Common Makeup Mistakes that Cost Women Big Bucks

Makeup is personal. I like mine on my face at all times, and I like it classic. I like a subtle smoky eye throughout the day, light highlighting and contouring, a little blush and mascara and either bold red or bright pink lips – it just depends on what I’m wearing. Essentially, I like my face to look flawless, but like I’m wearing little to no makeup save for lipstick. At night, I prefer to go a little further with it and go very old-Hollywood glam. That’s my personal preference. There are women who prefer not to wear makeup. There are women who like bright colors, lots of makeup, very little makeup and those who just do their own makeup so wrong you wonder if they’ve heard of that thing called a mirror.

My husband and I attended a fundraiser the other night for a cause that is near and dear to our hearts; brand new high school grads headed to college in need of scholarship money. All right, all right. It’s a Florida Gator kickoff tailgate party with unlimited food and cocktails, raffles, door prizes and famous guest speakers – and we love every second of it (though we really do enjoy bidding on things we don’t need, buying raffle tickets to win items we just end up donating back and spending our money to help our local students attend UF in the fall). While there, we had our group of people in a hilarious photo booth and someone waiting in line commented on my lipstick. She said it was the most beautiful shade of red and asked me all about it, so I told her it’s Bobbi Brown, I order it from Nordstrom, and it honestly lasts around 8 hours without requiring me to reapply.

She was excited at first, but came back to me later to express how disappointed she was that I’d spend $28 on a tube of lipstick and that I could put that money to good use elsewhere. She gets hers for just $4 at the local drugstore and spends her money on more important things. I did not mention that she’d just complained to me that she reapplies her red lipstick every half hour or so throughout the day because it simply doesn’t stay put. I can use an entire tube all day, every day for a year without needing new one. She buys a new one every few weeks, according to her. I think that means I get the better deal, to be quite honest.

Regardless, women spend a ton of money on makeup, and we waste a lot of that. I wear expensive makeup, but it lasts me so much longer than my cheap makeup ever lasted – and I buy less as a whole. It looks better, it lasts longer, and it’s better on my wallet in the long run, to be honest. However, saving right now just to spend more later isn’t the only mistake women make with makeup that costs big bucks. Some women make mistakes with their makeup that cost them big time, and they don’t even realize it. Let’s see what you might be doing to waste your makeup and how you can stop.

Not exfoliating

Do you spend so much money on makeup to cover your dry skin, yet your skin is still dry and flaky no matter how much makeup and how often you reapply? It’s because you’re not exfoliating your skin enough, not because your makeup isn’t working. Even if you moisturize regularly, you aren’t going to get rid of dead, flaky skin without exfoliating. Your makeup only enhances that flaky skin, which makes you look worse. This causes you to want to apply even more makeup. This means you’re running out of makeup faster and spending more replacing it much sooner than you’d need to if you simply exfoliated and nipped that problem in the bud right now.

Applying bronzer everywhere

I am ashamed to admit that I may or may not (definitely may) have done this regularly in high school. I mistakenly thought the point was to look tan, but it wasn’t. The point is to contour, highlight and enhance my face. Now that I know this, I can use one bronzer for at least a year whereas before I was replacing it every few months. It saves big bucks to know how to use your tools and your makeup the correct way.

You don’t clean your brushes

One of the biggest makeup mistakes women make is spending money on nice brushes and never cleaning them. You have to clean them. I like to clean mine every week. I do it on Sunday mornings after I apply my makeup for church so that the brushes have all day to dry. If you don’t clean them, you’re spreading germs, grime, dirt and who even knows what else all over your face on a regular basis. Additionally, build-up causes makeup brushes to become less effective, and you end up spending even more money on new brushes, and on new products because you can’t figure out why your makeup doesn’t go on evenly anymore or why your skin keeps breaking out (dirty brushes; that’s why).

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