The Top 10 Websites for Make Up
So shopping online for make up isn't always easy as you can't swatch anything or check the shades. The best tip for this is to either type into Google whatever you are interested in followed by the word 'swatches', or type it into YouTube. Often you will find that someone has purchased the same item you are looking at and has uploaded a photo of what it looks like in real life - as we know websites sometimes get their colours and shade images massively wrong.
Now I actually find it easier buying make up online, as you can shop around for the best deal or price and you can spend the time reading reviews or watching YouTube videos before making your decision. Besides, you don't have to wait for hours behind the huge group of school girls surrounding the one make up stand you want to get to and swatching every single item, before leaving the shop with one item.
So, to help out any fellow make up obsessed people like me, here are the top 10 websites I've found for buying make up online, and a brief description about what makes them great.
1. Boots.com - This is an obvious choice as it's one of the two main make up shops in the UK (in terms of drugstore prices). However, many people don't realise there are often online voucher codes you can use to get 10% off or more and if you have a Boots Advantage card, you can collect points online - quite often they do a 'Get £10 worth of points when you spend £50 online' or 'Triple points when you spend £40', or similar deals. The £10 worth of points, or however many you manage to collect before going crazy, can be spent on buying more make up, online or in store, as long as the points balance covers the full amount of the transaction. Another great thing about Boots, in comparison to other shops, is that they sell a large amount of high end make up as well as drugstore, so you get the usual Revlon, Maybelline, L'Oreal etc. as well as Clinique, Benefit, Smashbox etc. Just last year, they also started selling NYX products, which are super popular in the U.S. and they've been super popular in Boots and the products are often sold out, but they do come back in stock quickly. Boots also offer free next day click and collect in any store for any size order.
2. Superdrug.com - Another obvious choice, but there are a few key differences between Boots and Superdrug. To start with, Superdrug's point system is nowhere near as good as Boots; they give you 1 point per £1, (whereas Boots give you 4 points per £1) and they don't do as many points vouchers or deals with triple points etc. However, Superdrug have a wider range of affordable make up which is actually great quality. For example, Make Up Revolution, MUA and Freedom, along with a few other brands, are available in Superdrug. However, they don't have any high end brands available (excluding The Balm which is considered drugstore but is pricey!). Superdrug also offer a next day free click and collect on any size order when you have one of their Health and Beauty Points cards. Both Boots and Superdrug usually have 3 for 2 or Buy 1 Get 1 Half Price on individual make up brands so it's often worth waiting for the deals.
3. BeautyBay.com - If you haven't heard of Beauty Bay, it is an online only make up shop, stocking a wide range of make up brands (as well as skincare and haircare) which is not usually accessible in the UK. For example, they stock a ton of American brands such as Morphe, Milani, BH Cosmetics and Make Up Geek. Beauty Bay stock a lot of higher end make up as well as more affordable and they offer free standard delivery when you spend £15 (which is not hard to do!) or free next day delivery on orders over £40. I've ordered from Beauty Bay many times and the products always arrive intact, quickly and well packaged. They do often have sales on Beauty Bay or free gifts when you spend a certain amount of money.
4. Shop Miss A - Now this is a website you probably haven't heard of unless you are super obsessed with make up, YouTube and bargains! Shop Miss A is an American website which stocks an insane amount of make up and make up accessories and a few other items (like scarves, belts, phone accessories, skincare etc) and here's the best bit. It's all only $1 each. It is basically an online dollar store but for just beauty products. So the delivery from Shop Miss A to the UK is £9.95, but by
the time you've converted it from dollars to pounds, it still works out that you are paying around £1 an item if you are doing a large order. I've ordered from Shop Miss A a number of times now and I usually aim to spend around $50 to make it worthwhile. Now I bet you're wondering how good the make up is for $1. Well, some of it is amazing and some of it is utter rubbish, BUT, there are lots of reviews on the website to tell you what is worth it and what is not. One example, their make up brushes, come individually at $1 each or as a set of 24 for $20. The make up brushes are amazing quality and definitely a must have. They also sell beauty (beauty blender style) sponges and they are great too. The delivery usually takes 2 weeks, but I will warn you, sometimes you do have to pay customs tax on the order, which is around £11. However, even when you do have to pay the custom tax, it still only works out to be about £1.30 an item if you are doing a large order. It's definitely worth having a look on their website!
