When I look at the amount of money I’ve spent on luxury skincare and beauty over the last few years I feel slightly sick.
OK, so that’s what I’m supposed to say. What I’d actually like to say is: SKINCARE AND BEAUTY IS SUCH A THRILL! I LOVE EVERY ASPECT OF SPENDING HUNDREDS OF POUNDS ON MAKING MYSELF FEEL GOOD!
The thing is, when you buy into luxury skincare as I have in lieu of treating myself in the more traditional ways it becomes a whole ritual: unwrapping the packaging, discovering the products, plotting where they’ll fit into your beauty routine… if you’re time-poor (like, you know, all parents ever), the time you take out to treat yourself to beauty products by incorporating them into a mini at-home facial or face of make-up is priceless.
“Women walk into retail, and for something that costs three pounds they are paying £45”, says Marcia Kilgore, founder of Beauty Pie. “I’m making the market fairer”.
And it was this ritual I thought I’d miss when I started hearing whispers of a company called Beauty Pie.
Eating A Slice Of Beauty Pie
Beauty Pie is a company with a very interesting business model. Launched back in 2016 by industry stalwart Marcia Kilgore, she behind Bliss Spa and Soap & Glory, Marcia declared the beauty biz ripe for disruption and started vocalising how wrong it was that such hefty mark-ups were added to beauty and skincare products.
“Women walk into retail, and for something that costs three pounds they are paying £45”, she says. “I’m making the market fairer”.
Beauty Pie is a membership club that specialises in high calibre makeup and skincare that does away with the mark-up added by big brands to cover marketing, retailer 
charges and unnecessary corporate overheads. All products are manufactured in exactly the same way as your favourite luxury brands, with formulations coming out of the exact Swiss, Korean, French and Italian labs used by these companies that retail at multiple times the price.
Transparency is key and included for each and every product is the breakdown of manufacturing cost, with packaging, warehousing and safety and testing all accounted for to provide clarity on the true cost of the products, coming out at around 10% of what you’d usually pay at retail but with no compromise on quality.
So what’s the catch?
Really, the only limit with Beauty Pie is how much you can buy. Memberships starts at £5 a month for a £50 spending limit (the limit coming from the recommended retail prices of the products you’re shopping), rising to £20 a month for a £200 limit with any unspent budget rolling in to the next month and extra spending bonuses available for new customer referrals.
When you’re spending £20 instead of £200 you become so excited about the stone-cold high-quality bargains the postman is handing over, everything else ceases to matter.
As a guide, last month I spent £23 at Beauty Pie and for this amount I bought a highlighter block, a lipgloss, a nail varnish, a blusher and a mascara: you wouldn’t get this amount of make-up for the same price at a low-quality budget high street retailer!
When I first started shopping at Beauty Pie I was worried I’d miss the experience of shopping luxury beauty as the unpacking and unwrapping process is something I really enjoy. So luckily for me, with Beauty Pie you still get that – everything comes beautifully wrapped in tissue paper and hygienically boxed and sealed as you’d expect from any high-end beauty retailer.
And really, when you’re spending £20 instead of £200 you become so excited about the stone-cold luxury-quality bargains the postman is handing over, everything else ceases to matter.
I’ve found some real favourites at Beauty Pie, products that have become staples in my daily routine, ones that work as well as or better than those I used before. The Strobing Drops for £5.51 where I used to spend £61 at a luxury brand, the day moisturiser that’s £10.03 instead of £93, the perfect shade of red lipstick that I now save £27 on. The savings I’m seeing for such incredible products are insane.
Having spent six months as a member of Beauty Pie I’m completely sold on the model. Not only have I saved a fortune since I started shopping here but I’ve been thoroughly impressed the products I’ve used, with there being absolutely no scrimping on quality or enjoyment of the process.
In short, Beauty Pie is a real treat: I’m going to continue to eat from it (i.e. put their products on my face) for a really long time.
Get a £50 extra spending bonus by entering the code ALICESENTME at check-out.
Beauty Pie sent me my first box of products to try for free: I’ve shopped with them for five months since and wholeheartedly recommend them.
