5 Ways to Use Temptalia to Save Money on Beauty Products
We’re all about shopping smarter, which means we’re here to show you how you can save money on your favorite makeup and beauty products. There are several resources available to everyone to ensure that every purchase is a good purchase for your personal needs. My goal is to help you make better purchasing decisions, whether that’s indulging on a luxury product, getting a cheaper and better alternative, avoiding buying that 18th red lipstick you know you already have, or just cutting through some of the hype behind a product. This post includes five ways to use what Temptalia offers to save money on makeup products, resist temptation of buying a new beauty product, and getting the most out of the beauty products you own.
Create Your Vanity & Keep Track of Your Beauty Products
When you become a registered member, you’ll unlock access to your Vanity, which is area you can add and keep track of all of the products you own.  The Vanity is a really cool feature that goes beyond just creating a digital list of products you have. You’ll get a visual representation of the products you have with your own “Swatch Gallery” (of any products that we have photos/swatches for). You’ll be able to filter your vanity to just see what eyeshadows you own or what MAC products you have.
For every product you own, you can also track things like when you purchased or opened it, whether you’d repurchase, how many you have or how much you’ve used, along with personal notes (that are just for you!), like “breaks me out” or “summer color.”
View Dupes You Already Own
Here’s where things get really cool and show you just how powerful it can be to take some time to add the products you own into your Vanity… You can view dupes found IN your vanity; these are dupes you already own, which can be a great way to start decluttering and help determine why you use one over another. Oh, oh, and if those aren’t enough dupes for your satisfaction? Try going to the end of the page and clicking “possible dupes,” which will give you even more insight into potentially similar shades you have!
See products that you have that are dupes of each other
View Dupes You Already Own for Products You Want
You can also view dupes between your Vanity and your Wishlist, effectively ensuring that if you’ve got your eye on something, it isn’t already present in your stash (and if it’s similar, you’ll know that in advance and can make a decision from there).
You don’t have to add something to your Wishlist to take advantage of seeing what dupes you already have of a product, though, because at any time, you can check whether you have dupes of a product by clicking “limit results to items in my vanity” when you’re on The Dupe List or clicking “check vanity for dupes” when you’re on any product’s Dupe List!
Check your vanity for dupes when browsing any product’s dupes!
Note: The vanity is going to be most useful and most meaningful for those who do tend to purchase more products that I’ve reviewed (past and present) than products that aren’t reviewed at all — but we have a system built so you can add products as you go to help streamline that process so you can still track products that aren’t in the database as well!
The Dupe List
As one of the core features on Temptalia, The Dupe List remains one of the most popular parts of the site. There are over 230,000 dupes in the database with more being added almost every single day. The way we built this feature was to help you find a dupe for any reason, whether that’s finding a more affordable option, one that’s currently available, one by another brand, or one that’s more accessible in your area (or whatever reason you may have!).
Check for Dupes Before You Buy
There are certain shades we all gravitate toward, and while some redundancy might be workable, sometimes it can get out of hand to the point where it feels overwhelming. Depending on your personal needs, two overlapping shades may be disastrous and for others, more then ten similar shades is the breaking point. It’s a good rule of thumb, though, to check out the dupes listed for a particular product you’re considering. Pro tip: limit results to items in your vanity / check your vanity for dupes to compare against what you own.
Limit your search results to show only dupes you own!
Compare Any Two Palettes Before You Buy
Worried that there may be too much overlap between two palettes? You can pull up a comparison on-the-fly of any two palettes that we have swatched. Head over to The Dupe List and Compare Any Two Palettes. We’ll show you any actual dupes (that are officially on The Dupe List) along with most similar shades (e.g. two shades of browns that are listed within similar depth, undertone, shimmer level) as well.
Compare Any Two Shades
If you’ve ever asked me how A and B shades compare, I’ve most likely answered but also directed you to check out our Compare Any Two feature, which allows you to pull up swatches of any two products on-the-fly. You can easily compare swatches of two shades this way, and if it looks like a dupe I missed, you can even add it to the Dupe List!
