The Savvy Life

How to Get Discounted (or Free) Beauty Products

By Todra Payne   Any woman without an unlimited beauty budget has felt the sting of high-priced products. Almost a decade ago, a trendy boutique in New York City’s West Village sold a sugar scrub I swore I couldn’t live without. This sweet indulgence was $65. I cringed every time I slid my credit card across the counter.   As I got older, I rearranged my financial priorities, especially when the economy tanked, taking a chunk of my income with it. But I didn’t want to resort to budget cosmetics, just to be frugal.   Now as a green beauty blogger, I receive so many high-end, natural and organic cosmetics, complimentary, I give away small gift boxes each month. Friends have asked me if there are ways, outside of starting a blog that will help them save on cosmetics. Absolutely. Here are my best suggestions.   Subscribe to a monthly beauty box - Beauty box subscriptions are all the rage. It seems there’s a new one every week. If you’ve not considered signing up, here’s why you should. For just $15 - $25 a month (depending on the company) you can get a lovely gift box stuffed with beauty products in travel, sample and full sizes from brands around the world. Although you don’t get to personalize the contents, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the items you’ll fall in love with that you may never have tried otherwise. Most boxes have at least one full-sized product that is worth more than the cost of the box. And there are coupons for many of the other products. You really can’t go wrong. My favorite boxes are Green Grab Bag and Goodebox. They both contain natural and organic goodies.   Sell beauty products - There are several multi-level marketing companies focused on cosmetics. Even if you only sell a few tubes of lipstick or a bottle of body lotion to a family member once in a while, you still get the company discount. There is an initial start-up fee, and each company has different “rules”, so be sure to read the fine print. But if you buy personal care items for, say a family of five, and you consistenlty use makeup and skincare, signing on with a brand that has all of this could save you a lot of money over the course of a year. I like Ava Anderson Non-Toxic. They make wonderful personal hygiene and beauty products at reasonable prices. And if you decide to make this a second career, the market isn’t oversaturated with this brand, like many of the companies that have been around longer.   Make beauty products - When I bought my first spa recipe book, I was absolutely shocked at how simple it was to create homemade bath and beauty products. From sea salt scrubs to clay and fruit face masks, I can make my own pampering items at a fraction of retail. And I get to choose organic ingredients, unique scents and textures that please me. A great book to get you started is Green Beauty Recipes by Janice Cox. Available at Amazon.   Write for an established blog - Starting your own blog may sound romantic, but maintaining an online presence is a lot of work. And when you try to use a blog to get free beauty products without having a good Alexa rating, it usually doesn’t work. But writing for a beauty blog or online magazine that already has star appeal could be your golden ticket. Of course, you’ll have to actually be a good writer, but most blogs aren’t looking for something too intense, especially if you’re hoping to write product reviews. You’ll have to show writing samples and commit to a certain number of articles per month, but you’ll get to try lots of new products, some before they even hit the retail shelves. My blog, The Healthy Beauty Project, doesn’t do product reviews, but we definitely link to our beauty obsessions within our articles. Our writers receive $75 worth of products from us each month when they reach their writing goal. A simple online search will aid you in finding all sorts of award winning beauty blogs - from green focused, like mine, to mainstream.   Todra Payne is the founder of The Healthy Beauty Project and Healthy Beauty Social. She’s also a contributing editor for Kiwi Magazine. Goodebox Write comment (0 Comments)

 

Savvy Salon Services

My savvy friend Carla saved approximately $170 at the salon by being a hair model.  She agreed to share her story with The Savvy Life readers:  Unwilling to pay over $100 for a dye job at a salon, I decided to seek out alternatives and was delighted to find a plethora of Hair Model requests on Craigslist. I booked a one-process all over color with an apprentice at a very high end beauty salon. She asked me about my lifestyle, my hair care and if I wanted to try new shades. We agreed on going a shade darker with gray coverage as my priority.  Every step of the way, she was supervised by the master colorist who made suggestions such as weaving in darker tones for dimension.  The results were awesome!   Afterwards the master colorist asked if I liked the outcome, confirmed the color was right and thanked me for giving a student some practice. Had I gone to her, it would have cost $200. Instead, the apprentice charged me just $30 and that included a blowout. I will continue to go the hair model route and my color appointments won't break the bank!   Write comment (0 Comments)