You don’t need to spend all your money on beauty products and clothes this year. Focus on sticking to your budget and spend your money on key essentials and you’ll find that you can look just as good as the rich girl next door. Make your own beauty products and shop at markets and thrift stores and you will be amazed by how much money you can save. It is time to throw away those credit cards and get wise about your beauty buys!

Your hair

If you colour your hair regularly, consider doing it at home. Darker colours can easily be dyed at home as long as you follow the instructions on your store-bought box. If you are going blonde or want highlights consider visiting a beauty college. The students at colleges often need models and will cut and colour your hair for a fraction of the price that an expensive salon will. Hair removal can also be done at home with razors, tweezers and at-home waxing products – if you’re nervous, try it with a friend as there is more control and, of course, much needed moral support.

What to look for

When shopping for some new clothes, jewellery or shoes remember the following shopping advice: Try and ignore trends – following trends can be a costly exercise as you may only wear the item once before it goes out of fashion. Instead stick to classic cuts in basic colours. Figure out what looks good on you, be it wide-leg pants or pencil skirts, and stick to buying those items you feel most comfortable and confident in.

Where to shop

Cosmetics are normally cheaper at drug stores than speciality stores and for items like lipsticks and nail-polishes a cheap product will normally work just as well as an expensive brand. Thrift stores and markets are great places for picking up designer gear at a fraction of the price while warehouse stores of big clothing manufacturers often stock slightly flawed or wrongly sized garments at low prices.

Be versatile

Budgeting is all about being versatile – you have to be prepared to compromise and think out of the box. Consider adjusting old clothing or make something completely new, like a cute bag from a pair of too-small jeans. Go for pieces that you can dress up or down with some key accessories. Choose products that look like they are built to last and you will definitely get your money’s worth.

Need a beauty boost? Look no further than your fridge. You probably have all you need to make home made beauty products’ right at your fingertips. Think soothing cucumber eye gel, sweet sugar and honey body scrub, and yoghurt body mask. You’ll save money, and have the peace of mind of knowing exactly what it is you’re putting on your skin – no nasty chemicals, and, definitely, no animal testing. It’s all good.

Soothing cucumber eye gel

For a home made eye gel that will gently soothe and help get rid of any signs of a hectic lifestyle, you’ll need some aloe vera, half a cucumber, witch hazel, and a drop or two of lavender essential oil. You can buy aloe vera gel at a health shop, and witch hazel at any pharmacy. Aloe vera has fantastic regenerative properties, while witch hazel is a natural astringent. Blitz the cucumber, around half a cup of aloe vera gel, two tablespoons of witch hazel, and lavender essential oil in your blender. Store the mixture in the fridge, and apply when needed.

Sweet sugar and honey body scrub

Photo: Powerhouse Museum / Flickr

This body scrub will moisturise your skin while exfoliating just as well as any scrub you’d get in the shops. Take a cup of sugar crystals (try muscovado sugar for its colour and sticky texture) and mix in two tablespoons of honey. Add a little olive oil, and the essential oil of your choice. Lavender essential oil is calming and healing, citrus oils like neroli are uplifting and energising, and tea tree is a natural antiseptic that will help with problem skin.

Yoghurt body mask

Yoghurt is very good for skin irritation and sunburn, and is a very gentle exfoliator, suitable for the most sensitive skin. This home made body mask is an excellent summer treatment, and it’s very easy to make. Add three tablespoons of pureed carrots ( a great source of vitamin A) and three tablespoons of honey to a quarter of a cup of yoghurt. Mix together thoroughly, and apply to your body before soaking in a warm bath for around 15 minutes.

For more natural beauty recipes, have a look at sofeminine.co.uk.

Supermodel and Britain’s Next Top Model judge Elle Macpherson has come under fire from animal rights activists recently for comments that suggest that she uses banned animal products. In a Twitter interview, Macpherson said with reference to rhino horn that ‘It works for me’ and without knowing what tone she was using, it’s difficult to know whether it was the tongue-in-cheek comment she says it was, or something more serious.

Chinese Medicine

In the interview, Macpherson was asked about her use of Chinese medicine. The interviewer asked, in what can only be presumed to be a joke, what powdered rhino horn tastes like, to which Macpherson replied, ‘A little bit like crushed bone and fungus in a capsule. Does the job though.’ It’s a somewhat bizarre description if she was serious: have many people tasted crushed bone and fungus?

‘Banter’?

Since being criticised for what many conservation activists saw as a clear-cut statement that she uses banned animal products, Macpherson has apologised for what she calls ‘distress or offence that her banter with an interviewer might have caused.’ Her story seems plausible: for one thing, it seems unlikely that her interviewer would suggest seriously that she was involved in an illegal activity, and even less likely that she would casually admit to something that could land her in serious legal trouble.

For the record

When it comes to caring about endangered species, Macpherson’s record is squeaky clean: she once boycotted a restaurant for serving bluefin tuna – a fish as endangered as the white rhino. Many reports about the interview have suggested that Macpherson used the rhino horn product as an alternative to traditional beauty products, but that’s probably just because of her line of work: the illegal remedy is in fact used to treat ailments such as arthritis.