The average woman spends €200k beauty on products she NEVER uses. Here’s how to make sure it’s not you
MY ADDICTION to beauty products is terrible. I fall in love with some beautiful bottle of cleanser at the cosmetics counter or in Duty Free and it’s easy to persuade myself that I have to have it — then I get it home and I can’t work out how it fits in with all the other cleansers in my cupboard.
I dread to think how much money I’ve wasted over the years — thousands of euro, easily. Just looking at the dusty bottles and congealing tubes in my bathroom right now, I mentally calculate there’s almost €800 worth there. I could have bought a holiday with that, which would probably have done me more good.
What all of these products do, I don’t know — or even how often I’m meant to put them on my skin. I am afraid that some of the things don’t go with the other things. A number of them are different brands, but have similar ingredients. I appear to have seven moisturisers and four serums but no toner, and most of them just sit there unused.
I know I’m not alone. Research suggests that women waste an average of 5,846 beauty products — and a staggering €201,000 — in their lifetimes, using just 10 per cent of what they buy.
So what’s the solution? According to beauty expert Alison Young, women could save themselves a fortune by ‘shopping their own beauty cabinet’.
It’s a phrase more often used in terms of our wardrobes and essentially means the same: creating a system that allows you to use — and learn to love — what you have, rather than squandering your hard-earned money at the beauty counter.
It’s hard to think of anyone more qualified than Alison when it comes to beauty. She has been a make-up artist to princesses and supermodels, was the youngestever head of training for Clarins, and advises a wide range of beauty companies.
She also hosts one of the most popular beauty shows on QVC and has a website where she posts video answers to her many fans’ beauty queries, all of which makes her one of the most powerful women in the industry today.
I’m slightly mortified at the thought of showing her the jumble of brands in my cupboard, which range from bargain basement to super pricey: Body Shop, No7, Eucerin, Maybelline, Lancôme, REN, Laura Mercier, Clarins, Korres, Bobbi Brown, By Terry, Chantecaille.
Alison starts by insisting I throw away anything that has changed colour, smells odd or has separated.
‘Beauty products last between six months and a year once they’re opened, although natural products will have a shorter shelf-life than products with chemical preservatives,’ she says, asking me to sniff a samplesize night cream. It smells of vinegar. That can go straight in the bin. Perhaps this cabinet reshuffle is going to be easier than I thought.
The next move is to ditch products I tried, didn’t like and shoved to the back of the shelves (as if that was going to make them improve), and products that made your skin react badly.
‘If you’ve had a reaction to an in-date product, patch test it on your body a week or two later. If it still causes a reaction, try using it on a less sensitive part — elbows, hands, feet,’ says Alison. ‘If after all that, it’s not for you, pass it on to a friend or family member who may want to give it a go.’
It’s worth remembering that under-performing products aren’t always duds: ‘You may just need to increase the frequency of application. So, if you want more hydration around the eyes, apply your regular eye cream, wait 20 minutes for it to sink in, then apply again.
‘If you get better results from more frequent applications, fantastic. If not, then you know it’s time that you switched to a richer formula.’
Once we’ve ditched half my collection, I’m left with a random assortment, a mishmash of what Alison calls scientific brands (where the ingredients are tested and patented) and lifestyle brands, which are more one-size-fits-all, and are all about the experience of using them.
‘If you want a hard-hitting anti-ager to target wrinkles, go for a scientific serum,’ she advises. ‘Natural ranges aren’t able to provide serious anti-ageing results in the same way. But if you have sensitive skin and just want to nourish or comfort it, a plant-based lifestyle brand is a good choice.’
Alison recommends paring down your skincare regime to five essential products you will actually use, depending on what works for you.
For those without a clue, she’d suggest a cleanser, an exfoliant, a serum — ‘everyone over 40 needs a serum, it’s the most effective way to get active ingredients into the skin’, a moisturiser and a daily SPF — ‘if there’s one piece of advice I’d give to everyone it would be to use sunscreen every day, even in winter’.
My lack of toner isn’t an issue. ‘Modern cleansers don’t leave residue on the skin like they used to, so a toner isn’t the necessity it once was.’
We sort the remaining products into five piles with all the cleansers in one, all the serums in another and so on. The idea is that I will select one of each product to create my current skincare routine.
Alison suggests keeping your five products in your eyeline, preferably on a lovely plate or a slate placemat.
The products you’re not using should be stored in a cool, dark cupboard — Alison recommends putting them in labelled plastic boxes (try Muji for inexpensive options) — so that when you finish up one of the products on the slate, you can open your cabinet and ‘shop’ the appropriate box. And, perhaps more important, create a consistent routine that will ultimately pay dividends.
