I’ll admit that I am extremely frugal in pretty much all facets of my life: food, fashion, fun, etc. But the one thing that really makes me happy? Saving money on skincare. To me, skincare is always such a premium thing. I want to make sure that I splurge on the right ingredients, but I’m also ballin’ on a grad student’s budget. So how do I get around this?
1) Double up on rewards: I am a Kiehl’s member so that whenever I spend any amount of money, it will add to a balance of points to eventually redeem for a product. However, in addition to that, I also exclusively shop online. Why? If you have a Chase branded credit card (Chase Freedom, Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve, etc), you can shop through the Ultimate Rewards portal. When you do that, you get an extra 6x points for every dollar spent at Kiehl’s on their website. So you can still log in to your normal Kiehl’s account through the portal (and also log in to your Shoprunner account [available free via an AmEx card] for free 2-day shipping, heyyyy!). Oh, and I forgot to say that you STILL get to have your samples when you checkout online. My cake and eat it too? Yes, please!
2) Shop sales! You might not see a lot of sales at skincare companies (or if you do, it is just a promo of deluxe sample if you spend X amount of dollars). One thing that most people do not know is that you can save a lot of money by shopping at department stores. No, not EVERY single product is going to be there. But the best time of the year to shop skincare? Nordstrom Half-Yearly Sales! Nordstrom doesn’t just carry your typical clothes and shoes for their sale. They also heavily discount great products for your skin from Kiehl’s, Jack Black, La Mer (if you’re rich rich), Paula’s Choice, Sunday Riley, Clinique, Supergoop, Glamglow, Perricone, among many others. It is really worth checking out.
3) Outlet Pricing. Let’s say it isn’t one of Nordstrom’s half-yearly sales (because unfortunately, they aren’t all the time 🙄). What can you do then? Nordstrom Rack carries a lot of the same brands I just mentioned, but usually a much more limited stock. I have picked up great products from Kiehl’s, Anthony Skincare, and Jack Black from Nordstrom Rack. These products are still the same great thing you have come to know and love, just way cheaper.
4) Find out if your favorite company has recycling programs. I know that Kiehl’s has a great bottle recycling program where if you turn in 10 empties, you get a free travel size. Yes, you might say a travel size, who cares? But that is something you got for literal trash. So yeah, it is definitely worth a trek to the store to throw it in the bin and have them give you free stuff for it!
5) Get the bulk discount: subscription services. Normally, subscription services are going to be cheaper because the company guarantees that they will have you for a longer period of time, so they are willing to forgo present profit for future guaranteed income. So, if you know you really like a skincare product, why not look into a subscription service from them? And if you are adventurous (like I am!), you can sign up for Birchbox and get cheap samples delivered to your door every month for less than $20. I used Birchbox for 2 years (I did the annual subscription to save money), and I am still using products from my boxes from OVER two years ago. They send so many things in them that it is nearly impossible to use all of it within the month, so I end up using a lot of the samples as travel sizes so I don’t need to worry about rebottling everything.
6) Be cognizant of how much product you’re using. Yes, we want to completely cover ourselves in that new luscious moisturizer or gorgeous serum. But do we actually need to? The answer is probably no. Try to use the minimal amount of product to get the job done. And with that said, applying with our hands is actually a terrible way to put products on. Our hands are simultaneously absorbing the product as we apply, but we want the product on our face, not our hands! What’s the remedy for this? A silicone brush. Yes, just like basting your turkey, you want to use a silicone brush so that it does not absorb your product and ALL of the product ends up on your face. If you don’t have the funds to buy the silicone brush, just try to keep all of the product on the tips of your fingers rather than in the palms to minimize the surface area in contact. That little change will add up when you’re trying to save how much product you are using, which will in turn, allow you to save more money on buying them!
Now go out there and save a ton of money! Do you have more tips that you think I should add? If so, mention them below in the comments section! Thanks for reading!