Buying Items On Sale (Story Time)

Hello everyone!

Welcome back to my blog. I hope you all are doing well.

I haven't shared this before but I plan and write my blog posts based off of my Nykaa order history. As you'll see with the future blogs, I shop a lot from there. I love the site and app for many reasons. The minimum order for free delivery is ₹500, you can buy really cheap to really expensive products. They almost have everything. Whenever I think Nykaa can't get better they introduce a new international brand. Honestly, if anyone can get Fenty Beauty to India, it's probably Nykaa. Anyway, back to the story.

I was watching Angelika’s video where she was talking about how she likes to buy higher end and luxury beauty products on sale. I mean, why not? If you can get a product on sale then why pay full price (save your money). So, in that particular video which I was watching (can’t remember the title), a product had launched recently and then it went on sale during Christmas. Within six months of the launch the product was already on sale. It wasn't bad and it wasn't old, just cheaper. This blew my mind. I never considered buying luxe items on sale because 1) they rarely go on sale and 2) the products that do go on sale are not popular or necessarily wearable.

I want to emphasize the fact that this is a very specific experience and something that hasn’t happened with me before. My experience with shopping at Nykaa has always been good. This one time it turned out to be a dud.

With this new epiphany, I decided to follow in Angelika’s steps and try to buy luxe items on sale. Ahaha it was bad.

I saw that Nykaa was having a sale on Huda Beauty, it wasn’t big like 50% off but enough, and they had an offer where you would get a full size HB Demi Matte Cream Liquid Lipstick if you spent a certain amount. Considering all of this I was so excited. I love Huda Beauty. It's the most brown person friendly makeup brand out there. The makeup style isn't exactly for me. I like more sheer, minimal, dewy looks compared to full beat makeup glam. But if you look closely at the eyeshadow palettes and lipsticks, you’ll see that the colours are so flattering on Indian skin tones. There’s something for everyone. Not to mention the quality is really good. You get what you pay for.

Keeping all of this in mind, I ordered HB Lip Contour in Cheerleader (₹1338), Muse (₹1114) and received the HB Demi Matte Cream Liquid Lipstick in the shade Sheikha for free. Normally, HB Demi Matte Cream Liquid Lipstick costs ₹1825 and the Lip Contour retails for ₹1495. I paid ₹2452 for products that were worth ₹4815. That's a pretty amazing deal. However, the products I received were old, dusty (dirty) and on the brink of expiration. They were unused of course but had been sitting in the warehouse for too long in my opinion. I was heartbroken and thought that's probably why they were on sale in the first place. I somehow convinced myself that getting almost expired makeup on discount is justified and was going to keep the products. Like I shared above, the deal was good (moneywise).

However, this was wrong and why I'm writing this blog.

If I'm spending money on a product (full or a fraction of it) then I as a consumer deserve to get a product that's fresh and can be used properly before it goes bad. It's not my problem whether a product is selling or not, that's the company’s problem and they should work on that.

Don't feel compelled to keep old products just because you got them on sale. Sale doesn't mean inferior quality. Any money spent is money spent. I would rather get a new product from the same brand for the same price than keep three old ones. Naturally, after realizing this I contacted Nykaa and got a refund. The process was smooth and they were quick to answer my query. This is why I like Nykaa. Things can go wrong but it's about how they handle it. Just to summarize, I clicked photos of the received products and wrote them a mail. They replied quickly and arranged for a free pick up. All three products got returned and I got my refund. Also, I didn't use the products. If you receive a faulty product please don't use it. Keep it as it is, otherwise you won't be able to return it.

I want to mention that I bought an Elizabeth Arden Lipstick from the Indian Sephora App (NNNOW) for 50% off. The lipstick was new. It's amazing and I got it on a great deal. I wish I had taken a picture of its packaging but I didn't have a blog back then so I threw it out.

See, buying things on sale isn’t bad. Just understand that you deserve better. Don't settle. I probably won’t get discount items from Nykaa again because I had a bad experience but it’s nice to know that if things go wrong they’ll probably fix it. Now, why don’t I order from NNNOW if my experience with them was good. Honestly, I don't know. It’s relatively newer than Nykaa and their return policies are vague. I think beauty items are non returnable, however, there’s no provision for getting an exchange or anything if a product is faulty. You can cancel a product but once it’s delivered you can’t do anything about it. I’ll visit the Sephora store if I want to get something from them.

Overall, buy things on sale. Save money wherever possible. Always check the manufacturing date, date of import and expiration date. Things can go wrong, it’s fine. If a product is old, please return it. Don’t use it.

I hope you have an amazing day. Don't forget to follow and subscribe to my blog. Also, follow @curlylocksandthoughts on Instagram. Share your thoughts and stories in the comments down below.

See you soon

Love

Shivi

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