You’re welcome! ?
Christine, there is no end to your brilliance in making this the best beauty site in the whole world! Love it all.
Thank you, Genevieve!
This feature is fabulous. I will definitely start utilizing!
Yay!!
Thank you so much for this invaluable feature, Christine! I know it’s really helped me with overspending. I try to contribute to the dupe lists as much as I can too.
I’m so glad to hear it, Rabbit 😀 I appreciate your submissions!
Christine, that’s why your blog has become and will continue to be such a useful resource and a very valuable individual and collective database!
I will start to use the Vanity/Wishlist more regularly as they are such useful tools! Also, the “Compare swatches” option helped me so much in choosing the right shade of lipstick when comparing between an unknown one (not swatched in person by me) and one that I already have and like. Not to mention that your recommendations and reviews saved me a lot of money!
Note: I owe you a big THANK YOU for indicating the correct discount code for the recent Sephora sale (I know I sent you a Feedback message and maybe you thought “What is she talking about ?”). On a well-known Instagram account, the code for Rouge was initially shown as ROUGEBONUS, while the correct one was yours, ENJOY. When the sale started, people started to enter the wrong code and missed some products. I did it too, but quickly switched to the code mentioned on your blog and I was able to place that order. A couple of minutes later two of the products were out of stock and remained so online for the duration of the sale.
So yeah, a big THANK YOU for everything!!
Happy to be able to have had the right info for you, Nicole! I try very hard to only post when I’ve received the info from an official source (retailer, brand, PR, agency, etc.). 🙂
This is awesome. Thank you!
My pleasure!
When I stop to think about how much money I may have wasted we’re it not for these outlined features on your site? I actually get a shiver down my spine! Does this mean I have no dupes in my stash? No. But nowhere close to what *might* have been otherwise. And for this, I am grateful!
I think we all have different aims/breaking points – like there are just certain shades I enjoy so much that even small nuances are noteworthy differences to me (but for someone else they’d be dupes!).
Happy I can help!
Christine, once again I just have to say thank you for everything you’ve done with Temptalia. I’ve always used the Vanity and Wishlist features and thought they were great and so very helpful. But this post has taught me a few things I didn’t know like the fact I can search for dupes in my own Vanity. Now I’ll have to spend a lot more time looking around this feature. You’ve really brought the makeup community something of worth….we’d be lost without you, Christine (and Temptalia)!
Ooh, so glad that I was able to share something new with you, Shari! 🙂
Thank you so much for everything you do. I LOVE and use many of these features all the time and definitely appreciate being told about ones that I hadn’t noticed. I’m especially excited to add new products as I’ve currently got a supplemental stash list (that I sometimes forget to check, leading to actual duplicate products -even triplicate once- which I consider to be active failure on my part). For me, makeup goes in the category of art supplies and although one sometimes, eventually, uses up that giant tube of titanium white, it’s pretty damn rare, and backups are more likely to bog down the system than to be actually useful.
I try to remind myself that it’s okay to post about features from time to time for exactly that reason – there are lots of them and not everybody knows everything about them like I do, LOL!
So true – even I still fall prey to finding myself with far too many doubles or triples… and wonder how I accumulated them all!
Wait. You mean that buying that 18th red lipstick that really-doesn’t-look-like-the-other-17 isn’t advisable?
Probably not advisable, but if it’s in your budget and you fully realize it is solely a nice-to-have and not a need-to-have, you do you 🙂
Thank you so much for all that you do! The vanity and dupes features have helped me so much! Plus I love to compare things on here just for fun.
My pleasure, Stephanie!
This is an example of why you are the hardest working and most thoughtful blogger in the world of beauty! I truly appreciate everything you do. Thank you so much and I hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving! 🙂
Thank you, Pami! Happy Thanksgiving!
Christine! This feels like life/bank account changing! Thank you so much!
My pleasure, Aimee!
I did not know that we can make our own vanity until I see this post LOL. I now added all my CP palettes and shadows in my vanity to find dupe easier for future wish list purchase. Thanks, Christine!
