5 Beauty Lover Saving Tips

I'm currently in the midst of a mega-life change - I've just left my job and plan on getting a job in my field next year, am getting married in a month and have a busy end of year ahead with overseas family coming out and a big glorious honeymoon to enjoy.

I'm becoming better at pinching the pennies to make my wedding lovely and keep our household running, but the beauty lover in me still needs a hit every now and again! I've been thinking about how I usually save money or shop sensibly when it comes to beauty products and the like, and have rounded up my ideas for you. These 5 tips will help you think smart about how you shop and hopefully stop you from coming home with products that won't get any love in your stash!

1 //  Evaluate your stash
Are you like me and own a million red lipsticks, a shade you wear approximately twice a year? Once you get to know your stash properly it becomes so much easier to evaluate purchases on the go. For example, I know that I own far too many neutral blushes (blushes in general actually, as this evidence shows...) but that they are something I wear all of the time, so if I'm pondering a new nude blush at least I know I will use it, and can think back to my current shades to see if this one is too similar to the others. Now that I've learnt to do this I find myself never buying red lipstick ;)

my true obsession, and my wasted money obsession!

2 // Check out current deals before you click 'checkout'
This is one that I have always done before I checkout when shopping online, and I think the same sort of reasoning works when shopping in store as well. You wouldn't dismiss sale information or a free GWP at a store, so checking current sales for favourite sites like Adore Beauty and BeautyBay just makes sense! Sites that collect coupons for a bunch of places are my favourite as they've done the gathering for me, leaving me more time to check out swatches of the items I'm lemming ;)

3 // Wish List
You have to be realistic when it comes to loving beauty - I am well aware that I could never pull off a project pan, so beginning one would just set me up for disaster in the long run in the form of a huge splurge on products that may not be worth it. Instead, I like to create wish lists to whittle down my lusts and really work out what it is that really gets my heart racing. Lately I've been all about the honeymoon wishlists (see part one and part two) and it's always good to look back to past lemmings to notice trends!


4 // Follow International Trends
Being in a remote country like Australia means that we are made to wait a really long time for products to hit our shores. I keep an eye on my favourite international beauty blogs like Temptalia, Eye Heart It, Beauty Reductionista and Beauty Reflections to make sure I know what will eventually come out. This gives me time to check out more reviews and work out whether or not a product would work for me, and by the time it comes out here I am prepared with a full purse for it!

Products I've bought after reading about them on international blogs!

5 // Sign up to email lists for your favourite stores
This is a double-edged sword - if you are on a shopping ban this can cause too much temptation, but I personally find it wonderful to get the notification about a sale as soon as it has begun. Some of my non-beauty favourites include Lovisa (I love a good costume piece!) and Cotton On (I've used both of these recently for wedding related purchases, and didn't pay full price because I was notified about the promotion early!)

How do you save money when it comes to beauty shopping? Have you ever done a project pan or a similar mission?

Emma x

Haulin' from iHerb // E.L.F. makeup + Celestial Seasonings Tea

Anytime I pop onto iHerb I can't help but haul! I had a bit of cash sitting in my iHerb rewards account, and my lust for some Celestial Seasonings Tea pulled me into a haul that gradually grey into an 8 piece wonder that I am very happy with. I thought I'd shade what I purchased with you, as both of these brands are hard to come by in Australia and it is always nice to know where you can get your hands on rare goodies.

I stuck to only buying 4 boxes of tea, despite wanting pretty much every variation they had on the site. I've only ever seen the Sleepytime Vanilla and regular Sleepytime tea at my local Woolworths, and so I decided that since the much lauded Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride was sold out (naturally!) I would get two fruity teas to use iced, and two to use warm on cold nights with milk. I waited until I tried all of the teas before writing this, so I feel comfortable giving my opinion on which of these are worth the purchase.  

Tangerine Orange Zinger is, to put is simply, utterly delicious. I sweeten this ever so slightly when making ice tea, and Mister Bovary and I love gulping this down after a nice long walk on a hot night. The Acai Mango Zinger is also lovely iced, but the citrus is always going to win in an ice tea stakes for me. I am yet to have a full cup of these hot, but from the sip test I'd say the Tangerine also wins this round.

For milky tea lovers, or those who go weak in the knees for chai, we have the Sweet Coconut Thai Chai and the Bengal Spice tea, both of which I have with a dash of Blue Diamond Almond Milk and a hit of sugar or honey before bed. I find the Bengal Spice too spicy for my taste, and so generally reach for the coconut instead. I don't think I would buy the Bengal again, but I must say I adore the packaging of this one most of all. The Sweet Coconut Thai is a tad too spicy once I reach the bottom of my cup, but I think I would repurchase this one as it takes sweetness well and is a pretty unique flavour.

I couldn't haul from iHerb without hitting up their extensive elf inventory, and I narrowed my basket down to these four pink beauties. I have always wondered about the liquid HD blushes that are around, and the elf HD blush in Headliner is so affordable that I was happy to buy but was not expecting much from. I was pleasantly surprised, this blends well and is very pigmented, and I can't realistically see myself using up the whole tube in this lifetime. I have my eye on some of the other shades now, and also plan on picking up another of the baked blushes too. I chose the shade Peachy Cheeky and I absolutely adore how glowy this makes my cheeks look.

When I ordered the Luscious Liquid Lipstick in Pink Lemonade, I was expecting a pale pink ballerina type shade. You know, like pink lemonade? Instead I was greeted with a metallic deep pink shade which I was none too pleased about until I popped it on and took a photo. I actually really like it, and don't have a shade like it in my collection which is a good thing. One negative is that I had to wind it up a crazy amount before I could use it - you can see how it arrived in the images above, and below is how much I had to wind it to get any out! Seems like such a waste of plastic and even though elf is cheap I feel a bit ripped off.

Wearing elf Luscious Liquid Lipstick in Pink Lemonade

Yep, that's me.

I'm yet to try the St Lucia cheek duo that is an obvious Nars Laguna/Orgasm take off, so I'll have to get back to you on that one. A friend of mine swears by it though, and she has very good taste in makeup so I took her word for it despite not loving the Nars originals very much anyway.

As many of you may know, if you use a code on iHerb you can grab some pretty awesome discounts and a portion of the payment goes towards the code owner - if you feel like topping up my iHerb rewards account and being my herbal tea pusher, pop this code in BEJ649 for money off your first order - $10 off orders over $40, and $5 off your first order if it is less than $40. Considering that iHerb have supplements, health foods, yummy teas as well as cosmetics, be warned that your basket will probably fill up quickly!

Have you ever ordered from iHerb?
What tea brands do you think I should look into next?! What should I buy next from elf?!
Emma @ emmabovarybeauty
iHerb code: BEJ649