Nov 28, 2008

Three Questions You Must Ask Before Buying Another Beauty Product

How to avoid buyer's remorse and stop stuffing your drawers with products you'll never use! The first step in becoming your own beauty expert.

Like many women, and perhaps like you, I’ve wasted time, money and energy buying products that didn’t live up to their claims, reacted badly with my skin or just plain didn’t suit me.

I was an early starter when it came to using skin care and cosmetics - I suffered with problem skin from the young age of nine and my mother was a representative for various skin care and cosmetic companies during my childhood...I had a skin care regime when I was primary school-age and, starting with my attempts to conceal and correct my bad skin, have worn foundation almost daily since intermediate.

Throughout the years I’ve tried various skin care and makeup brands - some cheap, some expensive. Even though I knew the importance of good skin care, most of the time my budget meant I ended up using ‘bits and pieces’; products not designed for my skin type, freebies from friends, one-off purchases or whatever was in my cosmetics case at the time. With most skin care products, I had no idea if they were working - I couldn’t see any difference. Worse, some added to my embarrassment by causing my skin to break out even more.

Eventually, I realised leaving something as important as my appearance to a ‘fingers-crossed’ approach or putting up with ‘hit and miss’ was only working against me and the healthy skin and polished makeup look I wanted to achieve. Now, with experience as a consumer and professional in the beauty industry, I use a simple test to determine whether a product will end up as time and money spent in vain and gathering dust in my drawer or be my new best friend in helping me look my best every morning.

For each purchase, if you first ask the right questions about the product, about yourself and the best way to buy it, properly investing in your beauty will be rewarding, easy, and regret-free. There are some worthwhile and effective skin care and beauty items available, but they will elude you unless you ask the Three Questions You Must Ask Before You Buy A Beauty Product. Ask these Three Questions and you’ll never worry about getting stuck with unsuitable or disappointing products again. Better still, you’ll be able to trust yourself to make decisions when it comes to enhancing your own beauty:

• Will it suit me? (I.e. For cosmetics: Does it suit your skin tone, complement your eye colour etc? For skin care: Is it the right formulation for your skin type?)

• Do I know how to use it? (And, if you’re not sure, is someone knowledgeable available to teach you so you can apply it for yourself in the future and get the most benefit from the product?)

• If it doesn’t end up suiting me, will they take it back and give me a refund even if it’s opened?

When you have guidelines, it’s easy to be confident in your ability to make yourself look your best. Get positive answers to these questions and you’ll no longer face confusion when you shop for beauty products. Plus you’ll eliminate costly and annoying mistake-purchases from your life! Need help answering these questions? Keen to become your own beauty expert? Click HERE to start your 'beautiful education.'