I was late in starting the makeup game. But boy did I start. And once I started I just couldn’t stop. I was obsessed with buying new makeup for years. Thankfully I finally put an end to it. This is how I was able to stop buying makeup for a year to save money.

The Start of My Makeup Obsession

I was a late starter, I only started wearing makeup my freshman year of college. Yes, I dabbled into the occasional lip-gloss in high school but I didn’t really have much interest in makeup then and neither were the friends I was close with.

I didn’t have anyone teaching me how to put on makeup at home and by the time I was interested, half of my friends were already too far ahead in the makeup game making me too self-conscious to ask them.

When I started college, I didn’t even know what foundation was until my roommate showed me. And it was life-changing.

The hyperpigmentation and the redness around my nose? Completely smoothed out with foundation. That acne on my chin that I’ve been trying to hide with my hair? Completely disappeared with concealer. My tired eyes that made people assume I just woke up or worse “are you sick?” completely disappeared with a stroke of eyeliner and some mascara.

My only wish then was that I found out the power of makeup sooner.

I was a full-time student during all 4 years of college, but to be perfectly honest I’m pretty sure I spent more time and effort learning about makeup my freshman year than on any of the courses I was taking.

College, as they say, is a time for discovery. For me, I discovered makeup. And I wasn’t alone.

On weekends my suitemates and I would make our way to the mall, spending hours in Sephora and Ulta comparing products, sharing what we tried and what we each recommended.

It was fun!




Growing up as the only daughter in my family, I didn’t have sisters to share these bonding moments with.

But guess what wasn’t fun? The amount of money I was draining from my bank account.

Foundation was like my gateway drug. I started with foundation but one foundation alone wasn’t enough. I bought the wrong color and it didn’t match my face.

I realized I didn’t like powder foundation and wanted a liquid foundation. Oh, but the liquid foundation I chose was too oily for my skin. I had to get a new foundation.

The cycle was vicious, to say the least. By the time I finally landed on my holy-grail foundation, my obsession had turned to finding that smear-proof mascara and eyeliner. I proceeded to gain more obsession with eyeshadows, blushes, lipsticks, and so forth. It was a never-ending cycle.

My obsession with makeup was so bad that one day I walked into an Ulta store, not knowing what I wanted to get at all if anything.

A sales associate walked up to me and asked if I needed anything and I looked at her and said, “I’m not sure. I’m just looking for something to buy. What do you recommend?” Confused by the request, she recommended an expensive under-eye concealer which I promptly bought.

I must have been a dream customer for her.

The worst part of it all was that I hadn’t even needed an under-eye concealer. Bless my then teenage face, I didn’t have dark under eye circles yet.

But all the youtube videos I watched had women putting on under eye concealer so religiously that I thought I needed to do the same.

Nevermind that I couldn’t notice the difference and that it instead made my under-eye area cake up with concealer instead.

It was only in grad school when I realized what it really meant to have under-eye circles with all the late night study sessions I was pulling. I regret putting concealer under my eyes when I didn’t need to which probably made the aging process faster.

I wish I could say that event put an end to my makeup buying saga, but alas it lasted throughout my college years during which I spent on average $500 on makeup per year.

That’s $2,000 worth of makeup alone, not skincare product or anything else, that I spent during my undergrad years!

But to be frank, I needed those years of experimentation out of my system. Makeup obsession was like growing pains that I just had to go through.

 

Putting a Stop to the Obsession

After I graduated from college and had to quit my part-time job to move cross-country for grad school, I was without a job. I became a graduate student with no income at all.

My tuition and living costs were all paid out by student loans and there was no way I could justify using my loans to pay for such luxuries as makeup.

So I stopped.

At first, I used the tricks I outlined in my last post, How to Cut Spending: 3 Questions I Ask Before a Purchase to stop buying makeup that I clearly didn’t need.

I stopped buying makeup when I realized I didn’t have extra money to buy it. It was simply a luxury that I could no longer afford.

It was hard at first. But then I realized that I had everything that I wanted already.

My makeup drawer had enough foundations, concealers, eyeliners, mascara to last me at least a year. You name it, I had it. So I made a resolution that I would put a stop to buying makeup for a year, trying to save and declutter at the same time.

The one good thing that came out of my makeup obsession saga was that I found out what makeup suits me. And with a busy schedule, I started streamlining my makeup routine and using the same combination of colors on a daily basis.

Those newly released makeup palettes that I so wanted to buy? I realized that I had most of those eyeshadow colors from different palettes that I already owned.

And the ones I don’t already have? I realized I would never wear them out anyways.

I’m not exactly adventurous in my makeup looks. I stick to my browns and add some glitters here and there for more celebratory outings.

It was a shock to me when I realized that I really only use 2 eyeshadow palettes, one for my everyday look and one for my night outings most of the time.

I not only realized that I don’t use most of the other palettes I own, of the 2 palettes I do use, I only use 5 colors total. Yes, 5 colors out of maybe 50 eyeshadow colors combined from all my palettes.

What a waste.

The realization completely ended my obsession with eyeshadow palettes. The last time I bought an eyeshadow palette ended up being January of 2015.

How I Stopped Buying Makeup

As I mentioned, I would ask myself the questions I outlined in my  How to Cut Spending: 3 Questions I Ask Before a Purchase post before I would buy any makeup. And it pretty much stopped all my makeup spending when I realized I clearly didn’t need them.

The strange thing was, it got easier over time. Like, way easier (no exaggeration). I’ll admit that even I was skeptical that I could stop buying makeup at first. I thought I could probably last a month before buying a new product.

But I surprised myself. As the months kept passing by, my makeup obsession became a distant memory.

Yes, it was hard at first to watch youtube videos of new products coming out but as time passed by, I realized that I was completely fine not buying those products that I so wanted a month ago. And that’s when the realization struck me.

I realized that if I just delayed buying something, I would eventually lose interest in it.

Now I only buy my holy grail foundation and eyeliner when I’m out. I haven’t even bought mascara in 3 years because I get at least one mascara freebie every year either for my birthday gift from Sephora or Ulta or it comes as a freebie with a purchase.

Years after I stopped buying makeup, I now find myself losing interest even in makeup tutorials or makeup review videos that were such a routine bedtime activity for me for years.

They say the hardest part of starting a routine is getting into the habit of doing it. I found that it is exactly the same when it comes to stopping a routine. You just have to break the habit.

The hardest part of not buying makeup for a year was that initial stop. I took it one month at a time and it just became easier and easier to maintain over the months and years.

Now I don’t even look twice at new products on display. I shudder at the thought that I used to spend $500 on makeup. Excluding rent, $500 is enough for a month’s worth of living expenses!

So if you find yourself with a vanity full of makeup products you never use and want to stop buying more, try just stopping cold turkey. Trust me, it works!

Know that you’ve got everything you need just right where you are. It’s like what Dorothy says, “there’s no place like home”. You only have to look at your backyard (in this case your own makeup drawer) to realize that you already have everything you need.