How To Grab A Beauty Bargain

I don’t quite know how it’s happened, but my current beauty spending is at an all-time low. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for my wardrobe budget. My bad. When it comes to makeup, skincare and haircare though I feel like I have my favourites, the old HG-status stuff that I repurchase over and over again and then it’s only on the odd occasion when something catches my eye as I’m traipsing around Space NK, that I decide to make a splurge. Let’s just say that I was regularly buying out my local boots of their Bumble & Bumble Sunday Shampoo stock. When it comes to purchasing, whether it’s for the first time or the 47th time, there are some tricks of the trade that I like to use to save some pennies and seeing as today is the day that my debut ‘Anti-Haul’ goes live – scroll down to watch that – in the spirit of scrimping and saving I thought I’d share my cost-cutting tips…

Loyalty cards ROCK. You know whenever you buy something from Boots and they ask if you have an Advantage Card and you say no. GET ONE! I don’t have many loyalty cards as I find they all get a bit lost in my wallet and there’s not that many places where I’d get the full use of having one, but the Boots and Space NK schemes are the best when it comes to beauty. The N.Dulge card from Space NK gives you £5 worth of points just for your birthday each year! Plus you can use it as part payment for a purchase, you don’t even need to have the full amount on your points card. Now you do have to have saved the full amount for your purchase with the Boots Advantage Card but they offer 4 points per £1 and do loads of extra deals throughout the year where you can really rack up some serious points. I save them both up and use them for fancy purchases like perfume that otherwise feel a bit sickening to make.

Subscribe & save. This is a new function that I’ve only just realised existed (though I’m sure has been around forever!), but if there are things that you’re picking up on a monthly basis then you can get them on repeat order and save yourself some money. FeelUnique offer 5% off purchases that you repeat on a monthly or every 2, 3 or 4 month basis. For example there’s 5% off the Bumble & Bumble Sunday Shampoo if you select the ‘subscribe’ option. How awesome is that? Totally getting on that train – soz Boots!

Cashback that ain’t a scam. Now I can’t vouch for this one myself, but my old Uni-mate Nick who helps me out with the boring backend stuff on the blog, is so ridiculously into cash-back websites that once you get him started on the topic he’ll ramble away for a good half an hour. He mentioned TopCashback last time he was here – he’s used it for years – and although I can’t quite get my head around how the whole thing works, all the places that I buy beauty stuff online like ASOS, Space NK and FeelUnique,  were all on there and offering between 9-11% cash back on purchases made. Not bad, right? If anyone can shed any light on the ‘confusing to me, but I’m sure simple to everyone else’ cash back thang then please do comment below.

Photos by Lauren Shipley

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