How You Can Buy At Sephora and Still Be On Budget

Sephora is a wonderful place for beauty geeks. With a wide selection of brands and products, it’s the perfect place to discover new items, or to stock up on your old favorites. It can also be very expensive. From the moment you walk in the store, you’re surrounded by beautiful products that cost more than you probably have in your wallet at that moment. If you’re like most frugal beauty lovers out there, this can be intimidating. But don’t worry -- as with most things in life, there are ways to ease the pain of spending money at Sephora without depriving yourself of all its amazing wonders. In this article we will explore some tips on how you can shop at Sephora while still having enough cash left to get through the rest of the week!

Know What’s On Sale

When you’re in the mood to try a new fragrance, you may get distracted by the pretty bottles, fancy packaging, and expensive price tags. In the moment, it can be hard to remember that you don’t need to spend $100 on a perfume when there are other gems on the lower shelves! Don’t get me wrong -- you should absolutely shop at the higher price points -- but be sure to check the lower shelves as well. You may find a fragrance that’s perfect for you, but at a much lower price point than you expected. This goes for skincare products, as well as makeup. It’s always worth checking out what’s on sale before making any purchases. You might find a product that’s perfect for you, but with a much lower price point than what you would normally pay for it.

Be Smart About Samples

Some Sephora employees will advise you not to even bother with samples. They may tell you that they’re not worth it, and that you should just buy the full-sized product instead. While this may have been true in the past, it is not true anymore. The beauty industry has caught on to the fact that a lot of people like to try samples before they buy, and they’ve started to change the way they sell products. More brands are including samples in the full-sized versions, which means that you won’t find a single full-sized product at Sephora (other than makeup brushes, towels, etc.) that doesn’t come with a free sample of something. Samples are a great way to try out products before you spend money on them, and they’re often free, or very inexpensive to purchase. They’re definitely worth using!

Be Careful With Flash Boxing

Flash boxing, or buying a bunch of products online and having them shipped to you all at once, can be a great way to save money. You can find sales on beauty products pretty much all the time, and if you have a Sephora beauty insider membership (which is totally free, by the way!) you can use those sales to your advantage. Sephora often has sales on certain products, or certain brands, or certain collections, or certain categories. You can see what’s on sale by visiting Sephora’s website, clicking on the “beauty” link, and then clicking on “sale,” or by downloading the Sephora app and clicking on the “sale” tab, and then clicking on the “flash” tab. Once you find something you like and want to purchase, you can click on the “add to cart” button, but you don’t actually finalize your order. Instead, you click on the “skip instores” button, and this will send a signal to the Sephora website that you want to buy that product, but you want it shipped to you, not picked up in-store. This can be an awesome way to save money and stock up on products that you love, but you should be careful with it. It’s easy to get carried away and forget about all of the products you’ve bought until they arrive at your door and you have to figure out where to put them all. It’s best to take your time when flash boxing, and not buy more than you can handle.

Try Out The Sephora App

The Sephora app is an awesome tool for shopping at Sephora. The app offers tons of useful features, like being able to try out products before you buy them. If you’re not sure whether or not a product is right for you, you can use the app to try it out before you buy it. You can also use the app to find out what’s on sale and to find out how much something is. If you don’t have the app yet, be sure to get it! It’s free, and it’s super useful. If you can’t remember the exact name of the product you want to buy, or if you just want to see what’s available, the app is a great resource for that as well. You can easily look up products on the app, and then be able to find them in the store with ease. This is a great app to have on your phone, whether you’re shopping at Sephora or not.

Be Strategic With Your Rewards

Rewards programs are great -- until they start to feel like they’re taking more money out of your wallet than they’re putting back in. At that point, they become a hindrance to your beauty budget, rather than a help. If you’re one of the rare Sephora shoppers who is spending enough money there to actually earn rewards, be sure to be strategic with your rewards. Don’t just buy things because you can get a reward for them. It’s much better to buy things that you actually want, and that you would buy anyway, just because you can get a reward for it than it is to buy things that you wouldn’t normally buy just because you can get a reward for it. It’s always good to be strategic with your rewards, especially when you’re first starting out with the program.

Conclusion

Sephora is a wonderful store, but it can be very tempting to spend lots of money there, especially if you’re not careful. Luckily, there are lots of ways to save money at Sephora while still enjoying your shopping experience. Be sure to know what’s on sale, be smart about samples, be careful with flash boxing, try out the Sephora app, and be strategic with your rewards. With these tips in mind, you can shop at Sephora while still being able to afford food!