Cheap Slap Wholesale Makeup » Blog

Asian Fashion

Melissa — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:52:47 +0000

Asian fashion is a massive growth area – you only have to look at the line up for the Asia Fashion Summit 2012 being held in Singapore starting on May 15 2012, to see that the clothing industry’s key players are taking this niche market very seriously. The three day event being held at the Raffles City Convention Centre includes talks on the influence of social media on retail sales, and has guest speakers from top designer brands such as Tory Burch and Thierry Mugler.

The good news for the consumer is that the renaissance in Asian fashion makes for an improved buying experience, whether online or in-store. Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a major fan of buying online, mainly for convenience and also because I like trying on my purchases in the privacy of my own home. That way, I can also get my family’s opinion before I make my final decision.

Online clothing and lifestyle stores such as asianfashion.com are leaders in the fashion revolution for Asian and Korean customers. The site caters for men as well as women, and for the girls a full beauty range is also available to complement your stylish purchases. The choice has never been better, in terms of the range of styles, sizes, and quality on offer. Free worldwide shipping is available as standard (always a winner for me), making this a one stop shop for all the latest in Asian style trends.

The sheer volume of competition competing for the Asian customer has resulted in great value in terms of both price and quality. Watch out for specialist beauty and home lines to appeal to this market too. I think that it will only continue to get better!!

Arbonne Review

Melissa — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:55:21 +0000

Arbonne gets a plug in UK Vogue in the April 2012 issue, with the Vogue beauty experts acknowledging that Arbonne skin and body care products are fast gaining cult status for those in the know. Vogue recommends the RE9 Advanced Instant Lift to liven up your complexion, or the Seasource range for detoxing. This isn’t the first time that Arbonne has been featured in Vogue, and I doubt it will be the last, you can also read this article from Vogue about Arbonne cosmetics, and this mention in Vogue about Arbonne skincare (although that skincare range has been replaced now by the way, with the RE9 advanced anti-aging products).

I’ve been familiar with Arbonne for a couple of years now, as I was introduced to it by my great friend in the US, Bronagh. Bronagh was raving about Arbonne so much that I thought I’d better see what all the fuss was about. As always, our friends across the pond seem to get the good things first!

Arbonne skincare and cosmetics are high end, Swiss formulated, botanically based and vegan. The price bracket is comparable to Estee Lauder/Clarins. They are much bigger in the US and although relatively new in the UK they have had fantastic market growth in the first few years (I think they started here in 2007). There is a separate Arbonne UK website where you can view their products.

Arbonne use a network marketing model which can put some people off – basically if you want to buy their products you need to do so through a local consultant (like a rep) or you can become a consultant yourself and build your own business. I should point out that I am NOT an Arbonne consultant, so I have no vested interest in Arbonne whatsoever, but I have used a lot of their products in the past, and continue to do so. Consultants get commissions on their direct product sales, and they get commission on their team’s sales if other people join their team. There are targets and minimum order commitments and so on, which are all explained in the Success Plan which you can download from the Arbonne website. There is an annual fee to become a consultant, it’s currently around £50 a year in the UK. I should also mention that if you are a consultant you get a generous 35% discount on your purchases.

Arbonne is currently available in the US, the UK, and Australia, although unfortunately not all of the products are available in the UK yet. I believe that the weight loss range is fantastic, and this market has amazing resale potential, but wouldn’t you know you can’t get it here.

At this point I’ll step aside and open the comments for any Arbonne people to have their say – I know that there can be strong views about the network selling model, but there are loads of Arbonne success stories that have been well documented. If anyone has any experience of Arbonne that they would like to share, please let us know below!!

Astral Cream – Not Just for Grannies!

Melissa — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:23:42 +0000

Astral cream – does it ring any bells with you? I had to scan my beauty radar when I was asked to review both the original Astral, and its new sister, Astral Light and Creamy. For me, Astral is up there with Atrixo and the old glass bottle of pink Oil of Ulay that my mum or grandma might have used. So I was kind of intrigued about trying the two Astral products, as I have used neither before.

Both products come in plastic tubs. It’s run of the mill packaging, not trendy but it’s not displeasing and it’s perfectly functional. I used the original Astral all over body moisturiser on one side of my body after a shower, and the new Astral Light and Creamy on the other half.

The original Astral (in the dark blue tub shown above) is very thick and buttery and takes a lot more work to spread over your skin – you can tell that this is made for older, more mature skin.

Astral Light and Creamy (light blue tub) is more my cup of tea. Everything about it is younger, from the look of the packaging to the scent and feel of the product, which spread really smoothly and easily. Its key ingredients include Vitamin E and Aloe Vera, both of which I love. I am told that you can also use Astral as a makeup remover, which I probably won’t do, but it’s handy to know in emergencies.

