For makeup maniacs, November 1st marks an almost holy day: Sephora’s annual savings event. For the past few weeks leading up to the sale, my FYP has been inundated with influencers insisting “I need this product!” (the Makeup By Mario Skin Enhancer, the Merit blush holiday gift set, the Summer Fridays lip butters). Though I imagine myself too clever to be swayed by such not-so-subtle advertising, I often find myself buying into the hype surrounding the latest product and feeling pressured to participate.
Take the new Patrick Ta eyeshadow duos. Though they’ve sparked outrage for their steep price tag (a whopping $42 USD), mobs of beauty gurus are gushing about the gorgeous glitters on social media. Manufactured in Italy and made of multidimensional pearl pigments, these eyeshadows create an otherworldly sparkle. Seeing influencer after influencer gasp as they swatched the stunning sepia and cocoa colored sparkles, I felt an irrepressible desire burn in my stomach: I needed those eyeshadows.
With the annual Sephora savings event just around the corner, I tried to justify the totally needless splurge: if I bought the $42 eyeshadow at 20% off using my sister’s Rouge code, I’d only be paying $33.60…a steal! If I didn’t buy it now, wouldn’t I be “missing out”?
I already had 4 other things in my cart: the Makeup Forever Color Pencil Lip Liner and Eyeliner Kit ($39), “it” girl Hailey Bieber’s preferred lipliner (I’m reminded of the iconic line from Mean Girls: “I saw Cady Heron wearing army pants and flip-flops, so I bought army pants and flip-flops.”); the Living Proof Mini Perfect Hair Day Dry Shampoo ($16), a holy grail product recommended by a bouncy, blonde-haired influencer; L’Occitane Mini Cleansing And Softening Shower Oil With Almond Oil ($12), another enthusiastic endorsement from the same influencer; and one pragmatic purchase, a Makeup Forever black liquid eyeliner ($26).
What was one more thing in my cart? After all, if I added the eyeshadow, my total would only be $108 after the 20% discount, nothing compared to the extravagant $700 hauls I saw on social media.
But buying “just” one more thing comes at a cost.
Shopping excessively during sales can empty our wallets and seriously endanger our financial health. According to the latest LendingTree survey, Americans spend an average of $1,754 a year on cosmetics, services and beauty products. A shocking (or maybe not so shocking) statistic suggests 46% of Americans agree social media has contributed to them spending more on cosmetics. 52% of Gen Zers and 40% of millennials report regretting overspending on these products. 27% of both generations have gone into debt as a result.
“We live in an influencer culture — when you see the latest viral beauty trend on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube, it’s tempting to spend just to see what the fuss is about. And when we’re buying items that individually cost less than $50 or $100, it can be very easy to overspend without even realizing it,” LendingTree senior director of content Ismat Mangla reports.
This reminded me of the lipstick index, a fascinating economic phenomenon. Coined by Leonard Lauder, chairman of the board of Estee Lauder, the lipstick index is the idea that lipstick sales can be an economic indicator. The sales of cosmetics–specifically lipstick–“tend to be inversely correlated to economic health.” In other words, when economies plummet, cosmetic sales soar.
Why?
Economists speculate that during recessions women splurge on things like lipstick because they’re more affordable than high-end clothing (as a recovering fashion addict, I often catch myself rationalizing: what’s a $25 lipstick compared to a $1,000 designer bag?).
This sort of thinking can lead us into dangerous territory. One of my favorite TikTokers, Elysia Berman, illustrates this idea perfectly. Berman, a New York-based creative director and recovering shopaholic, recently went viral for documenting her “no buy” year. Her rules? No clothes, no accessories, no makeup.
To showcase the insanity of her shopping addiction, Berman regularly posts tours of her makeup hoard. In one video, she catalogs all of her eye makeup:
2 mascaras
1 lash primer
2 shadow primers
1 gel pot liner
1 black liquid eyeliner
5 brow products
18 eyeliners, 4 of which are the exact same color
14 eyeshadow sticks
2 silver glitters
8 cream eyeshadows
1 eye gloss
6 liquid eyeshadows (who knew there were so many different consistencies of eyeshadow?)
7 single powder eye shadows
13 eye shadow palettes
Her stockpile of eye products alone easily cost her thousands of dollars.
@elysiaberman LMK in the comments if you guys want me to do my skincare collection next! #nobuyyear #nobuy #eyemakeup #eyeshadowpalette #shopaholic #shoppingaddict #shoppingaddiction #beautyjunkie #makeupcollection
Before beginning her “no buy” journey, Berman was in $48,000 of credit card debt. I could only imagine pressing “add to cart” at Sephora greatly contributed to her financial hardships.
Looking at my own makeup collection, I wondered: how much money have I spent in the name of being beautiful?
Like Berman, the number is definitely in the thousands of dollars.
What else could I have done with that money?
Went on a trip to Italy (after all, study after study shows it’s better to spend on experiences rather than things)? Invested in my savings or Roth IRA?
Considered individually, cosmetic purchases might seem small, but they add up. A champagne-colored eyeshadow or nude shimmer lip gloss might be pretty but it’s not worth sacrificing your financial health.
Before you go on a Sephora spending spree, there are also practical things that need to be considered: how much makeup does one person really need to own?
