Everywhere you turn, there’s some influencer or beauty guru promoting the next luxury skincare or makeup product that is going to transform your face forever. It’s no wonder that the health and beauty industry in the UK has soared to a staggering GBP43.56 billion despite the cost of living crisis. But whilst this boom brings us more choice than ever, there’s no denying that many of the best products come with a hefty price tag, and it’s no wonder that cosmetics competitions are so popular!
In this blog, we look at how you can increase your chances of winning top brand cosmetics, where to find the best beauty comps and how to give yourself a winning edge.
Types of cosmetics competitions
There are a few different types of cosmetics competitions that you can enter, including:
- Social media giveaways: These usually ask you to do some action such as like a company page, share a post, tag friends and so on. The idea behind these is typically to raise brand awareness of the cosmetics, or increase the company’s social media following.
- Purchase necessary: These are simply incentives to encourage you to try something new, or to choose one beauty product over another. Tip: save your receipts, they’re usually required if you win.
- Website or other site giveaways: These are also typically to raise awareness of the beauty products or brand; or to draw you into the site (so you make purchases). Often there will be a write-up of the product or service, then entry to the draw might involve answering a question that was included in the write-up, and/or a newsletter signup.
- Paid prize draws: These require you to buy a ticket for a chance to win. In the UK there must always be a free postal entry route too.
Example Instagram giveaway from earlier in the year with typical entry requirements
Where to find the best cosmetics competitions
There are so many sources to find great cosmetics competitions. Here are some ideas:
Aggregate websites
Aggregate websites bring together competitions from a range of sources. Popular sites include:
- Loquax is one of the biggest and best aggregators and you can filter for cosmetics competitions specifically: https://www.loquax.co.uk/competitions/win-Beauty-&-Cosmetics.php Create an account and you can track which comps you have entered.
- Money Saving Expert standard competitions forum is another good source. Although you can’t filter by cosmetics, it does have a search box: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/competitions-time You can mark each comp as ‘entered’ or ‘skipped’.
- Good Housekeeping has a wide range of prizes from various brands. You can’t filter by beauty and cosmetics specifically, nor is there a search box, so you just have to browse this one. It does often have beauty treats – currently you can win a fragrance design experience, body and mind gift bags from Pure Lakes and a girl’s night in spa voucher: https://comps.goodhousekeeping.co.uk/
- Competitions Database requires free signup – then you can filter for health and beauty competitions: https://www.competitiondatabase.co.uk/filtered/by_category/5/1/5/win-health-and-beauty-giveaways/
- Competitions Time doesn’t seem quite as busy but does have a dedicated beauty comps section: are two more sites offering a lot of listings.
Example health and beauty competitions on Loquax
Boots
If you’re a Boots Advantage card holder, log in to the Boots website or app and click ‘Offers just for me‘ in the left menu, and also check ‘Top picks‘. Amongst your points offers, you’ll find cosmetics competitions that usually (but not always) require a purchase, such buying a Benefit product to enter their comp for a Holiday Kit worth over £200.
Example purchase-to-enter competition run through Boots Advantage Card
Brands
Beauty brands regularly run cosmetics competitions and the best way to hear about them is to join their mailing lists. You can also try searching for ‘brand name’ + ‘competition’ or ‘brand name’+ ‘giveaway’, e.g. Charlotte Tilbury competition, Clarins giveaway, MAC cosmetics competitions, Bobby Brown competitions, Fenty giveaway, Elemis competitions and so on.
Beauty comps are not always run directly by the brands, and it’s sometimes specialist beauty retailer sites gifting the goodies – for example, Sheerluxe has a Bobby Brown and a Fenty competition right now, and LookFantastic are running a Lancome giveaway on Instagram. So it’s worth trying a search for both ‘beauty retailer name’ + ‘giveaway’, and ‘beauty retailer name’ + ‘competition’ too (e.g. LookFantastic Competition). Cult Beauty, Sephora, Beauty Pie, Beauty Bay, Feelunique are other good sites to try this for.
A hit for Look Fantastic competitions
Comp sites:
There are dozens of dedicated comping sites on the web offering a whole range of competitions, often including cosmetics and beauty. These are pay-to-enter sites, although some run giveaways side-by-side, and all will have a free mode of entry. Prize Draw UK has its own cosmetics competition page and we run both free and paid comps.
Money Saving Expert also has a forum for pay to enter comps (phone, post or text) which has lots of excellent comps right now from brands such as Gucci, Le Metier De Beaute, ‘YOU’, My Beauty Elixir and more: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/post-phone-text-comps
When you’re deciding whether to pay or use the free entry route, do consider that the cost of a stamp is 85p. If the comp is less than a pound, it probably isn’t worth the time and effort required to enter by post, especially as this also comes with some uncertainty (if the comp sells out before your entry arrives, you’ve wasted your money).
