And she's on a mission. Every year, Augustine holds what she calls a March Madness event. The goal -- cut makeup spending by downsizing.
"Everyone's needs are a little different," Augustine says. "But the purpose of the March Madness event was to downsize the bag, go from your 20 pieces to your Elite Eight or your Final Four pieces."
But, as I found out, along with two volunteers, Shante Brown from Olney and Margo Wrigley from Voorhees, New Jersey -- changing your makeup habits isn't easy. Especially when there are so many choices.
Augustine describes women's makeup-buying habits this way, "It's always fun to buy the newest and latest and greatest. But they buy so much, they don't get a chance to use all of it. And they go out the next season and buy some more."
"I love makeup, it's great to love makeup," Augustine continues, "But you want to be practical and you really want to buy what you're going to use. So, if you have like six foundations and they're six different shades, you really only need one foundation in the right shade."
Wrigley had more than two dozen lip glosses. Augustine told her to pick just one to keep, but relented and let her keep two when she just couldn't decide.
Brown had something she thought was a lip gloss, but had never actually used.
"Beyonce was in the commercial," Brown explained, so she felt compelled to buy it.
Augustine went through every item in our bags and got rid of unused items and duplicates. And she set a goal: buy just one of each item you need.
"It saves you money, it saves you time, and it saves a little stress on the shoulder with the makeup bag," she said.
It was painful. But at the end of our little session, we all saw we really didn't need to buy as many products as we thought.
Augustine will be holding another March Madness session at her makeup studio in March. For more information, go to the About Phace website.
