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Do you buy more or less high-end products as you get older?
Probably more, though I’d like to think if I was non-blogger that I wouldn’t buy quite as much as I currently do!
— Christine
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I’d have to agree with you, Christine, that I buy more high-end stuff as I get older, too! It probably has a lot to do with my increased income from when I first started wearing makeup and with my already-huge collection. My purchases are definitely more calculated nowadays.
I definitely find myself buying more high end! A lot of drugstore brands don’t deliver the quality I’m looking for, so I’d rather save to buy what I actually want than settling for something just because it’s inexpensive
When I was young, I could only afford DS products, with a little bit of Clinique mixed in. But as I get older, I can afford more HE products, but the pricier a product is, the pickier I get, so HE brands will never dominate my stash. There are plenty of budget brands (Colour Pop, NYX, Milani) and ME brands (UD, IT, MUFE, BITE) that turn out high quality products that exceed HE brands, so need to pay more, unless some fancy packaging, or unique color/formula catches your eye.
I’m having my HE redux of late, after many years of DS/LE. My very first makeup was better DS makeup, but at 17 y.o. I began to go quite upscale for my age! Staying at that level wasn’t as easy when I moved out and into my future husband’s place, not at first anyway. For a while, my stuff was whatever I had brought with me, plus whatever DS stuff I then got until I got a job as a MUA at 20 something. Then it was ON!!! Only for a little while, though. Then came our beautiful babies and a long dry spell, back to DS. In very recent years, I’ve gotten back into ME & HE again. Been a seesaw!!!
More as I realize there are some great products that are worth spending the money on. Also my needs (ex: my eyes get more hooded as I get older) and makeup abilities have changed as I have become older so I need a product that works.
I definitely bought more high-end products as I got older. When I was younger, the quality of a product did not matter much. As long as the item was inexpensive, then I was game to make a purchase. It wasn’t until after I had discovered and utilized YouTube’s numerous makeup tutorials, that I’d begun to slowly change my view on beauty products’ quality, quantity, and value. I remember freaking out at the thought of spending ≥$20 on a lipstick or ≥$30 on a powder. “Uh, aah! No way! People do this? Who would spend that much money on makeup!?”
Me. The answer is now, me. Mystery solved. Lol
Over 5 years ago (when I was in my twenties and broke) I would have absolutely died at the thought of spending the money I do now on products. Its amazing how your perception can change about things like that. I used to be able to fit all my makeup into one or two makeup bags, I can’t even guess how many I would need now.
Hahaha! That was me too: 2 bags of makeup. Now I have storage boxes, drawers, baskets, and shelves of makeup. I’m in my 30s now, so I’m curious to see what my views on makeup will be like in my 40s.
I buy more high end as I get older. I have more income, my skin’s needs have changed, and there are better quality products for some of my needs.
If the question is whether I buy more high end than drug-store as I get older, the answer is “no.” I think I still buy more from the drug-store category, just a larger portion of my makeup is mid-range/high end than it used to be.
This is me, too. I tend to buy more mid-range eyeshadows and skincare with most other items being from the drugstore. The drugstore options for mascara, eyeliner and lipstick are especially good these days!
Definitely more.
And since there are hits and misses from all brands, I find that I’ve built a well-curated collection of products that WORK for me, ranging from drugstore to high end.
It’s more about reliability for me – as I get older and make more money I notice that I have less and less patience for bad products or ones that just dont work for me, and since I know myself better and can check beauty blogs for reviews (thank u so much Christine!!) its fairly easy to gauge a product’s likelihood of being a good fit. I buy more high-end definitely but not bc of the price range — it’s just easier for me to justify the spending when I know something is going to be amazing!
Yes – well said!
Times are a changin’. It used to be there was only two camps for cosmetics, DS and HE. When I was in my thirties and early forties, almost all of my purchases were definitely HE and I would have answered a resounding yes to this question. However, since discovering makeup blogging/vlogging and the emergence of some really excellent reachable mid range labels, I feel I buy less true HE products and many more value to mid-range products. That being said, if I take quick review of my stash, my favourite HE brands definitely enjoy a significant presence, but it is worth considering these are selective picks for selective products. I do not go as blindly forward into HE territory due to brand loyalty or familiarity and certainly do not believe HE is synonymous with quality.
Oh, certainly way more high end (there is just so much more fabulous “stuff” and more and more brands and I have more disposable income than when I was younger and we had 3 young children and I was that luxurious thing known as a “SAHM”) but, funnily enough, as I’ve got older and seen through a lot of the hype, I’m buying more lower end skin care products than when I was younger.
More. It’s one of the perks of getting older! LOL. Although, to be honest, I am still a deal-hunter and there’s nothing better than scoring that perfect lipstick (or whatever) at a discount!
