MAKE THIS THE WEEK YOU . . .
RECYCLE YOUR COSMETICS
BEAUTY TREATS
MANY beauty brands treat you if you take your empty make-up pots back to a store to be recycled. The ‘Back-to-MAC’ scheme lets you swap six old MAC containers for a new lipstick of your choice (€20). Or treat yourself to a Lush face mask (€9.95,
lush.com) in return for taking back five of its recyclable black pots.
SAVVY SAVINGS
ANOTHER way of re-using empties, and saving money, is via a refill service. Beauty brands such as L’Occitane sell refills for shampoos and body washes. An Almond Shower Oil Refill is €31.50 for 500ml (ie.loccitane.com), rather than €22 for a 250ml original. Meanwhile, Estee Lauder offers refills for lip and brow pencils — €13 instead of €25 for the lip pencil and €25.50 for the brow (boots.ie).
REHOME GIFTS
REMEMBER that lipstick you’ve never worn? There is a market for ‘pre-loved’ make-up via websites such as glambot.com — the online calculator shows what you could get for your cast-offs. You must send at least 20 items.
Or list as many items as you want on a so-called ‘boot sale’ app such as Shpock (en.shpock.com).
FRAGRANCE FIX
THINK before throwing out perfume bottles. There is a huge market for collectable vintage fragrances: this includes anything pre-2000, particularly scents such as Chanel No 5. Head to basenotes.net to look up the value of yours. Then try selling it on eBay: even recent perfume empties can fetch up to €10.