec Secret mud. About 50 masks for $8. Woot!
Sigh. Yep, I just said Woot. Oi.