I buy less even if it isn’t high end. But that’s because I already have so much make-up and I don’t want to become a hoarder. I’m at a point that I only buy something new if I used something similar up and I really really want that specific colour back again. In that case it doesn’t matter to me if something is high end or not. I do however read reviews for that specific item before buying.
Yes, I do buy more now that I am older. I am in my mid 50’s and have more discretionary income now that the kids are grown and gone. I also buy luxury brand makeup as gifts for my daughters because they are where I was back when we were younger financially and can’t afford to do so. But—I also buy other items I couldn’t afford back when I was younger as well (not necessarily name brands but items that we always wanted but couldn’t afford to have because we were busy raising our children and focused our money on them).
More. I didn’t start getting into makeup until after college. I started with the basics from the drugstore until I found the things that suited me. Now I splurge on things that I am not impressed with at the drugstore.
I buy more high-end products as I get older. I find myself looking for quality of the product .
I haven’t read the comments, but I’ll say what I bet a bunch of people have said: more, because I couldn’t afford high-end when I was younger. Having said that, I would still only need slightly more than one hand to count the number of cosmetics I own that could be considered high-end.
More! I buy exclusively high end now because I’ve found my holy grails and don’t really deviate nor am I looking for a cheaper option. Even if I hadn’t found my high end holy grails yet, I would only look for them in high end brands. Save for NYX lipsticks, every time I have picked up a drugstore product, I’m always let down so it’s just not an option any more. For me, there are enough high end options nowadays to find a good quality holy grail product.
Ooops – should have included mid range brands here as well!
Definitely more 🙂 As the decades have rolled by, I’ve learned more about quality, have become more discriminating, and am not so easily swayed by every passing fad (I never could get behind those crazy Instagram brows! LOL). I also have more discretionary income to spend on products.
To my surprise, I find that I am buying less HE than I used to. I think it’s because I have so much makeup now, that I can’t justify spending that much on a new item. I also don’t shop at the HE stores as much as I used to. I thought that I’d be spending more on my skin care, but I’ve found that I don’t really have to. I have my prescription Trentinoin, and after that, Olay products leave my skin looking pretty good.
Less, I’m not as brand struck as I used too be
Less. I used to buy nothing but high end and now I buy almost all drugstore (except eyeshadow palettes). I think it is a combination of the drugstore improving their quality and my being discerning enough to know how to find what I am looking for.
Yes. What she said^
I care much more about what’s going to work for me, personally, than a specific brand. And there are so many excellent, lower-cost alternatives for so many high-end products these days.
For the past 10 years I have mainly been buying high end makeup, so when I started work at 18 I heavily invested in it, and it is scary to think of the amount of money I have spent. But apart from a handful of duds the money has been well spent. With drugstore makeup once and a while I will try a product but it’s hard to find something I like. I feel like I could buy 2 HE products and love them both and for the same money buy 10 DS products and hardly like any of it. I also find HE products are more reliable to find, the problem with DS is that it depends heavily on mass selling straight away then there on to the next product and if you liked it less than a year later you struggle to find another one. When I was a teen I used to find a product I might like at boots or superdrug and the moment I thought I might like it I would go back and buy 3/4 for fear that I would run out. If the DS worked on a set of core perminate products and did the occasional LE collection I might eventually be persuaded to give them another go but financially for them it’s prob not profitable.
So personally I do feel once people have the income to expierance one high end item and truly love it that they tend to keep investing and usually that comes with age. Also the needs of an older skin usually benefits from quality ingredients.
I think that as far as skin care i stick to Philosophy or Josie Marsn Lancôme or Eliz Arden and for makeup I like mid range products what ever works best on my skin.
That’s a really good question! As I have become older I definitely bought more high end eye shadow palettes. I cringe when I think of the poor quality eye shadow quads I bought in the past. Many of the HE brands were so expensive here in Australia that I couldn’t afford them. But thanks to this blog, ebay and companies that ship internationally I have been able to select and purchase brands such as UD, Guerlain, Dior and bareMinerals.
Lipsticks, I still purchase DS because I love the Maybelline Colour sensational range. Foundations, I think, you just have to see and test the shades yourself and it happens that the best brand for me is Rimmel’s Match Perfection in light porcelain – which is a DS brand and often on sale. I am much more savvy now. Unfortunately, a lot of your ME brands we don’t get here like Colour Pop and Milani.
Hey, for reverse discrimination, Sephora Aus has Zoeva! And US is left out! Makes you wonder how this is advantageous to the big S. It’s tough to have to work around to get stuff, when you’re down under. Keep it up.
I find myself buying HE skincare & foundation but I have found great DS alternatives for eye shadows & lippies, bronzers & powders. As long as your skin care & base look good that makes such a difference.