Astral is a high quality product with lots of clinical proof backing it up, and it’s on sale for a very reasonable price. I didn’t pay for the Astral creams I used as they were sent to me to try, but they would hardly break the bank – 200ml pots cost £4.28, and bigger as well as smaller sizes are also available. You can buy Astral at Boots, Superdrug and local chemists, as well as at Sainsbury’s and Tesco.

The original Astral is aimed at older women – its ambassadors include Twiggy, Joanna Lumley and Emma Thompson. It won’t look sexy on your bathroom shelf, but I doubt these women care about that. Astral’s younger fans include Amanda Holden, Kate Beckinsdale, Patsy Kensit, Sarah Cox and Claire Sweeney to name a few. Proof that Astral’s not just for grannies! Try it and see – you might just be pleasantly surprised.

HowTo Cover Acne With Makeup

Melissa — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 20:22:10 +0000

Anyone unfortunate enough to suffer from severe acne knows what a pain it can be trying to cover acne up with makeup. It’s bad enough getting a spot or two, but permanently bad skin needs expert coverage using cosmetics products that really deliver.

For this post I’m handing you over to a real pro for a step by step “how to” video on how to get flawless looking skin even with advanced acne scarring. When you see what this girl looks like without makeup you will be shocked – but with full coverage her skin looks perfect. You don’t necessarily need specialist stage makeup or anything like that – just watch this amazing transformation for proof.

The products used in the video are:

Smashbox Antishine
Hourglass Veil Primer
Makeup For Ever HD Foundation in 125 and 120
MAC Studio Finish Concealer NC 30
MAC NC5
Smashbox Halo in Light
Makeup Forever Microfinish Setting Powder
MAC 134 Face/Powder Brush

Obviously you may need to alter the shades of foundation and powder used to suit your own skin tone. If you are not sure, go to a MAC counter for a makeover and ask to test some of these products to see what they look like on your skin. Don’t worry if you can’t perfect the look straight off – practice makes perfect. Feel free to substitute some of your favourite products instead, but remember that MAC Cosmetics are the real deal and very hard to beat!

Hats off to DiamondsAndHeels14 for being brave enough to reveal her skin to the world on YouTube – over 5.5 million video views shows that she has definitely helped a lot of people with her makeup and acne help videos. Hopefully this will give anyone with acne the confidence to know that they can still look beautiful, outside as well as in.

Announcing Changes at Cheap Slap

Melissa — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:01:20 +0000

Well it’s an exciting day at Cheap Slap Towers! I’ve just been putting the finishing touches to some major new plans for Cheap Slap, which will be rolling out over the next few weeks. I’m going to be making a lot of changes, these have been building for a while and I’ve decided that it’s time to bite the bullet – now or never.

Cheap Slap has been around in its present form for a while, and it’s not going anywhere, far from it, but it’s time to for me to shake things up a bit. In a nutshell, I’m expanding the site and going mainstream. This is both a commercial and a personal decision…

From a commercial perspective, I get a lot of emails and enquiries from both PR teams and brands themselves, basically looking for web coverage for their products. Direct advertising is a VERY lucrative area.

From a personal perspective, I have poured my heart and soul into Cheap Slap in its present form. It has been a labour of love because it was my first little web baby. However, I want to cut down the amount of time I am spending answering queries and dealing directly with members, so I have made the decision to close to new members with effect from 30 April 2012. I will still continue to support existing members the same as ever, and the membership area will remain, but no new members will be accepted. I’ve thought long and hard about this, and I won’t be changing my mind – no exceptions.

I am also working behind the scenes on a new look for the site, which will incorporate the direct advertising model I mentioned above. The plan is for Cheap Slap to unveil its makeover by 30 April or shortly thereafter.

This date also coincides with the public release of a brand new project I have been working on which goes hand in hand with my new business model. Sorry if that sounds a bit vague but it will all make sense when you see what it is.

The aim of all the above is to bring a fun and informative beauty website to a much wider audience, while increasing the site’s profitability and reducing the amount of direct input required from me. I think you will agree that’s a win, win, win situation!!

I hope you all will enjoy the changes, and I would just like to thank all my readers and members for all their support to date. I hope that you will join me in this exciting adventure taking Cheap Slap to the next level.

Onwards and upwards!!

Melissa x

Percy & Reed Review

Melissa — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 23:02:40 +0000

If you haven’t heard of Percy & Reed hair products yet you must be on another planet. As a weekly Grazia subscriber and avid beauty mag follower I am always interested in the latest so called must haves that the fash pack are raving about. Percy & Reed have certainly had a lot of good publicity from well connected circles in the last six months or so. But I’m also more than just a tad cynical about a lot of hyped up media reviews because I think these guys n’ dolls all probably hang around Soho House and the Electric together and do a lot of air kissing each other’s bums.

