Beauty Pie: Introducing the New Budget-Friendly Beauty Concept On the Block

Being totally up front: I am bit bored with subscription boxes. Although a treat through the post every months is lovely, I think the money would often be better spent on one thing you really want as there's often a lot of repetition in brands featured and products you might not use.

So when a box of Beauty Pie goodies arrived a few weeks ago, I was quick to write it off as a similar subscription-style service. Which was wrong of me. Bad Kat for being so quick to judge.

Beauty Pie is actually a totally different concept. Created by a team that have worked in the beauty industry for many years, they're giving you access to products at cost price. You have to pay a monthly subscription fee of £10 in order to be able to do this, but in return you’re able to order products at incredibly cheap prices compared to their 'non-member' price.

They say that they provide high end products at factory prices, removing the usual markup that you get once a product hits a typical brand counter.  With typical markups often being almost 12 times the actual cost price of a product, it’s easy to see why these kinds of savings might attract people to Beauty Pie, but I wanted to see if the concept really stands up when you take a closer look.

The products themselves do seem really good. I was sent a sample box to trial and was impressed with the quality of formulations – the One Powder Wonder in particular was a standout, as was the FutureLipstick (these come in satin and matte finishes). While the packaging is pretty basic, it’s functional and does the job, but won’t win any Instagram awards. Interestingly, it also feels very light as they’ve taken out any heavy glass tubes and added weights that sometimes crop up in packaging (all designed to give a luxury ‘feel’ or make up feel like you have lots more product!).

Price-wise, a Beauty Pie Smart Powder Blusher has a ‘Regular Price’ of £18, but a Factory Cost of £2.51. Likewise, a lipstick has a 'Regular Price' of £20, but members can purchase for £2.24. You’ll need the £10 per month membership in order to purchase at the lower prices and this doesn’t include shipping and handling costs, so the price can rack up if you’re not careful. You’re also tied into to a subscription for a minimum of three months, so you will need to order quite a few products to make it good value.

Depending on membership level, you are able to buy a certain value of products every month (upto £100 of ‘regular’ price products from the £10 a month membership) which works out to around 5 products a month. The selection at the moment is quite basic, although Beauty Pie are looking to expand this and also branch out to skincare and beauty tools as time goes on.

At the moment, I’m not sure how popular the service will be – there are so many great products on the high street from budget brands like MUA, Makeup Revolution and the like that I think it’s questionable whether or not paying a monthly subscription would be good value in the long run.

Although you do get some great formulas with Beauty Pie, and the ingredient lists are VERY similar to large named brands, I don’t think I will be giving up my high end hauling ways just yet. For me, the high price tag often justifies the luxe packaging and a emotional connection of buying into a luxury brand. As many of the cheaper brands are also owned by the parent companies of the luxury ones, there’s also something to be said for crossover in product technologies as it filters down to the high street.

I’m excited to see how Beauty Pie will be expanding shade ranges, product lines and most of all, the skincare. Decent quality, budget skincare is hard to find at the best of times, so if they can crack that, then I think they’ll be on to a real winner.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the Beauty Pie concept – is it something you’d be interested in signing up to?

*contains PR samples