I buy any product that looks nice but it does seem that most items I have always purchased are mid to high end.
As I have gotten older, I buy more high end stuff. I work hard and deserve to treat myself. I use to buy cheap stuff but would hardly ever be happy when I used them. I see a difference in my skin and appearance when I use the high end stuff.
Thanks to bloggers like you, I don’t test out too much stuff. I simply read your reviews and buy based on them.
I cannot afford really high end stuff (I don’t know what I can consider high end… I only have one lipstick from Chanel and two from Dior and that’s all). They are very expensive here in Brazil. But I buy a lot from medium end brands. I feel like I don’t want to spend money testing cheaper products that may be good or not. I keep buying DS products that I already know they are good, and specially the ones I use a lot and finish faster (as mascara and black pencil eyeliner, as I have my fav ones from Maybelline). But every now and then I buy a new MAC lipstick or something from brands like Urban Decay and Benefit.
I’ve bought more high end. I’d rather have a smaller stash filled with nice things. I just need to get my over my fear of returning things when they don’t work for me. FYI, I got my Good Genes working from the kit.
More. My skin is getting to that point where there isn’t much time to mess around anymore with experimenting; now I need to start worrying about the right moisturizer and non-wrecking foundation “for real”. Lipglosses and lipsticks are wherever they lie on the scale (HE, LE… depends on whether I like it or not and if it’s worth the money), but foundations, moisturizers, primers, facial care, eyeshadows… all seem to be moving up on the scale.
I definitely buy more mid to high-end makeup now that I’m older. I’ve been too disappointed by performance and/or the lack of pigmentation in DS makeup. Plus, at my age, my needs are very different now than they were ten years ago. BUT… there are a few DS/low-end brands/products that perform beautifully (NYX, ColourPop, and Fyrinnae come to mind).
Sort of. I try to stick mostly to quality drugstore/budget but I have very sensitive skin and nose so sometimes I need to shop at higher price points to find the most suitable formulation for certain product categories. Otherwise, I would buy higher end for something picky, like a desired texture or finish I can’t seem to find at a lower price point and I do get pickieras I get older.
As I have gotten older I have had the need to buy higher end products for the simple reason that the cheaper products just dont last on my skin anymore. I have had some skin changes over the last year and the oiliness in my skin just seems to make everything slide off. I have had to overhaul all of my eyeshadows to ones that are highly pigmented so they dont fade and as well my find a new foundation that wears long. I cannot seem to find those features in lower end products.
I definitely buy more expensive products now, but I don’t attribute that to age so much as more knowledge and understanding as my makeup knowledge and technique has improved from following talented bloggers and vloggers. I still can’t bring myself to go truly high end though. I am definitely more a mid-range girl, with Becca and Cover FX being as much as I’ll spend. I still buy,drugstore too, but I try to be just as selective with that as I am with Too Faced and Urban Decay. If I want to make an impulse purchase as a pick me up, I stick to drugstore, but I tend to go shopping with specific wants in mind.
I think I buy more although when I buy a foundation, blush, or eye/lip pencil over the counter, the quality seems just as good. Am I being “had”?
More!
Clearly the major factors are disposable income and opportunity cost (what you might have to give up, to buy HE.). Those factors improve with age. In HS (yeah, 50 years ago) your mother bought any HE products at the dept. store for you. You picked and she bought, conservatively. Your allowance got you the only DS products worth getting, like the original Revlon Naked Pink l/s and Blush On. Was doing HE by college, primarily very few Dior pieces, in the 70s. There were far fewer brands and choices. By the 80s, everybody at Bloomie’s and Barney’s knew my name… and had my number. Then Sephora and Ulta hit and access had exploded. So, I think proliferation is another factor. Pretty much HE at midlife. Then DS upped their game, and many Maybs are better rated than HE. Blogging is another factor, esp in separating the wheat from the chaff, at either end, or in the middle. Then high value came along, with Catrice, CP and formerly, MUG. When I lost my job, I was fully addicted, so still had to get the odd ELF or Mayb or Milani at Dollar Tree, and they did not disappoint. Now, I’m more driven by like/suit than price, and get primarily mid to higher, but don’t consider higher high. Make sense? As for skin care, from youth to my 60s, tried every bloody high end line, dept. stores at first, the docs, cosmeceuticals. None worked. Now I’m firmly in Paula’s camp, which is both reasonable and research based. So HE indulgences in skincare don’t appeal to me at all.
I buy a mix of DS and HE – but I ONLY buy from companies that don’t test on animals.
