Great hunt: Downshifting on beauty products

Here are some of my favourite tips. There are a couple of non-beauty tips too but they're money-savers and I thought worth including. Hope you like them.

Cleanser:
Aqueous cream (500g for about £3) and E45 (from £3) So what is aqueous cream? It is a nongreasy moisturiser that provides a layer of oil on the skin surface to prevent moisture evaporating from the skin. A mix of emulsifying ointment containing paraffin oils, water and preservative, it can be used in place of soap. Aqueous creams are great and completely overlooked by most consumers because they assume that you can't buy effective products cheaply. Well you can. You can buy huge tubs for under £4. The unbranded versions are just as good as the ones in the fancy packaging. My local chemist sells 500g unbranded for about £3. It lasts ages, you need very little, about the size of a 1p piece mixed with a drop or three of water. You need to rinse well (I rinse twice and use a musline cloth as a gentle face wipe)
Boots Aqueous Cream, under £4, contains no preservatives and includes petroleum and paraffin,

Moisturiser:
Aqueous cream also works as a basic moisturiser, its as good as anything. If you want to spend a little more, then brands such as Oilatum cream, Epaderm emollient, Hydromol Ointment and Cetraben cream (all under £5) are simple vegetable-based moisturisers used or recommended by most dermatologists.

Exfoliation:
You can use baking soda and water to exfoliate, and can add grapes, citrus fruits, sugar cane, apples, pears, and milk since they all contain the AHAs that remove the dry dull dead skin layer.

Skin Brightening Banana Face Mask:
This has 3 power ingredients to hydrate, brighten and lighten your skin. In a small mixing bowl, place 1 ripe banana and mash it with a fork into a lump free pulp. Then mix in 1 tsp of honey and 1 tsp of lemon juice and combine the ingredients thoroughly.
(Eat about a third of it. It tastes great and you're bound to have too much for your face)
Wash your face with a gentle soap and pat dry with a soft towel. Using clean fingers, rub the mask into your face. Apply the mask in a slightly thick layer so it has time to sink in.
Keep on for 10 – 15 minutes. When the time is up, wash your face with warm water and do not use soap. And voila! Be amazed with your glowing radiant skin.
Keep a towel handy to catch any drips if you make the mix too runny. Have a spoon handy too and eat the drips you can catch.

Stain removal:
Use hairspray to remove a lipstick stain

To remove watermarks from leather boots, add a few drops of vinegar to a bowl of cool water and scrub the stains with a soft bristle brush until stains are no longer visible. Let dry overnight.

Spray shirts prone to sweat stains with lemon juice before washing. The natural acid dissolves alkaline sweat reside that could cause yellow discolouration.

Deodorise sweaty trainers: pour two or three tablespoons of baking soda into sweaty trainers and tilt the shoe to distribute the soda evenly. Leave overnight. This will eat any odour and absorb perspiration.

A splash of vodka in the vase water extends the life of cut flowers.

And my all time favourite tip (if you're like me and hate trying on jeans in shops). Nothing to do with downsizing but everything to do with sanity-saving and time-saving.
If you don’t have time, patience, or remaining sanity to try on jeans in the shop, try the Neck Method: You can determine your size by placing the waistline of the jeans around the diameter of your neck. If the waistline of the jeans comfortably meets at the back of your neck, then the jeans will fit. Try it at home with your current jeans. You'll see ;-)

Oops. Sorry! Sorry! Posted twice by mistake! Please can someone remove the dupe?

I use a combination of budget products, natural home made products and some branded beauty products.

Budget products I like...

Derma 10 BB cream and CC cream
Derma 10 highlighting spray
Some ELF makeup
Some MUA makeup
Aldi products night/day cream, serum etc. As well as shampoo, bodywash, conditioner etc.
Superdrug products esp. the radience lift products
Boots natural collection waterproof mascara - ONLY waterproof mascara on the face of the earth my overly sensitive eyes does not react to!
Lypsyl cherry chapstick


Homemade products...
Oatmeal, chamomile and baking soda face scrub
Oil cleansing method
Coconut oil from ethnic shop
Daughters use henna from ethnic shop for hair dying
There is a website where a lady makes diy versions of Lush products, I have sucessfully made a few of these when I have time or feel especially creative.

Certain branded products I especially like I will wait till I see them in pound shops or budget shops like savers or bodycare and then stock up.....
Original Source shower gels
Dove soap
Dove body lotion/butter
Garnier shampoo/conditioner
Palmolive naturals anti dandruff shampoo
Arm and Hammer toothpaste
Kamomile hand cream
Mitchum anti-perspirant

Pound shops often sell off stock which is unknown to us from the US/made for foreign markets. I have gotten some products I am really impressed with by taking a chance. For example DD19 uses a German face wash gel we have only ever found in the poundshop, she declares it's the only thing her face likes, God help us when poundland stops stocking it! One way I have of spotting a good product if the name/brand is unknown to me is to read the ingredients. If petroleum of any variation is in the first 3-4 ingredients to me it's the sign of a cheap and nasty product.

Perfume the whole family gets from perfume parlour.

While I have tried high end beauty products, I have almost never been significantly wowed by them enough to justify spending double, triple or in some cases quadruple amount I presently do. Most of the time the product itself is relatively similiar to a more middle of the road product, you are actually paying not for better ingredients, but for packaging, the brand name and the advertising budget (those celeb endorsements don't come cheap!) As one of my friends put it when we were loitering by a make up display with a famous face splashed all over it 'why should I pay for HER holiday - I need my own!'

I've built up a large collection aof around 80 nail varnish from poundland.. they sall Rimmel, Revlon and Sally Hansen and other branded make up. E.L.F make up and brushes from the studio line are so good and really cheap, especially on one of their many weekend sales. I make my own face oil from hemp oil found in supermarkets. I keep the bottle in the fridge to preserve it and mix it with some aromatherapy oils, at present I mix with chamomile and carrot seed oil, but bog standard lavender will do and massage it in and my skin, although I have rosacea, is looking more hydrated and less wrinkly. I make a face mask with fullers earth and water, fullers earth is so cheap in chemists. I buy my shower gels, vitamins , hand wash and deoderants from pound shops.

Haemorrhoid cream for puffy eyes and dark circles

I haven't tried this but I've heard some people swear by it to get rid of dark circles and puffy eyes. Its a dab of Preparation H under each eye and then a few drops of Visine or similar eye brightening drops also. The Prep-H reduces swelling/bags under the eyes and the Visine restricts the blood vessels and the circles disappear.
Apparently its important to get the haemorrhoid cream and not one of the lotions. Rub only a tiny amount under your eyes before any other makeup or lotions and let it dry.
Frequent use of eye brightening drops is not particularly good for the eyes but you can get herbal eye drops that can be used as often as desired without any harmful effects. Works for contact lens wearers too.

Has anyone else tried this?