Finding Beauty Bargains Online by Michelle Madhok (NAPSA)—In their never-end- ing quest to stay on top of trends and look fabulous with ease, more and more women are bypassing the cosmetics counter and heading straight for the PC to get their perfume, polish, makeup and more. In fact, Jupiter Communications projects that online sales of skin care, cosmetics and fra- grances will reach $1.2 billion in 2003. Net-savvy women can save money yet still look great by Madhok scooping up hot deals on every- thing from cool shades of makeup to sultry scents. It’s a snap on the Web, where freebies and bargains abound. If you look hard enough, you'll find that many beauty-related dotcoms offer customer incentives, such as beauty bargains and freebies. For example, Avon.com offers tremendous discounts, a free gift set with $40 purchase and an eRepresentative locator. Shop@ AOL's Clearance Center allows you to save 25 percent or more on designer fragrances. Other sites may provide free shipping and online rewards points, such as Sephora.com, which offers free shipping on all orders over $60 and complimentary gift packaging. America Online offers these tips on getting the best beauty bang for the buck: Seek star-style advice from the pros. If you’re done shelling out moolah for less-than- marvelous makeup, get a little help from the pros via Elle.com. This site gives consumers the opportunity to e-mail questions to makeup guru Bobbi Brown and celebrity hairstylist River Lloyd for star-style advice. Whether you’re a blue-eyed blond or an olive-skinned brunette, you can find out what colors look best with your skin tone. For the tress-dis- tressed, check out hairstyles that flatter your face shape before redoing your ‘do. If you want more from Bobbi Brown, you can go to her Web site (www.bobbibrown cosmetics.com) and watch videos of make-up applications. Get a free makeover. Short and breezy, long and sophisti- cated? Women looking for a new unloading it on eBay. More than an online avenue for snatching hardto-find Beanie Babies or velvet Elvises, eBay offers a virtual cosmetic store stocked with new and lightly used makeup at bargain basement prices. Just search for your favorite brand and place a bid. Get spa treatment at home. For luscious-sounding, easy-to-prepare recipes meant to beautify the outside versus the inside, check out iVillage’s “Spa Recipe Finder” on AOL Women’s Channel under Keyword: Beauty. Treat your face to a mineral mud treatment, apple blossom facial mist or grapefruit-and-fennel facial steam—all of which you can mix up in your own kitchen for less money than a trip to the spa. Give your hair the same luxurious spa treatment with an orangechamomile hair rinse or lavenderand-rosemary scalp treatment. Search freebie sites. From look can get a free virtual make- shampoo and skin care samples to fragrances and more, the Web photo of themselves; then, they bargains and fantastic freebie over on iVillage by submitting a can quick-click experiment with different hairstyles and makeup online. Bid on beauty. For some women, realizing they bought the wrong makeup meansstashing it away in the drawer or dumping it down the drain. For others, it means making a tidy profit by offers a virtual bonanza of beauty offers. Simply run a search for “beauty freebies” on most search engines to connect to an extensive list of sites. Michelle Madhok, AOL’s Ms. M and Director of Key Audiences, oversees content of special interest to women on AOL. Visit AOL Keyword: Ms. M.
