I’m the last person who is willing to give up beauty products. I am a sucker for a luscious body moisturizer, rich face cream and bright red lipstick. But in the past year, I’ve noticed that some of my beauty buys have gone mostly untouched.
Maybe I forgot I bought something. Or I could not have enjoyed a product’s texture as much as I thought I would. Or perhaps I merely felt a skincare trend was “for me,” but soon discovered I was dreadfully wrong.
And I’m not the only one who has reconsidered their beauty buying habits. I’ve seen more than a few news sites mention that 2019 could be the year of “the beauty no-buy.”
Embracing the “no-buy” lifestyle
A recent Dazed Digital Beauty article reported that “until recently, the online beauty community could be defined by the unrelenting cycle of anticipating and reviewing new products.” However, the news organization stated that recently, this “unrelenting cycle” shifted “during the tail-end of 2018 and early 2019.”
“The idea of the ‘no-buy’ has been discussed in online beauty communities as far back as at least 2014 on Sephora’s forum, and YouTubers have been trialling not buying any new products for set periods of time for around as long,” Dazed Digital added.
“The concept of a low or no-buy is a simple one: you set some rules for yourself about what you can and cannot buy, with the overall idea being to drastically reduce your spending.”
Stoping a potential spending addiction
Although some beauty product lovers who are embracing the no-buy makeup and beauty philosophy are doing so to embrace sustainability, others are addressing a beauty shopping addiction.
“The cycle of loss of control, followed by shame, echoes the language of addiction, and the [popular beauty] forums in which these conversations take place to operate like support groups,” Dazed Digital reported. “The hub of these conversations is a subreddit aptly named MakeupRehab, which has over 50K subscribers, over 2000 of which joined in the first weeks of 2019.”
Dazed Digital added that this new online beauty community is full of users who offer support. Tips include “unsubscribing from mailing lists or more practical measures like talking each other out of buying something when the inner voices compelling them to make a purchase get too loud to ignore.”
The Dazed article ended by asking the question: Where do beauty vloggers go from here? After all, what can you post about if you aren’t buying new, trendy products?
Some people are recording “anti-haul” videos, which show vloggers discussing “what they are not buying or clearing out, and there are already videos where users talk themselves out of buying something they had been obsessing over.”
Another route? Embracing DIY beauty
Thankfully, there are numerous DIY beauty blogs and resources full of useful information concerning how a person can easily and affordably make DIY beauty products. Now, we’re not saying that you can make a product that’s the equivalent of anything Fenty Beauty or Glossier makes, but if you can get creative occasionally and save some cash while still achieving glowing skin in the process, why not?
Here are a few Beauty No Buy information spaces:
Farah Dhukai DIY Beauty and Haircare
No buy (or, less buy) — give it a try!
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Abbie Stutzer is a writer and editor from Lawrence, Kansas. Find her on Twitter at @abbiestutzer and on Insta at @abbiestutzer. Email her at abbie@ynotcam.com.
Image via alexander kokinidis.
