Round Up of My $100 Beauty Challenge!

As most of you beauties would know, from the 14th of July until today (that’s 4 weeks in total) I have been adhering to a budget of $100 for all beauty related purchases. It actually sounded much tougher to begin with, but once you get into the month, you start to think differently about your purchases (and perhaps become more wise? 😛 ) and it gets easier as you go along. I wanted to do this challenge to a) curb my spending and save more, and b) to be more conscious about what I do buy so that the products serve me in the long term more. It’s soooo easy to get caught up in the hype surrounding new collections and products, especially on social media and beauty blogs, so much so that I don’t think we really appreciate what we already have and what we do purchase (it can become quite automated in a way – robotic like!). I try and remind myself that there will always be a new collection around the corner, new product releases and limited edition goodies.

Now as I mentioned earlier, I was pretty well stocked up in regards to my usual skin care products etc (I tend to stick to a few tried and tested products which can be a little pricey) but it still made me think outside the box when it came to goodies which I didn’t necessarily need but wanted. Now I did buy a couple of more expensive products because I had vouchers etc to use up, but I think that is a great way to treat yourself when it comes to products which you might not need but want. I don’t recommend buying products simply because they are on sale (that can be a trap) but if a product you want has been on your wish list for a long long time, then when it does come up for sale or at a discounted price I think that’s a great way to treat yourself whilst still being money savvy. I also recommend doing a lot of research about a product (whether it’s skin care or makeup) so that you can narrow down the likelihood of the product not suiting you in the long term. I think this is a really great challenge to do a few times a year, so I think I will try and schedule it in more often – especially when like I said, I have all my essentials and want to limit my spending when it comes to impulse buys and things which I want, not need.

Ok so what did I mange to get for my $100? Let’s take a look! 🙂

Obviously if I paid full price for all of these goodies, I’d be waaaay over budget. So how did I do it? Firstly, let look at the the Body Shop’s body butter in Brazil Nut.

I mentioned in my first post about this challenge that presents for friends which happen to include beauty products would not be included in my $100 budget because they aren’t for me. I went into the Body Shop wanting to buy a Strawberry body butter for a friends birthday. A regular body butter came in at $28.00, however they were doing a deal (which is quite rare for the Body Shop – so I’m glad they are recently doing more deals and sales for their permanent range of products) where you could purchase two body butters for $40. That means, that for $12 on top of my friends body butter gift, I could get one for myself! I was running seriously low on my Shea Butter, so decided to grab a Brazil Nut one for a change.

I’m so glad I grabbed this one because the scent is a little less intense than the Shea Butter but still has a light nutty scent which I find to be quite comforting. It’s as thick and as moisturising as the Shea Butter so it’s probably recommended for very dry skin. I love that it leaves a light protective layer on top of the skin, but I know that not everybody likes that. The Brazil Nut body butter contains cocoa seed butter first of all, then shea butter, glycerin, peach kernel oil (which is interesting!), beeswax, sesame seed oil and then brazil nut oil. As you can see, brazil nut oil isn’t the first ingredient on the list, but perhaps that’s because it has a strong scent or something? I don’t mind that it doesn’t feature as the main ingredient as such, because the body butter still contains some awesome ingredients. Side note: The Body Shop have now reduced the price of their body butters from $28.00 to $24.00!

The second goodie I managed to buy was Zoya’s Pixie Dust nail polish in Tomoko – a light pale, silvery gold. This is one of those nail polishes that leaves like a gritty texture on the nail. I love that it is still sparkly though, so I thought I’d give it a go. This is my first Zoya nail polish and I still haven’t tried it out – but once I do I will let you know in a Nails of the Day post 🙂 I bought mine off Ebay for about $13 Aus monies (the original price is $12.00 US dollars) plus $10 for shipping. If you’d like to check out what Ebay shop I bought it from – you can check it out here.

The third product I bought was Sally Hansen’s Miracle Cure Strengthener. This was on sale at Priceline and I needed a new nail strengthener/treatment. I wanted something to replace my Dr. Lewinns Revitanail. While Dr. Lewinns Revitanail works super well, it does contain formaldehyde so I wanted to find something a little more natural and harmless (I doubt it contains enough formaldehyde to cause any damage but if I can find something that works just as well without it, I will be happy).

