I Am a Sucker for Advertising: Makeup Edition

I’ll tell ya one down side of having a degree in graphic design… I am easily drawn into things (aka ads) that have a high “ooohh pretty” factor. The current item that I’m pretty sure I don’t need but looks oh so shiny is Sephora’s Holiday Blockbuster set.

What do you think?

For me, the picture is much higher on the scale of “likely to make me buy” than the YouTube video, eeerr commercial. *not a Sephora affiliate but thinking maybe I should be

Companies like Sephora are counting on consumerism to bump up during the next few weeks “hello holidays” and of course are promoting collectors edition and limited time items to increase the need to buy now.

A few years ago my friends, old college roomies, and I started a $5 gift tradition. We are all kinda budgeting types but also enjoy buying fun items, mostly pink, for each other. There are only 4 of us that partake in this creative gift shopping tradition but I think I had more fun shopping for those items last year than buying the $50 jacket my teenage brother wanted (teenagers and their brands!). We haven’t really discussed what the plans are, if any, this year other than a color coded Blue Holiday themed party.

I’m curious… during this time of year when advertisers are counting on you to get sucked into the “ohhh shiny” or in my case “but it’s PINK” {insert any mundane object here}, what’s your plan of action? Do you have a per person spending limit or an “I’ll charge it and think about it later” attitude? Or perhaps something in between.

7 thoughts on “I Am a Sucker for Advertising: Makeup Edition

  1. I’m a sucker for this sort of thing too. In fact, eye shadow is the biggest area of danger for me. I’m easily reeled in by pretty color combinations and have to stop and remind myself that the shades that I’m admiring may not be ones that I would actually wear.

    Typically, I walk into Sephora with a plan. If I walk around too much, I’ll get inspired, which can be great for my face, but bad for my wallet.

    That being said, one of my favorite times of year to go crazy at Sephora is during the holidays. The gift sets provide an excellent presentation and an awesome value. In fact, I’ve been known to splurge on a few gift sets for myself, because it is simply a better deal. Last year I bought the mascara sampler which allowed me to avoid buying mascara for most of this year. Also, the Korres body wash gift set is a steal..they have that again this year! The other advantage to buying gifts for others is that you get to rack up tons of V.I.B. points…just the other day I walked away with an awesome B.E. gift set because of all of the points that I had :)

  2. sounds like you need to sign up as a Sephora affiliate too! I think I may have to investigate the mascara sampler. I’m currently loving the last mini mascara I got as a sample. PS: adding fuel to the fire, did you know there’s an iPhone app? you can track your points, and of course buy more things.

  3. they are certainly “with the times” I still haven’t really adopted the QR code thing yet, I’m sure I will soon enough

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