Low Buy Year : The January 2021 Haul

I mentioned in my yearly empties post that this year I was embarking on a low buy throughout the whole year. I’ve given myself what I would consider being a low and very moderate budget to use through the entire year of £500 for purchases which are either not essential (e.g shampoo/conditioner) or are way more boujee than my average spend for something of that type (3.g I’m a £1-5 shower gel kind of girl, if I really wanted something that was way out of that price range it would come out of my budget!). Where I have completely finished an item type up from my collection (e.g no eyebrow pencils left) or a legitimate reason (e.g no foundations in my collection that are a winter colour match), then these do not need to be counted, although I am still tracking them as I’m very intrigued to see what my spend is in a year!

I’ll start by saying I managed to spend a fairly decent chunk of my £500 by the end of January and I’m now wondering whether I was a little ambitious with my target budget set. However, I’m not planning on changing it for now and I do feel like I’ve ticked off a few things on my list that had either been on my wish list for a while or will give me joy over the next few months. This haul roundup features everything from my Essentials to the Non-Essentials

The Essentials

(aka, It Doesn’t Count!)

Pat McGrath Lip Balm Mini Trio – £10
PMG Labs were running a bit of a deal through the end of December into mid January with their lip products and I indulged in a few. The only ones I am classing as Essentials is the mini lip balm set as I am running through my lip balm collection at a crazy rate at the moment – all the mask wearing and the cold weather spell in the UK is drying out my lips and I’m finding I’m finishing up a lip balm every 2-3 weeks. I liked the idea of these mini ones as I thought they would be good to have in my pocket when I don’t want to carry a bag out with me but still may need to hydrate my lips and thought the mini set a good opportunity to try the formula out.
Reason for not counting: Running through lip balms like crazy and nearly out!

Soap & Glory Call of Fruity Body Scrub – £8
I completely ran through all of my body scrubs and when I asked on Instagram for brands people enjoyed Soap and Glory popped up a few times. I’ve always found Soap and Glory a little *meh* to be honest, but thought I would give one of their newer body scrubs a try. My arms where I get some bumps are showing signs of not been exfoliated for weeks so I can’t wait to get this in my shower!
Reason for not counting: No Body Scrubs left

Dove Light Body Scrub – £1
This was another recommendation from a local bloggers I know called Lucy, when I looked it up I liked the budget friendly price point and was intrigued to see how good it would be. I am wary when I place orders online about not just buying ones of things as I want to minimise my carbon footprint on deliveries where I can. So whilst I did purchase another scrub, I know I’ll easily finish and run through both within a matter of 6 months (same applies for other items here!)
Reason for not count: Again, no body scrubs left in the cupboard.

Lee Stafford Keep It Clean Shampoo x 2 – £5.66 (On Sale)
I’m using dry shampoo less and less working from home as it’s difficult for others to tell if you’re hair is greasy or shiny through google hangouts and zoom calls, but after finishing my last cans of dry shampoos up I decided to restock on this and picked up an extra can whilst it was on offer. Sometimes there’s a day where you just need to freshen it up on a rare jaunt out of the house. Probably my favourite dry shampoo I’ve tried on the budget friendly end of the market.
Reason for not count: On my last can of dry shampoo in my haircare collection

Lee Stafford Hair Growth Activation Treatment – £5.66 Lee Stafford Hair Growth Shampoo x 2 – £5.66
Whilst my hair is really healthy and long when I’ve used this in the past I’ve felt like it’s helped encourage new growth at the scalp and thickened my hair up, which is where I think I need help at the moment. The Shampoo has been reformulated to be stronger than it was previously and I’m curious to see whether it’s as good as it used to be, also used to like the treatment, but I always found the shampoo to be the star of the show!
Reason for not count: Hair needs volume and growth at the roots and scalp!

Urban Decay Brow Blade – £18.00
I went to repurchase my go-to brow pencil from Beauty Pie after twisting the last of it up and discovering that it was all out and empty! I decided to try one of the others I’ve had on my hit list to try out after hearing great things about the Urban Decay Brow Blade. One end of this is a pencil and the other end is a felt tip which I’ve never tried before – so I’m hoping this is as good as the reviews (although also kind of hoping it’s not, because it’s about 5 times more than my Beauty Pie one!).
Reason for not count: No brow pencils left in my collection

Elf Ultra Precise Brow Pencil – £5.00
Again, trying to make sure I was being economical in my order and pick up more than one as I run through brow pencils every few months. At the other end of the price spectrum I thought I’d try something cheaper and see how they compared, this looked like an okay colour match online, so fingers crossed it worked out!
Reason for not count: No brow pencils left in my collection

Low Buy Year : The Non Essentials

(aka, It Does Count!)

Pat McGrath Glosses in Wicked Whisper and Carnal Desire – £11 each
Again on my Pat McGrath loving train, I decided to try out the glosses. I wanted to get a couple of different glosses with a sparkly formula that I thought would be great as a topper and alone. And a creme based gloss in a lovely neutral shade, again could be paired with many of my go-to neutral lipsticks or would be lovely by themselves.
Reason to Count: Whilst I don’t have many lip glosses, I did purchase the Glossy Posse from Fenty at Christmas.

Drunk Elephant Baby Facial – £57.00 (Used £10 Loyalty points towards the purchase to make cheaper)
We haven’t been able to get Babyfacial in the UK and I found out through Dannii on Instagram that this was available and I hopped over to Space NK to debate the purchase and whether I wanted to spend this much of my beauty budget right at the beginning, I then spotted I had £10 of loyalty points which made it £57 instead of £67 on Space NK. This also contained a sample of their face oil too and as someone who wants to love face oils but doesn’t – I’m intrigued to thy this one out.
Reason to Count: I have so many AHA masks, but I’ve waited so long to try this!

Ole Henriksen Jumbo Glow2Oh Toner – £18.00 (Sale Purchase)
I had a deluxe sized mini of this in a set that I bought around Black Friday, and have been loving it since trying it and wanted to continue on with it as I’ve heard it’s incredible at fading dark spots, which is an issue I have is that spots take a long while to fully heal – particularly without some Vitamin D! This was on sale for a larger than usual bottle and I decided to get it whilst on offer from Boots.
Reason to Count: I have a lot of other glycolic/aha toners in the cupboard and really didn’t *need this one*, but as enjoying the deluxe one enough to repurchase.

& Other Stories Punk Bouquet Perfume 30ml – £28.00
This was a total whim purchase, when I was browsing ASOS I discovered they started stocking & Other Stories and looked up Punk Bouquet after having the shower gel a couple of years ago and loving the fragrance. This was the only item in the range that was stocked on ASOS and suddenly it was in my basket with my new pair of Vans. I’ve not tried any fragrances from & Other Stories before, so I’ll put this to the test and review in future.
Reason to Count: So many perfumes already!

So at the end of January I’ve spent £125 of my Low Buy Year budget already – ouch, and another £66 on essential purchases! I’m quite surprised at how much I’ve purchased in January, however that has included a few repurchases of things I have genuinely been out of such as shampoos and brow pencils. So far in February I’ve had to admit that the foundations I’m trying to use up are just too dark for me and I’ve purchased a lighter shade and took advantage of a Boots’ 20% off deal while I could which also allowed me to do an advantage card points spree at the same time, not much else is tickling my fancy though, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed I can make it through the month without any non-essential spends and make sure I’m saving some cash for the end of the year!