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I've been thinking about going back to posting more sales/deals around here, since that was something I did a lot when I first started my blog. I've slacked off on that lately, because they're not as interesting to write up as reviews and other things, but sharing them was one of the things I wanted to do when I started blogging. I've also partly stopped blogging about them because there are other sources for that information (like
Nouveau Cheap for drugstore sales, especially, but also others, and
Temptalia for all the weekly deals available at the beginning of the week). I think what I'll do is just post sales that seem especially good or interesting to me (again, not 20% or less, off unless that's as good as it gets), or those that I don't see all over the place. I likely won't post deals that only last a few hours, because I'm not usually on the ball enough to do that.
In that spirit, let me point out that today
TheBalm is on Hautelook, and almost everything is 50% off. The sale includes popular shit like eyeshadow palettes and their highlighters. There are two pages worth of stuff. It's pretty much everything. This is one of the best ways to buy TheBalm, in my experience. They usually have a 50% sale on their own site a couple of times a year, but the site always crashes from the heavy traffic, and the shipping can be really expensive. It makes much more sense just to buy it from HauteLook. Also worth noting is that
Club Clio, a Korean brand, which makes PeriPera, is on HauteLook at the moment too. The orange tint water
I reviewed here isn't in the sale, but there is a bunch of other stuff. Illamasqua is still up there, too.
It's been a HauteLook heavy week here, but that's because they've had some especially good sales. Now we'll probably go back to a few weeks of their selling nothing but diamond-infused face cream and celebrity fragrances. (No, nevermind, I see that Stila will be there on Monday, along with Bliss (barf), and ORLY. Still going strong, I guess.) But I'll post deals from other sources as they come up.
Here's the philosophy part: I don't want to give the impression that I buy something from every sale I post, or that I think anyone else needs to, either. But I am also someone who tries to never buy anything at full price (you may have noticed). That means almost no limited edition
anything, unless I happen to have a store coupon, because I think long deliberation is much safer. I put things that interest me on a wish list (using Amazon), and I revisit it and delete things that I'm over periodically. If something has been on there for a month (or more realistically in most cases, 6+ months), and I still want it, and I happen to find a good deal, I might buy it. I rarely snatch something up immediately after hearing about it anymore, though there were a couple of years after I started my blog (and was slogging through my dissertation) that I got into that sort of habit. For a while, for example, I was on a "buy all the nail polishes" spree, with an urge to get one of every shade of every color in every finish, but that has long subsided, and now I am stuck with things I never use, like glitter or neons.
If, by the time a sale comes along, the thing I wanted is no longer available, I rarely have any regrets. It's not like a million other options won't present themselves in the near future. Even if I have pangs for a few weeks, a year later I certainly don't give a shit that I don't own that one particular eyeshadow, or whatever. Hesitation and patience is a much better tactic for me, these days.
It also helps that I buy most things online, rather than when browsing Sephora or Ulta or the drugstore in person. That cuts down on impulse purchases and lets me find the best price. (If/when I move back to Canada, I guess this will be more difficult.)
So it's in this spirit that I post about sales. I don't think you need to buy something today just because you don't own anything from TheBalm and it's on sale now. Geting something just because it's there won't make your life complete. But if, like me, you've been waiting for their tinted moisturizer or highlighter or whatever to go on sale for a while, and you are convinced you'll use it, now's a good time to get it. I'm not trying to be a complete enabler - I'm just trying to help you save money on things you might pick up anyway.
Do you have any sale shopping tricks to share? Help us all to be cheap, please!
