Beauty No-Buy

In January, I knew I needed to take some sort of preemptive measure so as to protect my bank account. You see, I love to buy make up! I am always willing to try something out and I love to browse Ulta, Target, and Sephora--which are the recipients of a good portion of my pay checks! In 2012, I attained the status of V.I.B. at Sephora and spent roughly $400 there. As far as Ulta goes, I received many Ultamate reward points in the mail, but I'm unsure of the exact amount I spent. All I knew was I was living within my means, but once I had crunched the numbers I was intrigued to see how much money I could save by not purchasing make up for 5 months, so I made my resolution Facebook-official and enlisted the help of my best friend and family to keep me in-check.

One of my most-purchased items is eye shadow palettes. The bigger, the more pigmented, and more diverse the palette is the better! I decided that after already having made an e.l.f. purchase by January 7th, it was time to put the kibosh on my spending habits. Like I said earlier, it wasn't "necessary" but I felt that there were people out there who had far greater concerns than me wondering if I'd be getting my Urban Decay palette by the end of the day. I had a busy semester ahead, so I opted to not fall into past habits of stress-purchasing beauty products online when really the best option for alleviating my stress would be to hunker down and study.

I have to say that I'm pretty impressed with the fact that I did not cave to go get a pedicure with friends when asked, or snatch up a small lip gloss while accompanying a friend on a trip to the mall during a sashay through Sephora. The goal was to "shop my stash" and use, review, and critique the many items I had accumulated. Despite my greatest efforts to use less-used products, there are still those go-to-fall-back-on items that are priceless! Because they work! (I will post about those soon!) In the end, I was able to gain from my self-imposed intervention in more ways than just financially. This semester was a time for me to truly dig deep and reevaluate what's really important in life and it is my hope to share my experience with you. Thanks for reading! :)