Tips for Saving Your Face and Your Money

Cathy Faust's salon hair color lasts weeks longer now with the help of brush-on camouflage -- a $7 box of root touch-up color. "You just keep parting your hair," said the University of Tennessee Extension Service agent, "and wherever you see white, you touch it up."

Sharon Genus, also an extension agent who works with Faust at Agricenter International, has swapped her premium-brand cleansers for black soap. The traditional African soap, touted for healing properties, cleans her skin better and costs less, she said.

Like a lot of folks hit by the recession, Faust and Genus are looking for less painful ways to cut back, and finding them among beauty products and services.

After years of increases, salon product sales are expected to drop 1 percent this year, as women trade down to less-expensive brands, according to Mintel, a market research company. Anti-aging products are expected to drop less, .2 percent, thanks to aging baby boomers. But more boomers, too, will be looking for youth in the aisles of drugstores and mass marketers.

That's fertile ground, said Paula Begoun, longtime beauty products author and consumer advocate. There is never any reason to pay more than $6 for a hair care product, she said. And "price has nothing to do with quality in cosmetics. There are good and bad products in all price ranges," she said.

For example, you can pay almost $50 for a 1.3 oz. jar of Shiseido Benefiance Revitalizing Cream, which her review found to be "a relatively standard moisturizer" with a tiny amount of antioxidants that will break down shortly after you open the jar. Or you can pay about $20 for 1.7 ounces of Olay's Total Effects 7-In-1 Anti-Aging Moisturizer, Mature Skin Therapy, for normal-to-dry skin, that "contains several state-of-the-art ingredients and that can improve the appearance and healthy, functioning of skin at any age," she writes.

Begoun, best-selling author of "Don't Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me," offers consumer education on new skin treatments and sells her own Paula's Choice products at cosmeticscop.com. Additionally, she offers an updated list of relatively inexpensive products of all kinds, including cleaners, exfoliants, moisturizers, sunscreens, makeup and more at cosmeticscop.com/best-skin-care-makeup-products-2008.aspx.

It's also smart to put beauty dollars where they will do the most good. "The secret to beautiful skin is not moisturization but exfoliation," said Dr. Kris Leventhal of East Memphis Aesthetics. At minimum, you need a topical product containing Retin-A (retinoic acid), she said, which both exfoliates and stimulates collagen production.