Who Are Percy & Reed?

The skinny is that P & R are cool and trendy celebrity hairdressers with a salon in London (Great Portland Street). Their website is fab but that’s for another day as Cheap Slap is due for a facelift soon so I have a lot of website lust when I see one I like.

Anyhoo, I’m also a tight wad about buying hair products just to try for the sake of it. I’ve made a lot of expensive mistakes in the past and I’m not just talking shampoo. In this age of frugality I’m on a strict “no impulse buys till the bottle’s empty” policy but when I saw the Percy & Reed giveaways with April’s Glamour magazine I caved in. Yep, if you buy Glamour and were wondering why they were all sold out this month it’s because people like me bought four! I offloaded three and came home the happy mother of four little babies for my bathroom shelf – namely Percy & Reed shampoo, conditioner, hair mask and finishing polish. They are 100ml sizes – okay so not exactly tiny but it’s a couple of weeks later and already I can see that the shampoo and conditioner won’t be lasting me much longer. The finishing polish and mask will last beyond Easter for sure.

Percy & Reed Buyability

Percy & Reed Finishing Polish

So.. what’s the verdict? Well really the best thing about them is the smell. I think they actually do the job fine, but they are not miraculous. I have highlighted blonde hair and to say that it’s high maintenance is an understatement. So if a great hair product comes along I’ll be the first to shout it from the rooftops. I think the reason why I’ve used most of the shampoo already is that it doesn’t really lather so I’m using a lot of it and doing an extra wash. The conditioner is better than average but not amazing. The finishing polish is ok but I haven’t really done anything wild from a styling perspective. And the mask, I confess I haven’t even tried it.

The full sized products aren’t cheap, but I’ve spent more on worse. The shampoo is £14, conditioner £16, the great little trial size of finishing polish shown above (50ml) can be yours for only £4, and the mask is £20.

You can choose your products as to whether you want volume, shine, or colour care etc. There are also travel packs with mini sizes of everything, suitable for flight restrictions on holidays abroad, or just to get a taster of what’s on offer .

Interestingly enough, Percy & Reed are available to buy on one of my fave websites, QVC, and the range of conflicting reviews on there is quite astonishing. There’s loads of one star and two star reviews and just as many 5 star reviews. You can check out the QVC Percy & Reed reviews here.

Here’s my tip for would be P & R buyers – try sample sizes or see if you can snag any freebies before shelling out full price. I won’t ramble on any more as I’m getting bored of Percy & Reed already, so if you’re still reading – well done and thank you!

Wholesale MAC Makeup – Fake Sites

Melissa — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 15:40:51 +0000

Okay, so the background to this post is that I get emails daily asking me about some site or other that is selling wholesale MAC makeup, and asking whether the site is genuine or not. The short answer is that most of the sites you see with “MAC wholesale” in the domain name (i.e. url) are all selling fakes.

Wholesale MAC Makeup Fake Clues

When you see a site selling MAC cosmetics that has hundreds of items, for a couple of dollars each, do you not think that it looks suspicious? It totally amazes me that people are not clued in that these sites are selling fakes. Some of the sites are not even actually claiming that the products are genuine, if you look carefully at the FAQs they do state that the items are replicas.

Also, a lot of the sites claim their products are “direct from the original factory ” – well I’m sorry but that doesn’t actually mean anything. Of course the products are coming from a factory, it’s just not the official MAC cosmetics factory, you can be certain of that!

Check any wholesale MAC makeup site carefully…

…and if you are happy enough buying fakes then go right ahead, but don’t rush in thinking you are buying a whole load of authentic MAC from a dodgy site and then complain when it doesn’t arrive, or if it does and it’s a whole pile of crap. Excusez mon Francais!

Below is a list of dodgy looking MAC wholesale cosmetics sites that I recommend you avoid if you do not want to buy fake MAC. Please be clear that I have not used any of these sites and nor do I intend to, so I have no first hand experience of their products or service. Some of the sites are known to sell fakes, others just look like somewhere I wouldn’t want to shop. This is just my personal opinion. Also, just because any site is not on this list, please be clear that it does not mean that it is okay. So many new wholesale MAC makeup sites are springing up that I can hardly keep up with them.