5. Cult Beauty - If you are obsessed with the beauty community, specifically on YouTube, you are probably already aware of the website Cult Beauty. They sell all of the stuff that is crazy popular in the YouTube community, like when a new eye shadow palette has taken over the world, (small exaggeration) like the Anastasia Beverly Hills Modern Renaissance Palette did, you can pretty much guarantee Cult Beauty stocks it. Again, they stock a lot of American brands that we can't easily access here in the UK, like Becca, Jouer, Pixie and Huda Beauty. They offer free shipping worldwide when you spend £50, which is easy to do as there are lots of higher end brands on Cult Beauty. One of the problems with Cult Beauty is that because it's all crazy popular stuff, it tends to sell out quickly and stay out of stock for ages, but you can enter your email address and be notified when an item is back in stock.
6. Feel Unique - This is one of the more well known websites for make up and beauty products as it's advertised on TV a lot. Feel Unique sell a lot of high end products as well as some more affordable brands. For example, they stock Nars, Urban Decay and Benefit as well as Revlon, L'Oreal etc. They offer free shipping over £15 and often have sales on or discount codes. They also tend to give free samples when you spend certain amounts and usually you can choose from a few different samples. The delivery is also very quick and well packaged.
7. Debenhams - Maybe I'm late to jump on the band wagon with this one, but I had no idea that Debenhams had such a large range of make up or that they offered a great points system for beauty products. I recently discovered this (and then spent far too much money there....) So Debenhams stock Make Up Forever, Urban Decay, Kat Von D (great for us pale princesses!) Mac, Marc Jacobs etc.. It is mainly high end make up that they stock and they offer free delivery over £40 or free click and collect over £20 (if you have a Debenhams near you, which I don't, so I just have to spend £40!). And as I said, Debenhams offer a points system too, you can sign up online for a Beauty Club Card and they send you a card in the post where you can get points in store or online with any beauty purchases - you earn 3 points per £1 you spend and when you have 500 points, you can exchange this for £5 when you have 500 points. I don't know what it is, but I'm a sucker for points systems and bargains (in case you hadn't guessed by now.)
8. Cosmetics Fairy - This, again, is probably a website you haven't heard of. It's only a very small company, but they sell discontinued and cheap make up at ridiculous prices. The first order I did, I think everything I got was around 99p or less. They often have nail polishes at 49p! And these are brands like Maybelline, Revlon, L'Oreal, Max Factor as well as less known brands. Yes, it sounds too good to be true, but it is! When they have new products in or more popular items, like foundations, they tend to sell them at around £3 or up to around £5 for new mascaras. But if these items don't sell at that price, they tend to keep going down in price. As if that wasn't already enough, when you spend £5, you get a free gift (usually an eyeliner or similar), when you spend £10, you get free delivery, when you spend £15 you get another free gift, and when you spend £20, you get 10% off your order. So if you spend £20, you get 2 free gifts, free delivery AND 10% off and you're getting a ton of products for super cheap! The only downside of this website is that they don't stock a huge amount of items, but there's enough to spend £20 and get things you actually want! I have ordered from them twice and it is all genuine.
9. ELF - ELF is an American brand (Eyes Lips Face) which sells cruelty free, affordable make up. I discovered this brand (from YouTubers) a while back and I've done many orders from the ELF website now. There is always a deal on ELF, usually free gifts when you spend £20, or free shipping or half price sales. The free gifts are usually 4/5 piece sets of full sized products and you can often choose which set you want! The price of their products usually varies between £2-£10, they sell great brushes and accessories as well as great quality make up. They tend to have a 'value' range that is around £2, ($1 in America but they charge us extra for the privilege!) and then they have an average range and then a more expensive range. Some of the ELF products I continue to repurchase is their Studio Perfect HD Powder, their brushes and their blushers, but I have a very large collection of ELF products now!