Yep! If you are registered, you get all the goodies: write (and keep track of) reviews, vanity, wishlist, looks (that you submit), ability to save your foundation/concealer matches (to save time looking up a match in X formula), anything you’ve loved, and any recommendations you’ve made 🙂
I love all these features and use them regularly. I only recently got most of my palettes added to my vanity and have loved the ease of comparing products to shades I already own. I need to work on adding my lip and cheek products as well as my eyeshadow singles. Thank you for all the hard work that goes into this.
It warms me up inside when readers use some of the more niche features! 😀
What a terrific feature. I had no idea it existed. I just registered–or tried to. I must be missing something because the email validation is asking for an activation key? I confess that I didn’t read all of the fine print… Thanks in advance.
Let me know your user name or email nick[at]temptalia.com to let him know your user name / email address you’re used, and we can look into it!
Thank you Christine for the very helpful tips! Except I don’t want to look at my dupes cause that would mean I have what I’m dreaming of already. Lol! So no wishful thinking or dreaming for me but…why do they make them so pretty, beautiful and tempting?! Lol! Is torture. I’m on a serious no buy for a good 6 months and then some we will see? But I’m been better lately as my stash is getting out of hand and don’t want to need finding more space.
Your blog really helps! ?
Happy Thanksgivings everyone!
Good luck on your no-buy, Silvia!
Wow, Christine, this blows me away! I had no idea this was available. You are so amazing. Thank you so much for all you do!
Thank you, Brenda!
The vanity and wishlist are my lifesavers ! I’m a hoarder that means I’m also very bad at keeping track of what I own, I don’t know what I’d do without these features !
It’s hard to remember it all!!
Really brilliant work Christine, congratulations! Swatch gallery is my right hand! Is vanity list which one create, accessible to everyone?
You have to be a registered user, but once you’re registered, you’ll have your own profile, which includes the ability to add products to your vanity. Registration is required because we have to keep track of everything you have and do so by your user ID!
I am going to work on my Vanity over the next few days in the hope of staying away from Black Friday. Thank you so much. I second everything that everyone has said above.
That’s a great idea, Lesley!
Thank you for the prompt. I keep thinking of doing a database, and then realize a far more brilliant person has already constructed what I likely ought to do. Especially since my age is leading to those terrible clinical syndromes, MUD and TMS: Make Up Dementia and Too Much Stash. I kind of get intimidated by the process of starting up the vanity (which I have considered for years.) But, like making all my LPs into CDs…which are also obsolete at present… it seems like a huge undertaking. Following you blog has definitely helped me rein it in, regardless of non-vanity status…to date, anyway. Maybe I’ll put that on the T Day to do list, just a start for comfort level. Happy Thanksgiving, Christine, and I join all the others in thanking you for this incredible site and your incredible mind.
From what I’ve heard from other readers, putting in palettes is easiest/fastest – so that might be a good way to check it out and see how you like the system!
Man, I wish I only had 18 red lipsticks, har.
But in all seriousness, I use the Dupe and Side-by-side Swatch features SO much.
It’s not perfect, but it’s a starting point for a lot of my purchases. For example, if I look for dupes for NARS Jane, the dupe page lists both Bite Cin Cin and Maybelline Maple Kiss. Both of these listings have numerous votes, so people must agree… but I own all three and they look so, so different to me, whether swatched on my hand or on my lips. What to do? Maybe I just got different batches of these…?
I have found the eyeshadow side-by-side swatches especially useful lately, as I try and rebuild a shadow collection (long story).
I will say I wish there were a way to disagree somehow with things like foundation listings. I use Josie Maran Vibrancy in Dynamic, the palest shade. I can also wear NARS Siberia, which is a touch yellow but pretty good… and Too Faced Swan (noticeably paler than Too Faced Snow) is great on me. BUT the foundation grid seems to think Dynamic is darker than it is and therefore suggests NARS Deauville as a match, which would be WAYYYYY too dark for anybody looking for something similar to the JM Dynamic. At least on the mobile version of the website, there’s no way that I can see to indicate that this is not a match.
