Brilliant Farmgirl Beauty Secret #8: Recession-proof your beauty habit! ~ Brilliant Farmgirl's Beauty Secrets™
Brilliant Farmgirl's Beauty Secrets

9/8/09

Brilliant Farmgirl Beauty Secret #8: Recession-proof your beauty habit!

Fellow skincare/cosmetics junkies, times are hard and it can be difficult at times to support our addictions. So many temptations; so little pocket change! This is precisely why I love brainstorming for ways to save money in other areas so I can maintain my beauty budget. That way, I don’t feel nearly as guilty the next time I give in on a must-have product. Here are some strategies I’ve been implementing to recession-proof my beauty habit:

-Saving beautiful catalogs and using the pages as wrapping paper: I find that
J.Crew and Anthropologie have the best-looking catalogs, the images looks amazing draped on gifts! Simply open to the middle of the old/used catalogs and carefully remove the staples that hold the catalog together. It’s a great way to reuse before you recycle, which is my absolute favorite method of conservation!















-Bringing lunch to work everyday: This sounds totally nerdy but I’ve been successful at this for the last year. This has saved me money and helped me avoid additional fat/calories from take-outs.

-Cutting my own hair: I don’t remember how this got started. It was about 4 years ago. Perhaps I was having a bad day and decided to vent via taking a pair of scissors to my hair. It was strangely liberating and turned out surprisingly good (which is probably why I continue to cut my hair to this day). There’s no rhyme or reason to the way I cut my hair. I literally take a strand that I want to cut and cut it. After a few mullets and uneven haircuts, I’ve pretty much got a system down. I mess up every now and then. Oh well, it’s just hair and it’ll grow back! Before you gasp at the thought of taking hair into your own hands, I admit that my farmgirl ways may have warped my thinking on this. I totally understand if this sounds too dangerous to try at home. Nonetheless, I grin every time I think of the money I save cutting my own hair.

-Sewing/duplicating expensive dresses: I love making skirts and dresses! The entire effort of sewing makes me too tired to go out and spend money *HAHA*. I also love being able to duplicate dresses that are too expensive to buy again. See below for my favorite summer dress and the copy I made! Like my haircuts, I don’t really follow a pattern when it comes to sewing. I copied this dress by simply turning the original dress inside-out and studying the pieces sewn together to make the dress. Miraculously, it worked out!












Twirling in Bycorpus Circle Dress in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Cost: $58













Twirling/skipping in Brilliant Farmgirl’s Circle Dress in Newport Beach, California. Cost: $8+hard work in front of a sewing machine.








How do you recession-proof your beauty habit?

10 comments:

Rachel said...

Loooove the dress you made! so pretty! I also love the wrapping paper idea, I will try it!

Katrina said...

Your dress is cuter then the original. Are the two bottom layers of the skirt a part of it or something else? Its really cute.

Brilliant Farmgirl's Beauty Secrets™ said...

Oh thank you ladies!

The bottom layer is actually a skirt! The cut of the dress is already full on the bottom but I like to wear a full mini skirt underneath to make it flouncier ;)

Farmgirl

Shop N' Chomp said...

That first tip is genius! I'll have to try it. And you are so talented to have made that dress yourself! The last pic makes me smile. :D

P.S Thank you for the sweet comment! Happy Friday, love!

Brilliant Farmgirl's Beauty Secrets™ said...

Thank you for the compliment, hun! Have a great weekend ;D

Farmgirl

BALLET NEWS said...

Oh WOW, this is a great post & you have the most gorgeous site here. I had to stop by to leave this comment for you – and to say hello of course ! Your posts are creative and original and you have interesting pictures. It's all perfect ! Thank you for sharing your site and best wishes....

Witoxicity said...

Excellent post! Thanks for all those tips. Bringing lunch from home is always a good idea - it saves money and it's healthier too.

Your version of the dress looks fantastic! Well done! I love it.

Btw, you've been tagged. :D Have a lovely weekend!

Brilliant Farmgirl's Beauty Secrets™ said...

Hi ladies,

Thank you so much for the compliments! you ladies are so sweet ;D

Farmgirl

Unknown said...

Did K take all those beautiful photos?

Brilliant Farmgirl's Beauty Secrets™ said...

Hi my lady!

Yes, he certainly did ;)

Farmgirl