10. John Lewis - Again, this website doesn't really need explaining, but in case you don't know, John Lewis stock Bobbi Brown, Mac, Benefit, Urban Decay, Lancome, etc etc. All of the high end brands. The good thing about John Lewis is that their customer service is impeccable and they do stock a very large amount of make up and skincare items. Their delivery systems are a bit of mystery to me, sometimes they offer free delivery on certain items, sometimes they offer free click and collect to John Lewis and Waitrose stores and sometimes they charge for it. I believe it is usually free delivery over £50 though.
I hope I've helped in your quest to spend (and save!) money on make up! Happy spending!
Sarah (aka. Pale Princess) x
Now I actually find it easier buying make up online, as you can shop around for the best deal or price and you can spend the time reading reviews or watching YouTube videos before making your decision. Besides, you don't have to wait for hours behind the huge group of school girls surrounding the one make up stand you want to get to and swatching every single item, before leaving the shop with one item.
So, to help out any fellow make up obsessed people like me, here are the top 10 websites I've found for buying make up online, and a brief description about what makes them great.
1. Boots.com - This is an obvious choice as it's one of the two main make up shops in the UK (in terms of drugstore prices). However, many people don't realise there are often online voucher codes you can use to get 10% off or more and if you have a Boots Advantage card, you can collect points online - quite often they do a 'Get £10 worth of points when you spend £50 online' or 'Triple points when you spend £40', or similar deals. The £10 worth of points, or however many you manage to collect before going crazy, can be spent on buying more make up, online or in store, as long as the points balance covers the full amount of the transaction. Another great thing about Boots, in comparison to other shops, is that they sell a large amount of high end make up as well as drugstore, so you get the usual Revlon, Maybelline, L'Oreal etc. as well as Clinique, Benefit, Smashbox etc. Just last year, they also started selling NYX products, which are super popular in the U.S. and they've been super popular in Boots and the products are often sold out, but they do come back in stock quickly. Boots also offer free next day click and collect in any store for any size order.2. Superdrug.com - Another obvious choice, but there are a few key differences between Boots and Superdrug. To start with, Superdrug's point system is nowhere near as good as Boots; they give you 1 point per £1, (whereas Boots give you 4 points per £1) and they don't do as many points vouchers or deals with triple points etc. However, Superdrug have a wider range of affordable make up which is actually great quality. For example, Make Up Revolution, MUA and Freedom, along with a few other brands, are available in Superdrug. However, they don't have any high end brands available (excluding The Balm which is considered drugstore but is pricey!). Superdrug also offer a next day free click and collect on any size order when you have one of their Health and Beauty Points cards. Both Boots and Superdrug usually have 3 for 2 or Buy 1 Get 1 Half Price on individual make up brands so it's often worth waiting for the deals.
3. BeautyBay.com - If you haven't heard of Beauty Bay, it is an online only make up shop, stocking a wide range of make up brands (as well as skincare and haircare) which is not usually accessible in the UK. For example, they stock a ton of American brands such as Morphe, Milani, BH Cosmetics and Make Up Geek. Beauty Bay stock a lot of higher end make up as well as more affordable and they offer free standard delivery when you spend £15 (which is not hard to do!) or free next day delivery on orders over £40. I've ordered from Beauty Bay many times and the products always arrive intact, quickly and well packaged. They do often have sales on Beauty Bay or free gifts when you spend a certain amount of money.
