Ultimate Buying Guide For Every Skin: How To Score The Best $50 FULL FACE Deal At Ulta’s 21 Days Of Beauty 2023

With $20 foundations, $12 mascaras, $10 lippies becoming more common at the drugstores, Ulta’s 21 days of beauty sale is an excellent opportunity to score some high-quality makeup on a budget. Weather you have dry or oily skin, here’s a buying strategy for you to get a set of simple yet effective products at Ulta’s 21 days of beauty event spring 2023.

Being a frugal parent, spending a lot of time and money on makeup is definitely low on the priority list. Yet I’d still like to look a bit more put together on occasion. Compared to drugstore, Ulta, being one of the biggest makeup retailers, has a much greater selection of products. What’s the most valuable is that they have testers for higher range makeup products. Yet the price may be a lot harder to stomach. I remember the shock to my core, when I asked the Ulta clerk about a natural looking base product for my dry skin, she casually picked up a $40+ tube of foundation that contained 1oz of product, and boasted about its budget-friendliness. Another time, when I asked about a good brow product, another clerk picked up an ABH brow wiz like a teacher drawing from her pile of 2B pencils for his student, and handed it to me. A $22 (brow) pencil! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’ve used actual charcoal drawing pencils for my brows before, and it wasn’t half bad. Every fiber of my being couldn’t bring myself to pay that price.

Twice a year though, Ulta has a 21-days of beauty sales event. Every day for 21 days, there will be a handful of selected products on sale for 50% off! Yes, that’s prices slashed in half. With the rising prices of makeup in the drugstores, this makes some the quality products a even sweeter deal.

However, if you are truly budget concise, it’s still extremely easy to over spend. For one thing, many of the deals are online only, yet if you shop online, there’s no free shipping unless you spend over $35 on one order. This may cause a more frustrated shopping experience. For example, you may be in need for a new concealer, and you wanted to try the Tarte shape tape concealer from Apr. 1st. It’s going to be $15.5 plus $7 shipping. To take full advantage of the deals, you add the $15 Lancôme volumizing mascara, and now your total is $30.50! Then you have to go find something that’s $4.50, that you may or may not need, in order to avoid paying for shipping and getting fewer products. After an hour of browsing and editing, you’ve finally finalized your cart and ready to check out. Then you find out that the concealer was taken out of your cart because it’s been sold out… or when it arrives, it’s the wrong shade and you’d have to make a trip to the physical store to exchange…

Let’s be honest, often times, using more products doesn’t mean a more beautiful you. Some of my favorite looks were done in 5 minutes with minimal products. Think about it, unless you use makeup as a creative outlet, in day to day life, with the 5 minutes you have, all you really need in order to look more refreshed are:

*Some kind of base products to protect/smooth your face skin;

*Some kind of brow/lash products to make them look fuller and neater;

*Some kind of color products to enhance your features and complexion.

Also, in order to maximize the products you invest in, try to look at them at their fundamental levels. If you scrape off most of the paste off of the mascara wand, why can’t the wand now work as a brow tint? Brows are also hairs like your lashes, and therefore, can be colored and shaped by the same mascara for your eyelashes. With a small angled brush, the excess mascara can also work as gel eyeliners. Matte or cream lipsticks can be used as matte/cream blushes and eyeshadows. If you pick the right shade, it even doubles as your contour. As for the base products, sometimes all you need is just sunscreen and some concealers. Often times you can even take out a bit of foundation and let it dry down somewhat, and it will become tacky enough to be used as a concealer.

The tricky part, especially for the base and color products, is finding the right match for your unique skin texture, color, and condition. Hence I strongly suggest you shop at a physical Ulta store, so you can try the testers before committing to a $40 foundation that’s cakey and the wrong shade on your face, even if it’s half off.

Therefore, none of the products I recommend here is an online-only deal. If you can spare a trip to Ulta on your way to the grocery store, or on your way back from work, you can just go into the store and only pick up the deal that suits your need, without being confused into spending more.

Here’s a strategy guide to spend $50 total in this Ulta sale spring 2023.

If you have Dry/Normal skin:

Base product for Dry/Normal skins:

Mar 18 Fenty Concealer, $15

Mar 22 Origins GinZing SPF 40 Tinted Moisturizer $23. Unfortunately there’s no shade selection to this product. If you have a light to medium skin tone this can work well for you.

Mar 25 IT Cosmetics CC+Cream Illumination SPF 50+ $22. A fantastic All-in-One product!

Mar 27 Shiseido SPF 50+ Sun Protector Lotion Sunscreen $25.

Brow/Mascara:

Mar 12 Tarte Maneater Mascara $12.5. The tip of the wand may be ideal for your brows!

Mar 24 Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara $14. This one has a brown option. It’s probably a better choice if you have lighter hair colors.

Apr 1 Lash Idôle Lash-Lifting & Volumizing Mascara $15. In both regular and waterproof versions.

Color products for Dry/Normal skins:

Mar 13 Urban Decay Vice Hydrating Lipstick $10.50. This lipstick has great reviews and rivals drugstore prices! When used as blush and eyeshadows, stick with the matte and cream formulas and avoid the shine formula.

Mar 14 NUDESTIX All Over Face Color $17.5. This comes with a brush attached!

Mar 21 BareMinerals GEN NUDE Powder Blush $13.

Mar 22 Live Tinted Huestick Multistick $12.

Mar 27 Mented Cosmetics Semi-Matte Lipstick $8. Fantastic for darker skins!

Here are some scenarios where you can get a full face of effective makeup with a $50 budget:

It CC Cream + any mascara + UD Vice lipstick = $45
Shiseido Sunscreen + Fenty Concealer + Live Tinted Multistick = $52.50
Origins GinZing SFP 40 + any mascara + BM gen nude powder blush = $50

Now for Oily skins:

Base products:

Mar 18 Fenty Concealer, $15

Mar 19 Estée Lauder Double Wear Foundation $24.

Mar 26 MAC Studio Fix Powder Plus Foundation $19.5.