Selfie Does a Beauty No-Buy

Sephora really tried to get me this year.* Upon seeing that I hadn’t used my discount code during the big winter sale…they literally…sent.me.a.second.one. And then another email that if you spent $50 this week, you’d get another 20% coupon in December. This, my friends, is why the no buy was pretty easy. This is like the sixth sale or discount code this year. There are things that have made shopping at Sephora fun and in the last six months or so, they’ve essentially replaced all of it with 20% off sales every other week. Things like:

Unlimited makeup applications - Moved to a pay-for service in 2020. The email about which deceptively indicates that it’s over right not and also, how I was informed the last time I went in for a service. But…ya girl reads the fine print.

Brand Exclusives - Ulta picked up their game and most releases are available online first so why not just get them online.

Their Stores are Nice to Shop In - Looking at you, constantly thrashed Ulta stores. This is still true but online shopping exists so whatever.

So why a no-buy november? A few reasons. First, Sephora used to never have sales. So when they started the holiday sale, it was actually awesome and something to look forward to but now, it’s constantly being shoved down consumers’ throats like - OMG!!! YOU NEED TO BUY RIGHT NOW! COUPON CODE!!!! Or I can wait five minutes for another sale, I’m good. Second, product overwhelm. The trend right now, is just to product dump. Colourpop, whose products I love and brand I respect, literally comes out with a new collection once a week. Anastasia Beverly Hills dropped three regular palettes and five. FIVE. Norvina palettes in three or four months. No one needs that much anything. Especially not of “prestige” brand make-up. Third, the product dump made me take a step back and look at my collection and it’s…kind of ridiculous. I have palettes I’ve held onto even though I don’t like or use them. I buy red lipstick regularly, I have a full container. I can’t imagine there is a color of eyeshadow out there, that I can’t find in something I already owned. So, I took everything out my train case and organized it out my bathroom counter and guess what? I actually use it. Even followign beauty tutorials on youtube, instead of thinking aw damn, i need THAT pallete for this, I just look for the color in another palette. It’s not crazy. The practice of which made me actually step back and think about what I already have and what I actually like versus the brand or collab or packaging.** So, when the emails hit my inbox - hundreds of them - with really amazing holiday specials, I’m simply not tempted or interested.

No-Buy Takeaways:

1) Display Your Stash so you Can Shop Your Stash

If you can see what you actually have, you can remember that you forgot about this great blush. Or you didn’t even remember you owned this color lipstick. Or you have SO MANY RED LIPSTICKS, SELFIE. STOP BUYING RED LIPSTICK. or “Wow. I hate this. and I’m going to throw it away. And remember to never buy it again.”

2) Learn to Use What You Have

I get that this seems the same…but it’s not. I ran out of my preferred eyeliner pretty early in this process but I had other eyeliner that I remember not liking but you know what? It totally performs so why did I not like it before? Also, wanting to actually use up what I have made me actually sit down at the vanity and learn new tecniques. Hello, black smoky eye. I finally figured you out. And now I need to clean all my brushes, damn you!

3)Stop Buying Into the Hype

I don’t purchase cosmetics because I “need” makeup. I buy it because I love makeup and it’s fun but it feels like there’s a line between “fun” and “consumer pressure”. You always buy more when it’s 20% off and is the fun in buying a product…or using it. Because I’m pretty sure the point is to do cool makeup. This no-buy also made me more thoughtful about my spending in general. I didn’t really buy other random things I would have bought off amazon or whatever because I was already looking through a lens of “Wait. Do I not already have that?”

So that’s my story. What will I buy December 1? Honestly, probably nothing and won’t until I run out of foundation. What are you giving up for December? Margaritas. I purposefully did not give them up because I see Papa Jose in November. How much money did you save? I’m not going to tell you because Mr. Selfie reads this blog.

*This entire post can just be called “Why I’m Over Sephora” which would be the clickbait title of this (imaginary) video on my (made up) youtube channel. “Welcome back to my channel! Subscribe. Ring Bell. Follow me on RabbitEars or whatever social media platform app is cool rn.”

**I’m such a sucker for packaging. Looking at you, any cosmetics x Disney collabs.