I will try to update the list on an ongoing basis, so if there are others you think I should add, please just leave a comment below!

mmwcosmetics.com
mawcosmetics.com
macmakeupwholesale.com
macmakeuptop.com
maccosmeticwholesaler.com
macwholesalecosmetics.org
cosmeticsbulk.com
wholesalecosmeticsstores.com
wholesalemacmakeup.com
cheapmaccosmeticspro.com
macmakeupwholesale.net
macmakeupwholesalexo.com
macmakeupcosmetics.com
macsok.com
qwholesale.com
macmakeupx.com
cheapmacmakeup4u.com
shoppingmacmakeuponline.com
macmakeupol.com
mac-cosmetics-outlets.com
macmakeupstores.net
macmakeuporder.com
maccosmeticsx.com
maccosmetics-wholesale.com
cosmetics-wholesaler.com
cheapmaccosmeticswholesale.com
macwholesalecosmetics.net
wholesalersmacmakeup.com
wholesalersmaccosmetics.com
wholesalermaccosmetics.net
allmaccosmeticswholesales.com
wholesalemakeupchina.com
macmakeupcheap.com
maccosmetics4wholesale.com
topmacmakeupwholesale.com
maccosmeticswholesalechina.com
maccosmeticswholesales.net
macmakeupsproducts.net
cosmeticsmacwholesales.com
maccosmeticsg.com
cheapcosmeticsmakeup.com
cosmeticshotsale.com
macmakeupu.com
macmakeupo.com
discountmacmakeup.net
wholesalemaccosmeticsstore.com
macwholesalers.org
cosmeticswholesales.com
wholesalemaccosmetics1984.com
ggoshopping.com

Remember that for trusted suppliers of genuine wholesale MAC makeup, Cheap Slap is the go to resource of many successful cosmetics resellers. If you’re not already a member, then do yourself a favour and join Cheap Slap today!

Hope that helps x

Cheap Slap on YouTube

Melissa — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 18:39:14 +0000

I had a lot of fun today making this little video ad for Cheap Slap on YouTube…

I’m trying to figure out if it is possible to drive more traffic to Cheap Slap through YouTube. Hopefully my attempts at video making will improve over time! The voices are a bit clunky but hey it’s all part of the fun. If you have any ideas for new Cheap Slap video story lines please send them in!

Acne Removal

Melissa — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:33:06 +0000

Acne is a sore subject in more ways than one for any of its unfortunate sufferers. I had mild acne as a teenager and remember being mortified when my mother took me to the doctor when I was about 15 to see if there was any medical treatment that could help with acne removal. Luckily, a 3 month course of antibiotics cured the problem, and I was not left with any scars. For most people, acne is a hormonal issue that sorts itself out as you get older, but for anyone suffering from adult acne the problem is much more serious.

Light treatment has long been known to help acne sufferers – a fortnight in the sun works wonders on your spots but what about when you get home again? There have been dramatic advances in home light therapy treatments which mean that you can treat yourself at home, in private, as often as required and on an ongoing basis. The devices are usually hand held and they are easy to operate. They have been fully tested to ensure that they are safe to operate yourself provided that you follow all the instructions carefully. Never use the devices more than recommended, and you should always seek advice from the manufacturer if you experience any adverse skin reactions.

As well as helping acne sufferers, light therapy also works great as an anti-aging treatment and is used by many celebrities.

Question About Shipping Costs From The US

Melissa — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:16:54 +0000

I received this query about shipping costs for wholesale cosmetics deals being sent from the US to Europe. My reply is also copied below…

Hi Mel, a quick query , I’m interested in becoming a member, my only concern is that the makeup and cosmetics shipments mainly come from the States. Living in Tenerife how do the shipping costs work out? Also I was stung once buying from the States before through eBay, even though it went to arbitration and the company agreed to refund me after removing my complaint, they didn’t, so I had no way of going back through eBay as they closed the case as resolved and I ended up with no refund either. So I’m a little hesitant to say the least at sending monies there.

I love the concept of what you’re doing , and by the way love your website. At the moment I buy beauty products through makeup wholesalers through the UK and haven’t had any problems yet, however cutting out the middle man is obviously the way forward as we are developing the wholesale cosmetics side here in the Canaries and cost matters by the time you add shipping and customs etc. It was a few years ago when I got stung so have no idea now what shipping costs are. Sorry if I’ve rabbited on a bit , hope you get the general idea of what I mean. Kind regards, Judy D.

Here’s my reply…

Hi Judy

The shipping costs are the regular courier charges for UPS or whatever, and you can always get a shipping quote before you order, as obviously it depends on the size/weight of the package. I really don’t find that shipping is a problem as for small makeup items like eyeshadows/lipsticks etc you can easily fit 100 items in a fairly small and light box. If you add a guesstimate of 50c – $1 item for shipping that should usually cover it, unless of course it is heavier items like skincare but like I said above just get the shipping quote first to check.

Re your eBay experience, I can’t really comment as these sellers would be selling to you direct, just make sure always to use credit card or paypal so that you are covered. You are right to be careful but there is always a little bit of risk involved in any business especially when the seller is not on your doorstep so I would always advise to start small until you have built some good supplier relationships that you trust. Hope that helps, best wishes, Mel.