5 beauty products you really shouldn’t waste your money on

You know what I love even more than reading blog posts on what products to buy? – Posts on what NOT to buy. These are probably a lot more useful than the former, yet sadly more difficult to find.

So here’s my list of 5 beauty products that are not worth the money or the hype. This is not really an exclusively product-centered post, I’m not singling out a brand (ok, maybe 1 or 2), because I hope the main takeaway will be not to buy these types of products, no matter the brand.

Because they are overpriced, gimmicky, trying to solve problems that cannot actually be solved (aka lying), or simply there are better and cheaper alternatives.

Of course I bought into some of them (not all). I guess we all make mistakes?

Maybe this will at least help you not to repeat my mistakes.

5 beauty products that are not worth the money

Lip scrubs

I did fall into this hard. Like €25 hard. To my defense, this was in my pre-always-read-ingredients phase. I’m also a marketing person’s dream when it comes to lip products, as I have a lot of issues with them in the winter season, so I’m kind of desperate for magic products, and thus dangerously susceptible to marketing claims. So I got a fancy lip  scrub with high hopes that my lips would look normal once again, but to say the results were underwhelming is an understatement. Maybe there’s something wrong with my technique, but I swear it didn’t do anything for me, other than maybe deepening the cracks. It was also basically a glorified kitchen sugar/oil mix, with a lot of unnecessary ingredients added – as are all the other lip scrubs as well. I’m not a huge fan of DIY beauty, but in this case, by all means, mix some brown sugar, honey and coconut oil (or try any of these mixtures) and save your money. (On a more positive note, I did find my chapped lips savior in the form of the original Lanolips balm. And it’s half the price).

Btw, I’d probably recommend saving on body scrubs as well for exactly the same reasons.

Highly overpriced moisturizers

There’s one brand that is really getting on my nerves, even though I’ve never tried anything from them, and it’s La Mer. More specifically, the Crème de la Mer. The marketing is genius, I’ll give them that:

+ It was invented by a NASA scientist, and it took 12 years and over 6000 experiments to find the perfect mix

+ It’s built on the super healing power of the sea.

+ The main, secret mixture is the Miracle Broth (you get it, it’s a miracle!)

+ The sea kelp it uses is hand-harvested, twice a year and shipped on ice to the labs (details!!)

+ The kelp is then fermented for 3 month, during which it is (my favorite part) exposed to pulsed light and music as well.

And you can buy this fountain of youth for €250 for 60ml.

I don’t know about you, but my bullshit detector just went through the roof.

Especially, because if you look at the ingredients of the moisturizing cream, the first ones are seaweed, mineral oil, petrolatum, glycerin, then a couple of emollients, oils, some vitamins, fragrance, preservatives, and that’s it. I just simply refuse to believe that any kind of skin product is worth that kind of money, let alone a moisturizer.

There’s a limit on how much I’m willing to spend on moisturizers, simply because the ingredients that provide hydration are very simple and can actually be quite cheap. Look out for glycerin, hyaluronic acid, some oils maybe, read the ingredient list (here’s how), but do not save for and expect miracles from La Mer or any kind of overpriced moisturizers. Probably better to splurge on serums or nice spa treatments.

Split-end remedies

The thing is, the visible part of our hair is basically dead. There is no activity in the cells and they cannot repair themselves. So if a hair is damaged or split, there’s no way we can put that back together. You can maybe moisturize them so they will not look as coarse, you can protect your hair, but unfortunately nothing will truly cure split-ends, except for a haircut. So there’s really no reason to invest in miracle products like that.

Fancy makeup brush cleansers

Do you need to religiously cleanse your makeup brushes? YES. Do you necessarily need a special and pricey brand cleanser to do the job? NO. Take it from someone who spent money on both, a gentle baby shampoo will clean the brushes just as well as the more expensive special cleanser. Sometime I just use liquid soap. Just clean and rinse them thoroughly and they will be perfectly fine.

Beautyblenders that are not the original

I’m a die-hard fan of the original beautyblender. But the story of the beautyblender is a classic tale of how brands try to endlessly milk the success of one great product. The different colored versions are one thing, go for white if you want to, but for example the mini blenders are definitely not worth the money. I got them, but had to realize that there’s nothing unique they can do that the original cannot. They are supposed to be used for smaller areas, like the undereye area, but you can easily do that with the small tip of the big blender as well. The same applies to the beauty blusher. So if you’re tempted to buy the different versions, think again. The original is probably more than enough.

Have you ever regretted a beauty purchase?

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