Top beauty bargains

Check out these seven ways to bag top beauty and cosmetics bargains!

1. Big brands at little prices

FeelUnique is one of the best websites around when it comes to designer brand cosmetics. Most of the savings are down to the fact that it's based in Jersey and is therefore tax-free. Plus, you don't pay a penny for UK delivery. That means that you can purchase beauty faves such as Yves Saint Laurent Touche Eclat for only £17.50 - which would normally set you back £23.

Another site worth checking out is Cheapsmells.com. As the name suggests, they originally began selling perfume but later branched out into skincare and cosmetics. On the cosmetics side of things, Cheapsmells regularly comes out on top price-wise.  There is a £0.95 delivery charge per item (or £1.95 for gift sets) but with such low prices originally it's always worth a look.

2. Join the club

Last year Debenhams launched a free beauty club reward card allowing members to collect points on all their beauty purchases. You earn one point for every £1 spent, up to £25. If you spend over this, you earn three points per pound. Once you've built up 500 points you're rewarded with £5 to spend on any beauty products.

You'll need to pick up a card in store then activate it online here. You can use your rewards as part purchase - so you won't have to wait around forever to build up thousands of points before you can make a saving.

If you're really serious about beauty, clubs such as Beauty VIP offer exclusive discounts for members. It isn't particularly cheap at £32.99 for a year's membership but with that you'll get a minimum discount of 20% that can be used at a host of online and high street retailers, plus a cute black and gold book full of beauty reviews, hints and tips. This is only really worthwhile if you're a bit of a beauty addict and will use lots of the offers throughout the year. You can search for current offers here to get an idea of the potential savings.

3. Budget brand beauty

If you're not bothered about designer name tags when it comes to make-up I would recommend EyesLipsFace.co.uk where almost every product is just £1.50.

I've actually tried lots of these products myself and was pretty impressed. Delivery does cost £2.95 per order, but it's free if you spend over £30.

Don't dismiss supermarkets either. Some supermarket own-brand items are surprisingly good (remember the Barbara Daly make-up range at Tesco?) so keep an eye out next time you're doing your weekly grocery shop.

4. Discounted luxury hair care

For salon haircare products there are lots of sites offering heavy discounts but one of the most reliable that I've found is Wantthelook.com. It only sells genuine professional products from brands such as Kerastase, Redken and Tigi Catwalk.

The delivery charge is a bit of a snag though - it costs £2.45, plus 55p per item, for delivery to the UK mainland. If this puts you off, it's still worth having a look at the website for its free style guide here, which is full of some genuinely helpful hair care tips and tricks.

You should also keep an eye out for freebies and discounts on various salon websites. Nationwide salon Headmasters, for example, has introduced the 'Credit Crunch Colour' promotion offering 30% off all colour every Tuesday. Plus, as part of the 'Me Day Monday' you can have a cut, style and full head of highlights for only £90.

Find your nearest Headmasters salon here.

5. Cheapest spa days

The best websites I've come across for spa treats are Wahanda and Spaseekers, which both list various special offers for spas across the UK and Europe

Wahanda is my personal favourite because the website has recently launched its MobDeal - a fantastic idea that involves a group of people using their collective buying power to save themselves a fortune.

The way it works is that Wahanda secures a special volume discount with top spas to offer one MobDeal for 24 hours. The discounts are usually massive and exclusive so you can actually save a lot of money. If enough people sign up the offer goes live for the rest of the day and anyone is free to snap up the deal. If there isn't enough interest, no-one gets the deal.

6. Frugal fragrance

Firstly steer clear of the high street. Perfume is so much cheaper online with sites such as Cheapsmells and FragranceDirect offering savings of as much as 80% on high street prices.

Both are pretty reliable on price so they're a good place to start. There are also some dedicated perfume comparison sites such as Fragrances Compared and Cheap Perfume Expert which may come in handy.

It may even pay to check out prices from some of the big US sites which deliver to the UK, such as Perfume Emporium. You'll need to factor in extra for delivery, customs and VAT (which should work out to roughly 30% of the purchase), but if the original price is good enough it could be worthwhile.

7. Double-check you've found the best possible price

Getting the best price is all about being pro-active. Now that you're (hopefully) taking on some of my other tips you should be armed with enough information to know where the best prices are likely to be.

But, your work is not over yet. Now you need to double check that you've found the lowest possible price but using price comparison sites like Pricerunner and Kelkoo.

The next step is to see if there are any voucher codes up for grabs on the item you've chosen. For example, right now you can save an extra 10% at Wantthelook.com simply by entering the voucher code 'naughty10' at the checkout.

Search for voucher codes on sites such as Vouchercodes.co.uk and Myvouchercodes.co.uk and sign up to the newsletters of your favourite sites because there are often exclusive offers for subscribers.

Finally, if you know of any tips for hunting down beauty bargains, why not share them with other lovemoney.com members using the comments box below?

If you like bargains, check out our new Frugal Friday blog, which rounds up the hottest bargains, freebies and discounts available on the high street, every Friday. If you're registered on lovemoney.com, you can follow the blog and find new posts as soon as they are published, via your personal homepage. Never miss a bargain again - register now.