At any rate, I’m on this site almost obsessively, as a frequent and primarily online based consumer of makeup products. I appreciate both the databases and the continual refinement of the processes!
You can vote on how well a shade matches (based on your skin tone / undertone), and when there are enough votes, we can and do adjust the categorization of a shade! You have to be a registered user and logged in to vote (it is a way to prevent voting fraud). You can also send me an email to let me know, and I can look into it again as well, but if nobody says anything, there’s not much we can do!
Thank you! I had another look and saw, for the first time, the little flags. I also finally figured out how to vote for a shade as a match — maybe I’m just slow!
Anyway, thank you again! Especially for those of us on the absolute fringes of shade ranges (at both ends of the spectrum), not wasting money on something unusable is… nontrivial.
I am proud of finally using up my Benefit “I’m Pure 4 Sure” Ivory, though to use it, I had to mix it 40% to 60% pure white mixer. 0_0 Not a great sign of an inclusive shade range, when that’s the lightest shade.
Okay, last tangent for this thread, I promise: my best friend and I bonded in our early teens when she couldn’t find foundation dark enough for her, and I couldn’t find anything light enough. It’s been over 20 years, and we both have at least a few options these days, though not many. But we’re still best friends to this day!
That’s a really interesting story, Tessa, about you and your best friend! Here’s hoping that 2019 brings us even more shades!
Hi Christine, linked to what Tessa said, I often wish there was a way that I could vote “not a dupe” to possible dupes. Is this a possible future feature?
Also, am I dreaming that we used yo be able to contribute our own swatches? I would happily do this for some of my more niche items if it helps people out. Obviously your swatches would still be default/gold standard where available!
Hi Hannah,
We’d have to build an entire system to accommodate user photos, so while it’s a consideration, it’s not currently on our roadmap! You can submit an error report if you believe it’s not a dupe but is listed as one. If it’s possible, then it’s not on the Dupe List, just listed as a possibility and therefore we aren’t tracking the is/not (since then that’s a lot of unnecessary data we’ll end up with – lots of NOT dupes!).
Ah OK I see, thank you so much for taking the time to reply!
I need to spend more time on this!
I’m somewhat catching up by scrolling through my purchase history on my phone and entering on my tablet.
Temptalia continues to be the best possible resource for informed buying. Thank you ?
Thank you!! 🙂
How did I not know this existed?!?!?! This is great! I have been wanting to stop buying so much darn makeup, and stop getting things I basically already have. What a great feature!!!
YAY! 😀
This is awesome! I will be totally using the vanity feature!
Woohoo!!
Talk about an eye opening experience I put some of my palettes in my vanity and hit the find dupes button. Let’s just say I keep buying the same thing. I had already decided I wasn’t buying anymore eyeshadow palettes but this just reinforced it for me. What a great feature! I rather buy a single shadow then pay for a palette full of shades I already have for that one pop of color. Especially when I probably already have that ‘pop’ somewhere else.
So glad it could help, Nyxx! At a certain point, it does get better to just buy the one-off shade that you don’t have than a whole palette of shades you don’t need!
Thanks! This is the push I needed to work on my vanity it’s an amazing feature! Can’t wait to utilize it.
Awesome to hear!
Thank you so much for making this invaluable resource.
My pleasure, CK!
Everyone who uses your site should take heed to this article! Seriously. And thanks for making the vanity Christine. It’s helping me sooo much this holiday season.
I’ve been using the vanity and wish list features for quite a while and I find them super helpful in multiple ways, one especially around sales. I love that I can filter my wish list by brand and priority e.g. during MAC’s Black Friday sale I was able to quickly filter my wish list by “high” priority and MAC only – I placed my order online.
Christine, I assumed all that used your site were utilizing the features – I’ve been using them for quite a while and I can’t imagine myself without them – not an exaggeration! so many features but another I’d call out; is that you can add the date of when you purchased something – I thought I had bought something a couple of months but when I reviewed I had it for over a year.
Your blog has already saved me so much time and frustration over the years and this is just another wonderful feature. Thank you for all of your hard work.