I was able to buy my Miracle Cure Strengthener for $10 instead of the regular retail price of $20.00. I have been using it and it works brilliantly as a base coat. Do I think it has been strengthening my nails? I’m unsure. What I don’t like is that if I am wearing it on it’s own, the nail strengthener starts to flake away after 2 or 3 days and then my natural nails are more prone to peeling as they aren’t protected. Perhaps it’s something I need to apply daily for say a week? I’ll have to give that approach a go and see if there’s any difference.

Product no. 4 – Mitchum Clinical 48 Hour Protection in Powder Fresh for women. This is a cream deodorant – nothing really fancy here, just a staple product. I like the cream ‘clinical’ deodorants because I think they keep you fresher for longer. I prefer this one over the Dove and Rexona ‘clinical’ offerings because this scent is so much less intense (I’ve noticed that so many roll ons or cream deodorants have such strong scents, like as if they want to cover BO thanks to their ‘perfume’ which is not what I want) and is just light and fresh. I also like that it is manufactured in the US for a change (instead of Asia). The packaging is a little more more difficult when trying to get the product out, but for me that’s not a big deal.

I don’t think it keeps you completely fresh for 48 hours – I’m assuming that is because sweating is natural and healthy, so it probably shouldn’t be stopped/blocked altogether. I would say that this keeps you fresh for about 24 hours. These types of clinical deodorants are a little pricey – I get this Mitchum one from Woolies (a supermarket) for about $14-$15 dollars. I did pick this one up on sale however for $10.50 🙂 I like the scent and it works well for a deodorant, so I will continue purchasing it.

My last two products are splurges but I was super money savvy and only forked out $23.50 for both products 🙂 I was able to purchase a Shiseido Shimmering Eye Color Creme in OR313 Sunshower and a Chanel blush in #71 Malice. I’ve wanted both products for agggges – and I got my opportunity when Fresh Fragrance and Cosmetics were having a 30% off sale plus I had a $50 voucher to spend on top of that discount. Fresh Fragrance and Cosmetics generally have cheaper prices than department stores plus they offer free shipping. If you become a member you automatically get 5% off their advertised prices. I’ve been a customer of theirs for a loooong time and the more you buy from them over time, the more discounts you are entitled to (so your 5% discount can go up to 10% or even 20%!).

They don’t always have the full line of cosmetics and/or colours when it comes to particular brands, but they are always updating their stock and introduce different colours and products regularly, so it’s worth checking back with their site if you want to spot a particular product or colour (or send them an email – their customer service team is lovely!).  I’m obviously super happy with my mini Fresh haul 🙂 I’m pretty sure that in a department store in Aus, the Shiseido cream shadow sells for about $44, while the Chanel blush retails for about $70.

Above: Swatches from the left to right: Chanel blush in #71 Malice and Shiseido Shimmering Cream Eye Color in OR313 Sunshower.

Let’s tally up all of my purchases!

1. The Body Shop’s Brazil Nut Body Butter = $12

2. Zoya Pixie Dust nail polish = $13 + $10 for shipping

3. Sally Hansen’s Miracle Cure Nail Strengthener = $10

4. Mitchum Clinical Deodorant = $10.50

5. Fresh Beauty Haul – Chanel Blush and Shiseido Shimmering Cream Eye Color = $28.50

PLUS – I thought it was only fair to include my Violet Box charge of $23.00 for August. Violet Box takes payment for the box early on in the month and then delivers the box towards the end of the month, so I haven’t received it yet. The August box will be my last – after that, I will be putting an additional $23 into my savings monthly (so as if I was still paying for Violet Box but now the money goes to me lol)

Total : $107.00

Not bad huh?! I know I’m ‘technically’ over but if I hadn’t included my shipping charge for the Zoya nail polish I would have been under but I thought that wouldn’t be fair. I’m still so pleased with my result that I think I will give this challenge a go again over October/November.

Is this a challenge you might plan to do? It will get more challenging say should I run out of a regular skin care product of mine which is a tad expensive – but I think coming up with a solution will be interesting/fun 🙂 I’m definitely going to try and be more careful with my beauty purchases from now on, even though I probably won’t be keeping count of every penny that I spend on beauty products (though on second thoughts – maybe I should, in order to gain a rough guide of how much I generally tend to spend?).I’ve got some more thinking to do it seems 😉

Let me know what you thought of my challenge and of the results! I’m off to get some tea (I need all the help I can get on a Monday zzzz…).

Catch ya next time beauties!

Beauty Bee~

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