The Beauty Mart inside Harvey Nichols is a one-stop-shop for all your essentials
Beauty products are a standout gift at Christmas, with nine out of ten women receiving them, but a staggering £676 Million worth will never be used.
The average British woman will throw away 2 Christmas beauty gifts, worth an average £26.36, according to new national research by BlanX.
One in five UK women admit they will discard even more unwanted Christmas beauty gifts - totaling up to an eye-popping value of £60 - this year.
But it seems women are more than used to throwing away perfectly good unused cosmetics that don’t meet their personal requirements –Brit women will throw away an average of 1 beauty product every month of the year, the nationwide survey shows.
However, it is at Christmas that this habitual discarding of beauty gifts goes into overdrive – more than doubling the number of throwaways of a regular month.
Men be warned – if that designer lipstick, the one that just cost you a fortune, isn’t your lady’s preferred colour or that make-up you just ordered from a bespoke beauty house in Paris is a shade too light, it doesn’t matter that it took you three weeks to source and order it, it’s going to land in a bin sooner rather than later.
While the average UK woman buys almost three (2.91) new beauty products for herself per month they tend to stick to the same tried and tested brands they know and trust.
More than seven out of 10 women say they continue to buy the same beauty products because of “positive usage” whereas just 12.4% buy on the recommendation of others.
A further 18.5% buy the same beauty brands out of loyalty and some 24.7% buy the same brands because of habit.
The national study did offer a glimmer of hope for Britain’s menfolk though. If totally bemused by the sheer plethora of beauty products available in the marketplace, play it safe and plump for bath and body goodies – the No1 Christmas beauty choice among British women.
Failing that, make-up comes in a close second and fragrance is third most popular – just be sure that you now which brand your lady prefers or you may as well stuff your hard-earned cash straight in the litter bin.
Senior Brand Manager for BlanX, Louise Marks said: “British women are very loyal to their favourite brands and tend to want to stick with the beauty products they know and love.
“They very rarely choose a new beauty product based on a recommendation from others and choose their make-up and other beauty essentials out of habit, loyalty and, most importantly, because it has had a positive result for them in the past.
“Men need to be aware that it is easy to get it wrong when buying beauty products for their ladies at Christmas and British women are not scared of being ruthless when it comes to their beauty regime. If it doesn’t work for them, no matter how much it cost or who bought it for them, it’s going to end up in the bin.
“The same as £676 Million worth of other beauty products this Christmas.”