Google alerts
Go to Google Alerts and from here you can set up email alerts for keywords such as ‘prize draws’. The interface allows you to test out your keywords before you set an alert, so you can check that the keywords are effective first. Example: ‘Win a’ is a good keyword.
Example competitions alert setup
Hashtags
Plenty of brands advertise their comps on Facebook, Instagram, X and Tiktok. The best way to find them is by searching for hashtags. Try searching for #UKCompetitions #Giveaway #FreebieFriday #CompetitionTime #Freebie #UKGiveaway #EnterToWin (on X, make sure you switch to ‘top’ or ‘latest’). Try searching for #beautygiveaway on Facebook, for dedicated beauty comps.
Example hashtag search on Facebook (oh look, there we are!)
Magazines
Mags are always running comps for beauty brands. Here are some to try:
- Cosmopolitan – https://comps.cosmopolitan.co.uk/
- Glamour Magazine – https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/topic/competitions
- Superdrug’s ‘Edit’ Magazine – https://www.editmagazine.co.uk/
- Marie Claire Competitions – https://comps.marieclaire.co.uk/
Example competition on comps.cosmopolitan.co.uk
Best times for finding cosmetics competitions
Although you’ll find cosmetics competitions all year round, look out for a few special events when typically there are more comps on offer.
- National Lipstick Day – this is on July 29th. Charlotte Tilbury, Mac, No 7, Vieve, Bella Woman and Sosu all ran beauty comps this year marking the day.
- The Christmas run up – this is the best time to find beauty advent calendar giveaways and competitions (we’re offering the LookFantastic beauty calendar which is sold out for 2024 with products worth over £565 – for just 60p a ticket, or 48p if bought as a bundle of 10!) They are a hugely popular prize and you can find giveaways all of the web and social for these on the run up to Christmas. Here are the top 35 to search for, and there are live competitions for quite a few of these right now:
- Penhaligon’s Baker’s Box of Delights Advent Calendar
- Selfridges Beauty Advent Calendar
- Liz Earle 12 Days of Beauty Advent Calendar
- Jo Malone Advent Calendar
- Bobbi Brown Dazzle & Glow 12-Day Advent Calendar
- M&S Beauty Advent Calendar
- Liberty Advent Calendar
- British Vogue Festive Calendar
- Revolution Magical Advent Calendar
- ESPA Wellbeing Advent Calendar
- Dior Le 30 Montaigne Advent Calendar
- Cowshed Christmas Hamper Advent Calendar
- LookFantastic Beauty Advent Calendar (sold out for 2024)
- Clarins 24 Day Women’s Advent Calendar
- PrettyLittleThing Beauty Advent Calendar
- Harvey Nichols Advent Calendar
- Augustinus Bader 12 Days of Bader Advent Calendar
- Beauty Bay Advent Calendar
- Harvey Nichols 12 Days Of Fragrance Advent Calendar
- Charlotte Tilbury Beauty Advent Calendar
- Cult Beauty Advent Calendar (sold out for 2024)
- Sephora Advent Calendar
- Soap & Glory 24 Moments On Cloud All-Mine Advent Calendar
- Fortnum & Mason Beauty Advent Calendar
- The Harrods 12 Days of Hair & Body Advent Calendar
- The White Company Advent Calendar
- Dr. Barbara Sturm Advent Calendar
- John Lewis Beauty Advent Calendar
- Kiehl’s Advent Calendar
- NEXT 25 Days of Beauty Advent Calendar
- Rituals The Ritual Advent Deluxe Advent Calendar
- Elemis Advent Calendar
- Sculpted by Aimee Advent Calendar
- Boots 24 Days of Beauty Christmas Advent Calendar
- Sisley From Paris With Love Advent Calendar
- PrettyLittleThing Beauty Advent Calendar
Example advent calendar competition on thehandbook.com
Maximising your chances of winning
A few tips for increasing your chances of winning include:
- Enter early – some of the cosmetics competitions (including ours) have capped numbers.
- Ensure you follow instructions carefully. Most competition sites, including ours, expect something in return for your free entry, such as sharing or liking a post. Those who fail to follow the instructions could lose their prize.
- Look out for your win! If you’re the winner, you’ll often be contacted by email, so check your spam folder from time to time.
Watch out for scams + fakes
There are plenty of scams in the comping industry – and a popular one right now is for scammers to contact you saying you’ve won and need to pay a fee to receive your prize. If it genuinely is the promoter contacting you, then be aware that the ASA would regard this as a payment to enter, and therefore the prize draw would in fact be an illegal lottery. But in many cases, it is not the promoter that gets in touch at all but a scammer imitating their brand. Don’t be tricked into handing over card details to claim your prize – no genuine website would ask you to do this.
