Money-Saving Tips

How to Save Money on Home Beauty Products

By Pamela Grundy

If women bought beauty products based on cost alone, women would never buy any beauty products! Most beauty products are created with a very few basic inexpensive ingredients, a small amount of trademark fragrance, and millions and millions of dollars in ad campaigns designed to make women feel inadequate and convince us that we need these products to look good. The biggest obstacle to saving money on home beauty products is tuning out this constant barrage of "buy this and you will look incredibly beautiful." Even the gorgeous models in these ads are not really as gorgeous as they appear in the photos, and they would be the first to tell you so. Computerized photo editing programs, soft focus photography, and an entire crew of makeup artists and assistants create arresting images almost never seen in real life. That is a completely different achievement than the effect you yourself will get if you buy $30 mascara.

The truth is that it is easy and inexpensive to pamper yourself and feel gorgeous without running your department store credit card into triple digits. Just for fun, I recently priced a popular upscale department store skin care system in order to compare it to the cost of assembling a similar kit with simple products that can be purchased at any discount pharmacy. The department store kit included a 7 oz. bottle of makeup remover, a 7 oz bottle of light lotion, a 4.2 oz. bottle of eye makeup remover, and a 1.7 oz. tube of something called "hair elastic" for $49.50. It also came in a trademark plastic zip bag with orange piping.

For $5.00, or about one tenth of that cost, you could assemble a kit of almost identical ingredients by purchasing one bar of mild castile soap, one 16 oz. bottle of generic baby lotion, one 16 oz. bottle of generic baby oil, and an 8 oz. tube of hair gel. Not only can you assemble essentially the same kit the department store offers for one tenth the cost, but the sizes of each product are twice as big. Ivory or castile soap removes makeup and dirt without irritating skin and baby oil will dissolve eye makeup instantly without harming your eyes. Baby oil and baby lotion have a pleasant, mild scent and are available in economical large sizes. All these items work just as well as the $50 brand name skin care system, and smell just as nice – maybe a little better.

An excellent, inexpensive product for oily skin is witch hazel, which can be purchased in a 16 oz. bottle almost anywhere for about a $1.50. Essentially the same as what the cosmetic industry calls "astringent," it is refreshing, clean smelling and mild. Dab it on the oily parts of your face after cleansing, or use it in the summer to feel fresh and cool. You can even refrigerate it in a spritzer bottle for an instant pick-up when you feel steamy and worn out. Baby oil is another miracle ingredient that can be added to warm bath water for smooth skin (about a tablespoon is plenty), or sprayed on after a hot shower and rubbed into dry body areas. Cocoa butter, which smells like summer and softens rough skin miraculously, can also be had for a small price in the pharmacy section of any big box store.

Another inexpensive but very luxurious way to pamper yourself is to grow herbs and flowers and use them in your bath. Using small scraps of fabric, tie up bundles of lavender for a soothing bath, orange peel and cloves for a sensuous bath, mint for energy, or vanilla and honey for romance. Sprinkle rose petals on top of the water, or lilac. A small bottle of any essential oil goes a long way toward making any woman feel and smell marvelous. Experiment until you find ones that you like, and then add a drop or two to some baby oil or directly into your bath water. Patchouli, ylang ylang, and jasmine are common perfume ingredients and can be purchased inexpensively on-line in their pure state and used sparingly for months.

Many common household items are tried and true beauty aids. Cold slices of fresh cucumber really do remove puffiness from tired eyes. A rinse of fresh lemon juice and water makes hair shine and lighten in the sun. Berry juice really will tint your lips. Raw oatmeal makes a wonderful masque or scrub. Mix about a half cup of raw oats with some ground almonds and warm water and scrub your face with it, or mix it with an egg white and let it dry before rinsing off with lots of warm water and finishing with a spritz of witch hazel.

The best way to save money on home beauty products is to know that you absolutely are already beautiful and perfect in every way, and then treat yourself well with simple pleasures and sweet scents. A recent study compared men's sexual reactions to the scent of musk versus the scent of pumpkin pie, and guess which won? The pie! I do love Chanel, every drop. It's elegant; it's French; it's lovely. But I don't need it to be gorgeous. I'm already all those things (except French). And so are you. It's not wrong to enjoy expensive makeup and perfumes; by all means enjoy them if you can afford them. But never, never let anyone convince you that you need them.

02/07/08  By Pamela Grundy