My Tips for Shopping Online

Recently my friend Cara found a lovely UK beauty mule, and if you are unfamiliar with the term or if you do not live in South Africa and are not subject to less than half of most beauty brands then let me explain.  We (South African’s) have to deal with getting less than half of almost any drugstore product brands, things that are released overseas sometimes never see the Cape Town light of day.  Maybelline Colour Tattoo in On & On Bronze, we don’t get it, but how exciting – we get the bright turquoise and purple colours, the ones people are obviously wearing as a casual day look here.  No!  And incase you didn’t get that, that ladies and gentlemen was sarcasm, my favourite trick/personality trait.

Back to the beauty mule – we find a friend or family member that is travelling overseas and ask them, with the sweetest baby-eyes we can muster up, to bring back just a few items that we will order online and have delivered to them.   It’s as simple as that!  And when this day comes around, you rejoice!  At least that’s what Cara and I did!

I bought some amazing beauty bits that will be revealed at the end of the month, but for now I thought I would give you a few tips for shopping online.

1.  Do Research:  Take it from me, you will want to start doing this now.  Because if you try and quick-watch YouTube video’s / scan-read beauty blogs you will find yourself overwhelmed by all the choices and with a list bigger than your budget for this month and next.  So have a notebook and if there is something you really like, jot it down.

2. Make a list:  This is the best way to keep track of all the great international brands and items that you would like to buy.  It’s always good to keep adding to the list and when the time comes for your parents, friends or friends of friends to go overseas you can select from the list you have already created.

3. Save: I found myself buying things out of budget because I hadn’t saved for it.  If I had saved even a little bit every month I would have been more than happy to get double the amount that I did.  You could save about R200 a month and buy quite a few things, when the time presents itself.

And those are my three big rules for shopping international beauty brands online.  Short, sweet and easy enough.  Let me know if you end up shopping online for some things.

Le’Chelle