Best Way to Look Good for Less Money

We can’t all afford to lavish money on luxury beauty products and designer clothes, but this doesn’t mean that we have to look second-rate. Here are dozens of tips to help you to look good for less money.

• Make your own perfumed body lotion by adding a couple of drops of your favourite scent or essential oil to an unfragranced lotion.

• Double up or triple the use of items of your make-up. For example: use your lipstick as a blusher; your blusher as a lip colour and eyeshadow; your lip pencils as eye pencils; your eye pencils as lip and brow pencils; and your eyeshadow, liner and mascara as brow-definers.
• Economise by purchasing multi-purpose beauty products, such as combined cleansers and toners; creams that can be used on the hands, lips, neck and decolletage; and cosmetics ‘in one’, such as a combined blusher, lipstick and eye colour.
• Rather than paying for a ready-made eye-bath solution, bathe your eyes in mineral water to freshen them up.
• To achieve model-like hair without the cost of visiting a salon, invest in hair maestros’ products, many of which are surprisingly inexpensive. Sam McKnight, Frederic Fekkai, John Frieda, Nicky Clarke, Charles Worthington and Oribe are just some of the stylists whose own ranges are sold in supermarkets, pharmacies and hair salons.
• Decant inexpensive skin- and bodycare products into attractive jars or empty pots from more costly cosmetic ranges. Psychologically, you will be lulled into thinking that you are using luxury products.
• Save money by investing in all-season wear -items of clothing that can be worn all year round – as well as in all-occasion wear that can be pared down for day and jazzed up for evening.
• Turn a rich moisturiser or night cream into a light day cream by wetting your fingers and mixing it in the palm of your hand, before applying it.
• Wiping a beetroot across your lips makes for a cheap, natural lip stain. Red or pink food colouring will also stain your lips for a fraction of the cost of a cosmetic stain.

• More and more cosmetics companies who advertise in the glossy women’s magazines are giving away samples of moisturisers, cleansers and other products. Collect these sachets; they are the perfect size for weekends away.
• Toothpaste is not only good for teeth – it can double up as a spot-zapper and, if you’ve overdone it with the fake tan, rub on a little toothpaste and it will help fade the mistake.