I've always considered myself to be money savvy: I try to spend my money on the things I really need or get most enjoyment from. With this in mind, I've been taking a look at how much different beauty treatments cost me over an entire year and what I could do instead with that money.
Manicures and Pedicures
Salon manicures and pedicures in London are expensive: a simple manicure typically costs around £20 in most London salons. Assuming I'd need a manicure every week, this works out at £1,040 per year. If I cut down, and only had a file and polish costing £15, this would reduce to £780. Although gel polish manicures are more expensive, they need to repeated less often. Assuming you only needed to refresh this once every two weeks, this would actually work out cheaper than the file and polish, coming in at £728. For me, this is a double win, as it also costs me less time.
The economics are even better for gel pedicures, as there tends to be a smaller price difference between standard and gel polish pedicures and toe nails grow more slowly, so the gel polish pedicure needs refreshing less frequently.
Of course, it goes without saying, that the real saving to be had is by doing manicures and pedicures at home. You could buy 63 bottles of OPI nail varnish for the price of one year's worth of gel polish manicures! My inability to replicate the wonders a salon pedicure can do though, means that what mackes most sense for me, is infrequent salon pedicures, say one every two months, topped up by at home maintenance.
Hair Care
The cost of regularly getting salon painted nails is more shocking when compared to how much a year's worth of hair cuts cost. A cut and blowdry at my local salon costs £45. Assuming I do this once every two months (and let's face it, very few people get their hair cut this regularly) it only costs me just £293/year. Even more interestingly, I could get 4 £175 keratin treatments per year for the same price as getting my nails painted weekly. The amount of time saved blow drying my hair each day would easily out weigh the extra time spent painting my nails.
Luxury Products
The extra cost associated with buying luxury products is often less than it initially appears, when measured over a whole year, particularly if the products last a long time. For example, a jar of expensive face cream may last 3 months. Assuming that the luxury brand costs £35 a jar compared to £5 a jar for the standard brand, the luxury cream would only cost £120 more over the year. Of course, this does not necessarily mean the luxury cream gives £120's worth of results more than the other cream!
The Bottom Line
Think about how regularly you get a beauty treatment to work out how much it is really costing you and whether you'd rather spend that money on something else! Consider treating yourself to luxury products, if they'll last a long time, and you believe the results will be significantly better.
Mascara is the most stubborn make-up to remove, yet is closest to the most sensitive part of the face. This makes choosing an eye make-up remover a tricky one - how to get something that thoroughly removes stubborn make up without aggravating your eyes? It's also essential that it's easy to do, so you've no excuses before bed. The most important thing to consider is whether you want to choose an oil or water based remover.
Oil-based
Oil based cleansers are the most effective at truly removing mascara. You're far less likely to wake up with a moon of mascara underneath your eyes if you removed it the night before with oil based remover. The negative is that they are messier: getting the oil-based remover completely off can be difficult, they have a tendency to slide around the skin if you try and rinse them off with water/wipe off with cotton wool.
Water-based
These are definitely less messy than the oil removers: it's easy to apply with cotton wool, hold to the eye, and then wipe off. I find these effective for eye-shadows but not capable of fully removing mascara.
What do I choose?
Oil-based is the only way for me, as I hate waking up with mascara round my eyes or applying mascara to lashes with a crust of yesterday's mascara. I go for basic products that are gentle, rather than expensive products with added extras.
It took me a while to be converted to oil-based cleansers, as I found them messy and difficult to remove, but I now have my routine sorted. I put boots simply sensitive eye make-up remover (typically retails for just £1.50) onto my finger tips, stroke onto the eyelids to loosen the make-up and then rinse off with water. At this stage, my face will typically have a greyish film of mascara-y cleanser over my cheeks that is difficult to rinse off with water alone. The final step is cleansing my entire face with my usual foaming cleanser, which removes all the remnants of the oil.
I keep a bottle of a water based eye make up remover (l'oreal gentle eye make up remover for £2.99 works for me) for those times when I've made a make-up mistake or need to refresh make up during the day.