I longed for the new Patrick Ta eyeshadows with an obsessive intensity. But did I really need another eyeshadow? I already had two full sized Patrick Ta palettes, Major Dimensions I and III, and 2 singles, Urban Decay’s legendary space cowboy and Hourglass’s scattered light eyeshadow.
According to a handy makeup calculator I found on Reddit, I already owned 2.25 years worth of eyeshadow (as a rouge addict, I shuddered to think how many years of blushes/bronzers I owned). In a very literal sense, I didn’t need anything else.
It’s takes a surprisingly long time to go through most makeup. On average, it takes at least a year to use a single eyeshadow–and that’s only if you use it on a daily basis. A lipstick contains around 300 applications, meaning if you applied it 3 times a day, it would last 100 days, more than a quarter of a year.
The statistics for blush are even more sobering. A pressed powder blush can last 840 days or 2.3 years while a cream blush can last 1400 days or 3.8 years (Of course, how long any makeup lasts depends on many factors; i.e. the product’s size, consistency, application, etc.).
The reality is most of us consume more than we can ever actually use.
One TikToker, Abi, personifies this problem. Like Elysia, Abi is a recovering shopaholic who’s taken to TikTok to record her “no buy” year. One of her most viral videos reveals the unfathomable extent of her makeup addiction. As Abi narrates the story of her shopping problem, the camera pans to mountains of makeup brushes, piles of eye shadow palettes, swarms of skin tints. She owns incomprehensible quantities of foundation and concealer and blush and lipstick. Makeup seems to overflow from every corner and surface. Abi is a doomsday prepper stockpiling just in case there’s a makeup apocalypse. She probably owns several lifetimes of makeup–and that’s a conservative estimate.
@abidaunton Extreme makeup overconsumption! I’m still not feeling amazing but hopefully i’ll be back tomorrow with talking videos 💖 #makeupaddiction #lowbuy #nobuy #shoppingaddiction #shoppingaddict #makeupshopping #overconsumption #makeup #makeupcollection #consumerism #beautytok #beauty #shopaholic #recovery #deinfluencing
But consumers like Abi are not entirely to blame for their lavish shopping habits. Social media normalizes sickening levels of overconsumption. Capitalism’s gluttonous appetite is never satisfied: our economic system depends on endless growth, on us pressing BUY, BUY, BUY. The beauty industry is a relentless machine ceaselessly churning out the next “must have” product.
The result?
We feel pressured to buy more just to keep up.
TikTok is an orgy of consumerism. Though I love TikTok (who doesn’t love Domingo memes and funny cat videos?), the app at times feels like a deranged QVC commercial. Influencers make outrageously wasteful haul videos and show off their mammoth collections of makeup. In out-of-touch influencer land, it’s normal to have drawers upon drawers of makeup. If you’re FYP is anything like mine, you’re familiar with the exaggerated influencer gasp, the insistence that you need this product! It seems like influencers only speak in superlatives: this is the best setting powder, this is the most mesmerizing mocha shade, this is the prettiest pink blush.
Ultimately, influencers are advertisers. Major beauty brands regularly send influencers free products, which they then market to their thousands (sometimes millions) of followers. Their pouty lips and perfectly powdered complexions convince us we too can possess their beauty (and self-confidence)—if only we buy this product.
And isn’t that capitalism’s greatest lie: that we can buy our way to happiness? that material goods can solve spiritual problems?
Paige, the founder of the TikTok account Overcoming Overspending, reminds her shopaholic clients that external things can only solve external problems: a luxurious anti-aging cream can make our skin look more supple and reduce the appearance of crows feet, but it can’t stop us from loathing what we see in the mirror—at least, not in any real, lasting way.
We can’t buy our way to happiness, worthiness, or genuine self-esteem. A Chanel lipstick will not make us feel loved, a Dior blush will not cure our existential dread, a bathroom full of makeup will not make us feel any less lonely.
So this holiday season as you shop the Sephora savings event (or whenever you buy makeup really), ask yourself these 6 questions:
Do you need it? (i.e. you’re literally out of something you use everyday like your moisturizer or liquid eyeliner)
Do you actually want it? (or do you just “want” it because you’ve seen it on your FYP two hundred times in the past 24 hours?)
Will you actually use it? (or will you use it once, get bored of it, and toss it aside only to lust after the next “it” product?)
Can you afford it? (aka can you buy it without charging it on a credit card or going into debt)
Does this product fill a genuine gap in your collection?
As a makeup devotee, I love playing with powders and potions. Far from being superficial, beauty can be a powerful form of self expression. I’m not so much of a minimalist to say you should only have 1 blush, 1 bronzer or 1 eyeshadow in your collection. But there’s no reason to have multiples of the exact same thing. No one on God’s green earth needs 6 nude blushes or 27 natural (aka brown/earth tone) eye shadow palettes. Before you add to cart, ask yourself if you already have something that fulfills the same function in your makeup cabinet.
Are you trying to solve an internal problem with an external thing?
Why are you buying this object? Does it solve an outer problem (i.e. a moisturizing conditioner can solve your problem of dry, damaged ends) or are you seeking a spiritual solution in a material object? Are you only pressing “add to cart” because you’re bored/lonely/anxious? If you’re bored, find a less expensive form of entertainment. Do a puzzle. Read novel. Bake some banana bread. If you’re lonely, join a club or call a friend. If you’re anxious, go on a walk. And remember: you can’t “buy” feelings like calm, community, connection or contentment.
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