Lucky Breaks

Every month, Lucky Magazine (I got my subscription for free…more on that another time) holds a decent number of giveaways for everything from lipgloss to cars, clothes to all expenses paid vacations. They list all the giveaways for the month in the back of each issue, as well as on their website. It’s kind of a pain to go through for each giveaway and enter your contact information and double check all the boxes say “do not send me any information” and no I don’t want to subscribe over and over again, but they offer some pretty great stuff each month.

I used to think this was just a spammy scam to get people’s contact information on mailing lists. But the volume of spam in my inbox never seemed to increase from entering any of these. And then about a year ago, I won this! To say I was shocked that I won something is a bit of an understatement. I was even more excited once I received it and found out Sephora was selling it for $50 a tube. And then I was even more excited once I started using it and found out the stuff actually works! Technically it’s to be used to repair sun damage on hands and décolletage (ooh la la), but I use it on my face. I spend a lot of time outdoors, and let’s face it, if you live in California, it’s pretty near impossible to avoid sun exposure. I was starting to get a lot of dark spots on my face. This stuff has almost completely faded them. It’s awesome. It’s totally worth the two minutes I spent filling out my contact information on the Lucky website.

Now winning something like this, while it validated the legitimacy of the contests for me, would not have inspired a post. That being said, yesterday afternoon I received an email that I won again!! This time it’s a Bliss berry-flavored gift set, worth about $30. I’ll let you know how it is once it arrives.

So I’d say that free subscription and “wasted” time I spent online have really paid off with $80+ worth of free product. I’m still kind of surprised I’ve won, not just once, but twice. Now I’m really hoping I win one of those occasional vacation, car, or iPad giveaways they have. I could really use one of those. 

Why Sephora is awesome

I’m a big fan of Sephora. Not because they carry just about every beauty brand you could ask for, but because they offer tons of free stuff. Seriously. If you sign up for their Beauty Insider program, you earn points for every dollar you spend, which can then be cashed in for products. You’ll also get a free birthday gift every year, as well as frequent free samples when you shop. If and when you earn 100 and 500 points within one year, you also receive special gift products.

When you sign up for the Beauty Insiders program, make sure to input your email. Normally, I avoid companies’ email lists like the plague, but sometimes Sephora will send out some real gems. For instance, I once received an email coupon, valid for 24 hours, for a full size Ojon shampoo and conditioner. When I went to snatch this up at the Stanford Mall Sephora, I found out that each bottle was selling for $25! So yeah, for a simple input of my email address, I received $50 worth of completely free product. Incidentally, I love what that shampoo and conditioner do to my hair and wish I could afford $25 shampoo. Hah.

Why else is Sephora great? Beauty Insider or not, if you have a product you’re interested in test-driving, but don’t want to shell out the dough to purchase the full-size product, try asking one of the sales associates for a sample of the product. I’ve done this a number of times, both at the Valley Fair and Stanford locations, for everything from Frederick Fekkai hair products to perfume to skincare items.  It’s a great way to try out that $50 skin cream to make sure it works for you, before dropping big bucks and finding out the hard way it doesn’t.

In conclusion, while I wouldn’t exactly recommend paying regular price for products at Sephora to someone on a strict budget, the perks of shopping there and signing up for their Beauty Insider program can save you a lot of money and give you access to beauty products you might not otherwise be able to afford.