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TikToker reveals why she always checks beauty products before throwing them away: 'It costs you money'

"You can save money just by paying attention to how things are designed."

Packaging hack, checking beauty products

Photo Credit: @sustainable_sara / TikTok

Beauty products can be expensive. But there's a way to cut your spending on these products by up to 50%: You simply use all the product you buy without throwing it in the garbage.

Sounds easy, right? Well, it's actually much easier said than done, TikTok user @sustainable_sara explains in a popular video.

@sustainable_sara Episode 1 | when packaging is so bad that it costs you money. @Drunk Elephant this is not ok #fyp #sustainability #beautyhacks ♬ original sound - sustainable_sara

"I'm going to show you how with everyday products, how you can save money just by paying attention to how things are designed," Sara tells her viewers. 

She then goes on to do just that, taking what appears to be a 50-milliliter jar of Drunk Elephant Protini Polypeptide Firming Moisturizer ($68.00 from Sephora) and demonstrating how, when the container appears to be completely empty, it actually still contains around half of the product.

"This is so poorly designed by Drunk Elephant," Sara says. "There is SO MUCH product in here that's not getting picked up by [the squeeze mechanism.] … This is a solid couple months worth of product."

Beauty products are already covered in plastic, the bulk of which ends up sitting in landfills and polluting our oceans. So anything that leads to buying fewer products is a good idea. And in this case, you aren't sacrificing anything — you're simply using all the product you already purchased, resulting in you spending half as much money while going through half as much plastic.

In that sense, this packaging hack has got to be one of the simplest and easiest skincare tips we've seen (though it is by no means the only one worth trying).

"When packaging is so bad that it costs you money," Sara's caption reads. 

Hopefully, Drunk Elephant and other similar brands will take a look at their packaging in the future and prioritize function a little more. But until then, it's on us to get every last drop of $68 moisturizer out of the weird little jar-inside-a-larger-jar container and onto our faces.

"Open up this packaging," Sara implores. "You use a tube of something … cut [the bottom] off, get all the product in there. You know why? Cause life is expensive."

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