New year, same challenge. Are you ready to embark or to continue to keep close track of all your beauty spending? I sure am. As probably expected by many of you, I will continue posting my monthly results as I found this challenge very useful in controlling my spending. Now, I am thinking that I should start doing something similar even if not publicly for all my spending but particularly for this blog and for my stationary shopping.
Have you heard the news about Paperchase? I am completely gutted! If you know of any good stationary shops in Europe (incl. UK) that deliver within the UK or even just locally and have great products do let me know. With the exception of Flyign Tiger or Hema though as I am still a customer at those stores 🙂
Anyways, back to the beauty bit. Are you ready?
Let’s dive in and see how January looked like.
January’s Purchases
- Cult Beauty Ultimate Skincare Edit – £26 (I had a voucher…)
- Secret Key Starting Treatment Essential Beauty Mask Sheet Rose Edition 10 Sheets, 1.05 oz (30 g) Each – £10.29
- Some By Mi Super Matcha Pore Tightening Serum 1.69 fl oz (50 ml) – £11.93
- One Thing Hyaluronic Acid Complex 5 fl oz (150 ml) – £15.95
- Neogen Bio-Peel+ Gauze Peeling Green Tea 30 Count, 200 ml – £10.97
In January I ended up spending a total of £75.14 on beauty products.
January’s’ Empties
- Victoria Beckham Beauty Posh Lipstick in Sway – £33.51
- Pyunkang Yul Highly Moisturizing Essence Beauty Sheet Mask – £0.96
- e.l.f. SuperTone With Fruit Acid – £6.40
- Frudia, Green Grape Pore Peeling Pad – £1.07 x 2
- Ziaja Hand and Body Wash 400ml – £1.93
- Paula’s Choice Skin Perfecting 2% BHA Liquid Exfoliant (118ml) – £34
- SNP Jeju Green Tea Beauty Mask – £0.82 x 2
- Ziaja Med Hair Treatment anti-Hair Loss Shampoo 300ml – £2.52
- Stradivarius Hand Cleaner Spray Cherry Jam – £3.36
- Bath and Body Works Gentle Foaming Hand Soap in Crushed Candy Cane – £4.39
- Bath and Body Works Hand Sanitizer Spray in Ivy Rose – £3.46
- Glow Recipe Watermelon Glow Niacinamide Dew Drops Travel Size – £15.5
- Avène Cleanance Micellar Water for Blemish-Prone Skin 100ml – £5.06
- Biossance Squalane + Lactic Acid Resurfacing Night Serum 10ml – £16
- Isntree Green Tea Fresh Toner 20ml – £2.68
- My Little Beauty Super Drop – £0 (the serum is no longer available for pruchase and the price is not listed anywhere)
- G9skin Self Aesthetic Soft Foot Mask Mask – £1.60
In January I ended up emptying £135.17 worth of products. This resulted in an allowance of £67.58.
Allowance from posts
Allowance from Reviews – £5
- Rated Green Rosemary Balancing Scalp Pack Mask – review is available here
Allowance from Social Media – £0
Total allowance from posts: £5
£67.58 (allowance from emtpies) + £5 (allowance from posts) – £75.14 (January’s Spending) – £3184.18 (previous closing balance) = – £3,186.74
For the first time ever, my was pretty much equal to my allowance. There is a difference of around £2 but that is fine. For me, this is a rarity as I am usually over the allowance by a lot as it happened last month for example, or I am way below (not that often). However, I do not recall an instance of being right at the limit. Juts an interesting observation on my part, nothing more 🙂
January started off really well. I did get the Cult Beauty box but that was it until January 30th though… I spotted some pretty great deals at iHerb and just had to go for them. The sheet mask set is one I missed out on in December. I waited too long and it got sold out by the time I decided to place an order when it came back in stock it was at full price which would not do. I like the sheet mask sets as they are super affordable this way. I am a fan of sheet masks but they are overly expensive if purchased individually and even as a set at times, while on discount, I can get a sheet mask for approximately £1 which is incredible.
I then also picked up another jar of Neogen pads. I truly did not need another one, but it was more than 50% off in my currency so yeah. I still have not decided what I am going to do with it since I have yet to use or even open the one I picked up at the end of last year but we shall see. I did get it in case I need to have something on hand to give as a gift but if something else pops up, then I will keep it for myself.
The One Thing Hyaluronic Acid Complex is a product that I could have gotten cheaper at Tonic15. I am well aware of that, however, even though the shop ships internationally, my parcel would have probably ended up at a special post office that has incredibly short opening hours and that would require me to spend 30 minutes explaining what the heck I purchased and take a day off from work so no thank you. I also tried purchasing via third parties aka having my parcel from Tonic15 forwarded but for this particular brand they send my parcel in two pieces (the second being delayed by several weeks) and they did not issue different invoices. I ended up paying full customs taxes aka for both parcels when I got the first one and then I would have had to pay full taxes for both the second time as well plus the cost of delivery… Safe to say that I left my one bottle of One Thing from my second parcel “expire” in my forwarder’s account so hopefully someone on their team is enjoying it cause there was no way I would pay an extra £30 for a measly bottle worth around £9.60 on discount. It is complicated to live in a country that doe snot have a great postal service system 😐
The idea was that I do not mind paying £3 or so more but being certain that my parcels arrive at my front door or getting a refund if the items is no longer in stock.
Tonic15 is a great retailer, but only if you are UK based or if you live in a country with a great postal service that gets all your parcels delivered at home and not at a post office if sent by regular mail that is. I am not trying to bash Tonic15 in any way above, but I did find their procedure of not issuing a second invoice odd or rather sending a set separately in the first place. Yes, I got a three-bottle set and received only two in the first parcel as the third was out of stock. No more comments here…
In short, the retailer is alright and worth checking out. Also, One Thing as a brand is incredible!
(*update: I am an idiot. The prices have gone up at Tonic5 as well so I babbled without a purpose for around 4 paragraphs. But I will would have been better off paying a few pounds more but without any of the hassle)
So all in all January was fun and surprisingly a lot shorter than any other January I lived through. I do not know what happened and what was different this time around TBH not that I mind as usually January is like a neverending month.
In terms of beauty spending though, I wished I could have waited a bit more with my iHerb order so that I would not have to record it for January, but I already have a February one so yeah. *sheepish
No, I am happy with my spending and even more so with my empties. I got rid of lots of products this past January which is great.
I also realise that I have not set a maximum negative balance for this year, but I want to see what happens now that I am a bit more stable in terms of spending and stayed around the £2000 mark for a couple of years. I want to see whether I have become more disciplined and can keep it up without having that self-imposed “threat” over my head.
I did spend less on beauty than I have on slippers (these are the slippers I picked up and they are super comfy but most of all warm – I was tired of freezing and I finally found a pair that helps with the cold coming from the floor) or stationery (not combined) in January so there is that :D. Like I said, I am okay with my results. How about you?
How did you do in January?
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