Buying preloved clothes has become our new norm, but beauty products? Not so much – until now. Lizzie Rivera re ports on a growing trend
Ijust sold my Charlotte Tilbury eyeshadow on our local WhatsApp group,’ my sister-in-law says breezily, as if selling used make-up is as normal to her as buying clothes on Vinted. It was the wrong shade, so, having bought it for £26, she sold it to a stranger in Brighton for £10.
‘Would you buy a used eyeshadow ?’ I ask. ‘Oh no, I wouldn’t buy one,’ she says.
If the thought of buying make-up that has been owned or used by someone else gives you the ick, you’re not alone. But consider how our attitude to secondhand clothes has changed in just a few years… perhaps it’s not as outlandish as it sounds. ‘When I started talking about selling used make-up five years ago, people used to ask if I was crazy. Now they are a lot more receptive,’ says Karen Lee, founder of USbased secondhand beauty site Glou Beauty. She seems to have spotted a gap in the market. ‘Last summer, Too Faced bronzers were having a moment on TikTok and all of a sudden we were sold out of used bronzers.’ Keeping up with the vast numbers of products featured in online beauty tutorials and influencer reviews is expensive. ‘Social media is really driving the overconsumption of beauty products in huge quantities,’ says CEO of the British Beauty Council, Millie Kendall OBE. It’s little surprise, then, that beauty fans are looking for cheaper ways to buy products.
SHARING LIPSTICKS IS GROSS THOUGH, RIGHT?
If you’ve ever tested samples at a make-up counter or had your make-up done by a make-up artist, there’s a good chance you’ve applied used products. Is a barely used make-up product in otherwise perfect condition so different?
Well, possibly. Celebrity make-up artist Alice Theobald, who counts Tess Daly and Emma Thompson as clients, says she occasionally buys a product on a resale site if it’s been discontinued, but would only ever buy it new, sealed and from a reputable seller. ‘Hygiene is really important to protect clients,’ she insists. There are lots of little tricks she uses to avoid contamination, such as decanting a chosen lip colour with a spatula into a lipstick palette before use or applying colloidal silver – known for its antibacterial, antiviral and anti-fungal properties – liberally to products after use.
But, it’s not only make-up and ‘used’ products. People are selling all sorts – unwanted perfume they’ve been gifted, a duplicate body cream from a subscription box, a hair product that’s been discontinued and can now be sold at a premium.
Helen Riley, head of beauty acquisition at eBay UK, says the online retail giant is seeing an uptick in beauty product sales. ‘We are seeing more and more people come to eBay to shop from our “Imp