I’d say I buy more higher-end overall, but I’m much more picky about which brands and items I do buy. I still have yet to buy from some luxury-level brands like Tom Ford or Guerlain, but go for the more Sephora-level type stuff over drugstore (aside from newer brands that are pushing up the quality like ColourPop). I buy a few luxury-level items a year from places like Chanel and YSL, and would have gotten the Guerlain Perles des Neiges if I had the budget this year, but overall I tend to stick to “high end” over “luxury” still, mainly due to budget and also the fact that the quality still doesn’t justify the price of the luxury brands for me, while drugstore items a lot of times are a waste of money because the quality is so low I end up never using them or tossing them.
Definitely more as I get older, I’m a little more concern about the ingredients
Eh, probably more, but I started buying high end makeup at discounts (Sephora sale section, Nordstrom Rack, etc) when I was 16 and never went back to drugstore unless something sounded really good. Now I’m more inclined to buy a luxury product on special occasions (which I thought was dumb and a waste for a while), but the amount of other high end stuff I buy has stayed pretty consistent.
My mom liked HE makeup, so I was introduced to it at a young age. However, once I hit my 20’s and mom wasn’t buying makeup for me anymore (and I was poor), I looked toward DS items. That is when I discovered that some DS stuff was actually good, but some was crap and you had to really pay attention. I was in my 30’s when some good ME brands started to emerge, and I found my perfect price point. Now in my 50’s, I’m still a makeup junkie and if you were to look through my rather extensive “collection”, you would find about 20% HE, 70% ME, and 10% LE/DS there. One area that I am definitely a snob for HE is brushes. I’m extremely picky about the quality of my brushes, and I will willingly pay a premium when I need a brush replaced. I am also picky about my skin care. Again, I blame my mom! LOL! In the Internet age, I research skin care before I drop money on products (thank you Beautypedia)
I buy a mix of HE and DS – but only from companies that don’t test on animals.
The older I get, the more careful I am with my disposable income. And I’ve learned that a high price tag does not automatically guarantee a good product, while a low price tag doesn’t always mean a poor product. And before I spend my budgeted beauty dollars now, I research the dickens out of products I’m considering. SO.. keeping all the above in mind, my answer would have to be, I buy *less* high-end as I get older. It’s too easy to find lower-cost alternatives most of the time.
It is an interesting thing for me.
When I was younger, like 19-20, I bought more high-end, because I wanted to feel the luxury. In the following years, when I was studying in university, I bought exclusively drugstore, because I had to save money.
Now I have just started to work, and I would probably buy… or at least try more high-end or mid-end stuff from the face make-up section, like powder and foundation, because I kind of feel that I have a higher chance to find something there which is more quality. As for blush, lipstick, eyeshadow, I do feel that I have amazing stuff from the drugstore for my preferences.
As I get older, I find myself buying less high end products and using Christine’s excellent dupe list to get the same color for a reasonable price. High end products generally disappoint me in texture, staying power, overwhelming fragrance and consistency. So much easier to pick up a drugstore brand to try. Easy to return. If in the future, I find that I hate the product, I’m not out serious dollars for trying it.
I’m kinda 50/50 here. I start to put more money in skincare and face products especially those that touch my face directly, eg., primer, foundation and cream blush. However, this year I’ve bought a lot Colourpop stuff, simply because they are amazing, and more than “you can’t go wrong because they only cost $5”. I love them from the bottom of my heart and I’ll continue trusting them.
I do think I’m more WILLING to spend more on worthy products and not so afraid of trying those in the higher price range than I used to.
Definitely more! When I was younger I thought high-end products were over-hyped & not worth the money. While some products still fit into this category (I refuse to spend $90 on a lipstick), I’m not afraid to spend money on quality, high-end products.
I buy more high end makeup as I get older because I find that I enjoy using those items more and they tend to preform better on my skin. Not to mention the fact that packaging matters and I still find a Becca highlighter a much more attractive option when I’m getting ready over a drugstore option.
more, definitely. mostly because as a “real adult” i have financial independence, and i can decide what to do with my income. as a 34 year old with no mortgage, no kids and no college loans (hollah scholarship) i can buy the things i like after my bills are paid. i also prefer quality as i get older and i will happily shell out for something i really like and will get the most use out of even if it costs more.
ps i just received my first visart palette and OMG. i got the “bright editorial” one and i swear it’s the best quality ive ever seen. WELL worth the $80 and im sure it will get a lot of love. i’d rather have ONE $80 amazing palette over 5-7 sort of “meh” drugstore palettes or shadows.
as a teen i’d still save up to splurge on MAC though. i guess ive always been an expensive girl.
I buy and have way more DS overall, but definitely more HE than before… Especially as my stash gets more complete, it makes some sense to invest in HE for the quality. more than when I had close to no makeup and wouldn’t have known the difference anyway!