Hello again!
Hope you all had a cozy, lovely, heart-warming christmas. As we are slowly coming back to our senses from the mulled wine loaden, high-carb coma that is called the holidays, I thought this may be an interesting post for some of you. In my last makeup post I recreated a look from "Vivianna does makeup". What I wanted to mention is that some of the products I used in this are not store bought. I actually got them from an ebay-like site in the Netherlands, called "Marktplaats". Yes, I am using second hand makeup. Now before you get those shivers running down your spine and feel all revolted, hear me out how I go about purchasing those items.
As you know, I am on a budget. A really, really tight budget. But I also want to look good and some products are just better than others. Quality, of course, also comes with a price tag and there is simply no way I can ever afford buying products from brands like OPI, Urban Decay or even Max Factor in the store. And quite frankly, I am rather using the money on other, more important things. Like rent.
This is where that second hand market space came in handy. More often than not, we buy things in a fluorescently-lit drugstore only to discover that at home, the color looks just not right anymore. I have been there myself, more often than I like to admit.
Or maybe a relative gifted you with a really nice eyeshadow palette for your birthday in colors that are just not to your liking. This last situation gets even more abundant around christmas. How many times did I get things I did not like or that did not suit me... So what to do? Keep them? Throw them away? No, here in the Netherlands, people put these itemsup on "Marktplaats" for sale. So that others can enjoy them more. And enjoying them I do.
So far, I purchased the Naked Basics eyeshadow palette from Urban Decay, the Lipfinity lipcolor from Max Factor and a set of mini nail polishes from OPI. All of them in their original wrapping and unused. So now that christmas is over, you might want to have a look at "Marktplaats" or any other second hand platform as well. Who knows, you may discover a gem or two. Just remember two things:
1) Make sure that the seller is a private person, not some scammy dupe-selling business. That means: If someone happens to have a lot of things in multiples, like four or six of the same shade of a lipstick, you may end up buying a cheap rip-off and the quality is not to your liking. Look for people stating that the item they are selling were gifts or they are cleaning out their makeup stash.
2) Make sure you are acutally saving money by buying second hand. Check the retail price first. Then, look at the price of the item second hand INCLUDING shipping. If you are saving less than 20%, I would rather buy the thing in the shops.
3) Do your research to make sure the item is unused. Study the pictures provided by the seller. With eyeshadow, it is easy to see brush strokes telling you that the item was used. Same goes for lipstick. With nail polish, look at the bottle and make sure the color has not separated and that the bottle is still full.
Good luck treasure-hunting!
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