5 At-Home Beauty Hacks To Save Money and Ditch the Salon

Hi Friends and Happy Saturday!

Who else is excited we’ve reached the month of May? For me, May means my husband’s birthday, Mother’s day, the end of the school year is in sight (bittersweet saying goodbye to my students but YAY for summer break), and summer is right around the corner.

I don’t know about you, but summer is the season I like to do a few beauty hacks to look “effortlessly” polished and put together without taking much time to get ready.

All of these little “hacks” are actually services you could get at the salon, but y’all know me. If I can get the same “look” for much less money, I’m on it.

From tinting my eyebrows to achieving the perfect sunless healthy glow, these 6 beauty hacks will enhance your natural look and leave you feeling effortlessly beautiful for summer (or any time of the year).

Let’s get to it.

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1. Ditch the Salon – Tint Your Own Eyebrows At Home

Okay, I’m not going to lie. The first time I tinted my own brows I was TERRIFIED. I’m the least artistic person. I can’t even draw a straight line (just ask my third graders). So when I contemplated tinting my own brows with permanent dye, I almost backed down.

But I’m really glad I didn’t. Because now I tint my brows once every 3-4 weeks for just $1.25 and they look great (in my opinion anyway).

Honestly, tinting my eyebrows wouldn’t be high on the priority list if my brows were naturally darker.

However, unfortunately, even though I was born with nice light blonde hair, the only thing that has stayed light blonde is my eyebrows while the rest of my hair on my head has turned a lovely (I’m being sarcastic of course) “dishwater blonde”.

Personally, I feel better about myself when I can actually see my eyebrows. Hence the desire to darken them.

It’s your lucky day because I took some pretty embarrassing pictures documenting this whole “brow tinting process.”

I’ll leave them below with each step I took to tint my eyebrows. It was honestly so fast and so easy. I think once you try it you’ll never go back to spending money at the salon.

And that, my friends, is how to tint your brows from home for super cheap! If you have a better brow shape than I do (you probably do, mine is the worst) your brows will look even better than mine. 🙂

2. Forget the Nail Salon – Apply Your Own Fake Acrylic Nails At Home

My sister got married in February (woot, woot!!) and I was her maid of honor.

I wanted to have nice looking nails for her wedding, but because being a maid of honor can really add up financially, I didn’t want to spend salon prices to get my nails done.

Instead, I bought this pack of acrylic “Kiss” brand nails at my local drugstore for 7 bucks and applied them myself. They looked perfect! I got tons of compliments on them and nobody could tell they weren’t real acrylics.

I do recommend buying the glue I used (I’ll picture it below) because it will help the nails to stay on better and longer. These nails will last for 2 weeks without popping off if applied correctly.

3. Farewell Nail Salon – Do Your Own Gel (Shellac) Nails At Home

If fake “acrylic” nails aren’t your thing but you’d still like to have polished looking nails, give gel (also known as shellac) nails a try!

It’s as easy as applying nail polish, but instead of waiting 30 minutes for them to dry, only to chip them 2 days later, you’ll use a LED UV nail lamp to dry the gel polish.

The gel polish lasts up to 3 weeks and looks really beautiful.

Up front it costs more to purchase the light and the base coat, top coat, and colors, but if you already like to spend money on gel nails at the salon, this will save you hundreds by the end of the year.

Besides, for this light, top coat and base coat, and colors combined, it only costs $50. A gel manicure at the salon costs anywhere from $25-$40. So after just 2 at-home gel manicures, you’ve already got your money’s worth. 🙂

4. Forgo the Tanning Salon – Tan Your Skin Healthily At Home

I am a pale person. It’s just the way God made me 🙂 90% of the time, this doesn’t bother me, but during the summer months or for special events, I like to have a natural healthy glow. St. Tropez tanning mouse is PERFECT for this. I’ve been using St. Tropez since college and I absolutely love it. It goes on evenly and has a green undertone so instead of looking like an orange oompa loompa, you’ll achieve that nice olive-y tan glow.

The best part is you’re not damaging your skin by tanning in a bed AND it will save you money. Each mousse bottle lasts me anywhere from 20-25 uses. Depending on how often you want a faux tan, each bottle could last you a very long time.

I used my St. Tropez tanning mousse for my sister’s wedding. I’ll insert a picture below so you can see how the tan looked on my fair skin.

On my face, I don’t use the St. Tropez mousse or the St. Tropez facial lotion because both cling to my pores and make me look like I have a ton of little blackheads. (not a fan).

Instead, I use the Jergens facial lotion that builds up over the course of several days and is much more agreeing with my skin.

You can buy the St. Tropez tanning mitt to apply the mouse. I used that tanning mitt for several years and it worked fine.

However, eventually it ripped at the seams because I’d been using it so long so I ordered the tanning mitt I linked above and you guys… I had NO idea what I was missing out on!

This tanning mitt is leaps and bounds better than the St. Tropez brand tanning mitt. It applies the tan so much more evenly and quickly. I don’t have to rub the mouse in circular motions to blend it into my skin. This mitt blends it effortlessly and without streaks. I highly recommend it!

5. See Ya Later Hair Salon – Balayage Your Own Hair At Home

This is probably my favorite “beauty hack” out of all the ones I’ve mentioned so far. I’m saving the best for last 😉

In other words, Jessie could totally afford to go to the salon and pay bookoo bucks for fabulous hair. Instead, she balayages, or “honey dips” in her words, her hair with box dye from the drugstore.

And that my friends, is why I love her.

Even when you have plenty of money, it doesn’t mean you need to spend it unnecessarily.

So I’ve only done this to my hair once, but it turned out well! I quite literally just followed Jessie’s tutorial to a T, which I recommend you do as well 🙂 I bought the hair color she mentions and swears by in this video. I linked the hair color below. The picture shown for my link below is for brunettes, but if you’re a blonde like me who wants to balayage your hair, once you click the link there will be two options. I used the blonde option.

I’ll link a picture below of how my hair turned out 🙂

Not bad for my first try! I’ll thank Jessie for that 🙂

And That’s a Wrap!

Let me know if you have any questions at all regarding how I do these beauty hacks at home. I hope you discovered a new beauty hack or two to try at home and save lots of money in the process! 🙂

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Resources That I Love:

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