‘If you’re using a product for an “effect” — for example, for antiageing or oiliness, stick with it for at least a month, which is one skin cycle, before giving up on it,’ she says.
‘If it’s a general skincare product, such as a hydrating moisturiser or gentle cleanser, you should know within a week whether your skin likes it. If skin feels nourished and make-up sits well, it’s probably working for you. And when your skincare works for you, you’ll see a serious difference.’
The first of my hero products is my Lancôme Effacil eye make-up remover. I have been using this since I was 20 and see no reason to change. A micellar water (see box
below) would be a cheaper option — but then I also run the risk of buying a product I don’t like as much, and cluttering my newlydecluttered cupboard. From my cleanser pile, I decide to make Elemis Rose Cleansing Balm my new hero because it smells divine.
I have two serums open — Clarins Double Serum and Lancôme Génifique. Alison explains that ‘the scientific brands [which both of these are] need to be used consistently over three months’.
‘They work on the basal skin cells [in the lowest part of the epidermis, the outer layer of the skin], and it takes a month for those to
come to the surface. The products are designed for a three-month dosage, and that’s what you need if you’re going to see an effect.’
In other words, having two on the go is a bad idea. The Génifique joins the Effacil and the Elemis balm by the sink.
The fourth product, Alison says, should be my ‘current love moisturiser’, which is a Greek product, Olive Era 24 Hour Cream (an airport buy, but a good one). Various other moisturisers don’t have to go to waste: I can keep one by my bed and another on my desk. I like tinted moisturisers with an SPF and I’m using one from No7, so that becomes my fifth product. With my skincare sorted, we move on to my make-up. Working in the same way, we take out everything I own, throwing away mascara that’s been open for more than three months (yes, you risk infection if you carry on using it), anything liquid based (a shelf life of just 12 months), any powder products that have gone shiny, and anything that looks or smells weird.
We then sort everything into piles — lips and bases (foundations, concealers), powders and colours (setting, bronzer, cheek), eye pencils and mascaras, brow products and palettes . . .
‘Keep your everyday make-up where you would normally apply it. So if you sit down at your dressing table every day, then keep products there. Then you can carry your “on-the-go” products with you if you like to reapply throughout the day, for example a lipstick and a powder, for your handbag,’ says Alison.
‘Any extras should be stored where you can see them, either in labelled Muji boxes, or a make-up trunk. Shu Uemura does gorgeous ones, or you can find inexpensive brands online.’
This is where I need Alison’s help most. I am muddled about tinted moisturisers, BB creams, CC creams and foundations.
I have in my cupboard two different shades of tinted moisturiser from Laura Mercier and one from No 7, plus a BB (beauty balm) cream from Garnier, which gives more coverage than a regular tinted moisturiser, and a CC (colour correcting) cream from By Terry which sits somewhere between a BB cream and a foundation.
Also, I have a Bobbi Brown foundation, and a barely-used €77 foundation stick from Tom Ford that isn’t the right colour.
‘Everyone has probably bought the wrong shade of foundation or concealer at one point,’ says Alison.
‘Stop these from going to waste by using the lighter shades for highlighting the high points of the face — brow bone, bridge of the nose — and use your darker shade as a contour underneath the cheek bone, jaw line and corners of the forehead.
‘It will take a bit of extra time to do your make-up this way, but if you’re not in a rush it will add definition to the face and you make the most of what you thought was a wasted product.’
SHE suggests adding drops of facial oil or hyaluronic acid serum to make a heavy foundation more sheer for summer, or a darker foundation lighter.
Alison has similar tips for getting more use out of abandoned eye shadows.
‘Use a fine brush and dark shades as eyeliner to create blurry lines above and below the lash line for definition,’ she suggests.
And as for lipsticks that aren’t quite the right shade, ‘use a hairdryer to heat and soften the lipstick then use a brush to transfer it into a container such as a travel pill organiser’.
You can either mix it with another lipstick to make a colour you’re more likely to wear, or add in a lip balm to create a more sheer and wearable version.
With my base sorted, I add a few more non-negotiables to my make-up bag — Touche Éclat (probably my main make-up staple to conceal under my eyes), my well-used Mac blusher, my favourite Chanel Rouge Allure in a shade of pink, and my muchloved Chantecaille powder, which Alison notes approvingly has ‘a blurry effect’ — and which, I realise, is exactly what I am trying to achieve when it comes to make-up.
It all seems ludicrously simple, but I have learned several important lessons, including that it makes more sense to play around with blushers and lipsticks, and to be consistent with skincare — at least for three months at a time.
And also that there are so many covetable creams and powders in the world, most of which I absolutely do not need.
In future, I am going to try not to buy any products I haven’t specifically gone out for, and spend the money I save on classy serums. That’s the plan, anyway.
. . . and here’s the TV beauty expert who can help