4. Shop Miss A - Now this is a website you probably haven't heard of unless you are super obsessed with make up, YouTube and bargains! Shop Miss A is an American website which stocks an insane amount of make up and make up accessories and a few other items (like scarves, belts, phone accessories, skincare etc) and here's the best bit. It's all only $1 each. It is basically an online dollar store but for just beauty products. So the delivery from Shop Miss A to the UK is £9.95, but by the time you've converted it from dollars to pounds, it still works out that you are paying around £1 an item if you are doing a large order. I've ordered from Shop Miss A a number of times now and I usually aim to spend around $50 to make it worthwhile. Now I bet you're wondering how good the make up is for $1. Well, some of it is amazing and some of it is utter rubbish, BUT, there are lots of reviews on the website to tell you what is worth it and what is not. One example, their make up brushes, come individually at $1 each or as a set of 24 for $20. The make up brushes are amazing quality and definitely a must have. They also sell beauty (beauty blender style) sponges and they are great too. The delivery usually takes 2 weeks, but I will warn you, sometimes you do have to pay customs tax on the order, which is around £11. However, even when you do have to pay the custom tax, it still only works out to be about £1.30 an item if you are doing a large order. It's definitely worth having a look on their website!
5. Cult Beauty - If you are obsessed with the beauty community, specifically on YouTube, you are probably already aware of the website Cult Beauty. They sell all of the stuff that is crazy popular in the YouTube community, like when a new eye shadow palette has taken over the world, (small exaggeration) like the Anastasia Beverly Hills Modern Renaissance Palette did, you can pretty much guarantee Cult Beauty stocks it. Again, they stock a lot of American brands that we can't easily access here in the UK, like Becca, Jouer, Pixie and Huda Beauty. They offer free shipping worldwide when you spend £50, which is easy to do as there are lots of higher end brands on Cult Beauty. One of the problems with Cult Beauty is that because it's all crazy popular stuff, it tends to sell out quickly and stay out of stock for ages, but you can enter your email address and be notified when an item is back in stock.
7. Debenhams - Maybe I'm late to jump on the band wagon with this one, but I had no idea that Debenhams had such a large range of make up or that they offered a great points system for beauty products. I recently discovered this (and then spent far too much money there....) So Debenhams stock Make Up Forever, Urban Decay, Kat Von D (great for us pale princesses!) Mac, Marc Jacobs etc.. It is mainly high end make up that they stock and they offer free delivery over £40 or free click and collect over £20 (if you have a Debenhams near you, which I don't, so I just have to spend £40!). And as I said, Debenhams offer a points system too, you can sign up online for a Beauty Club Card and they send you a card in the post where you can get points in store or online with any beauty purchases - you earn 3 points per £1 you spend and when you have 500 points, you can exchange this for £5 when you have 500 points. I don't know what it is, but I'm a sucker for points systems and bargains (in case you hadn't guessed by now.)8. Cosmetics Fairy - This, again, is probably a website you haven't heard of. It's only a very small company, but they sell discontinued and cheap make up at ridiculous prices. The first order I did, I think everything I got was around 99p or less. They often have nail polishes at 49p! And these are brands like Maybelline, Revlon, L'Oreal, Max Factor as well as less known brands. Yes, it sounds too good to be true, but it is! When they have new products in or more popular items, like foundations, they tend to sell them at around £3 or up to around £5 for new mascaras. But if these items don't sell at that price, they tend to keep going down in price. As if that wasn't already enough, when you spend £5, you get a free gift (usually an eyeliner or similar), when you spend £10, you get free delivery, when you spend £15 you get another free gift, and when you spend £20, you get 10% off your order. So if you spend £20, you get 2 free gifts, free delivery AND 10% off and you're getting a ton of products for super cheap! The only downside of this website is that they don't stock a huge amount of items, but there's enough to spend £20 and get things you actually want! I have ordered from them twice and it is all genuine.
10. John Lewis - Again, this website doesn't really need explaining, but in case you don't know, John Lewis stock Bobbi Brown, Mac, Benefit, Urban Decay, Lancome, etc etc. All of the high end brands. The good thing about John Lewis is that their customer service is impeccable and they do stock a very large amount of make up and skincare items. Their delivery systems are a bit of mystery to me, sometimes they offer free delivery on certain items, sometimes they offer free click and collect to John Lewis and Waitrose stores and sometimes they charge for it. I believe it is usually free delivery over £50 though.
I hope I've helped in your quest to spend (and save!) money on make up! Happy spending!
Sarah (aka. Pale Princess) x
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