What to Do When Your Favorite Beauty Products Get Discontinued

Every time one of our favorite products gets discontinued, it only confirms the fact that there are things in this world that are too good to be true, and that life may or may not be playing one of its cruel jokes on us. But just because your favorite product is gone, that doesn't mean hope is completely lost. With the tenacity of Rose from Titanic, we vowed never to let go of the beauty staples that met an untimely end, and put together a guide on how to cope—and most importantly, find alternative options that are just as good—when your faves get removed from the lineup. Step away from those counterfeits on eBay, and keep reading to find out how you can restock your supply.

Eye Shadows, Lipsticks, and Blushes

Those shattered shadow pans and abused lipsticks stashed in your drawer are about to come in handy. Take a small amount of product about as thick as a dime, and mail it off to Three Custom Color. Once they receive the sample, the brand's experts will analyze the formula and recreate the exact product to a T. In two to three weeks, the product you thought you'd never see again will be back in your makeup bag where it belongs. The brand has an extensive database of previously requested shades that have been discontinued, just in case you want to double-check that someone hasn't already mailed in the product. Three Custom Color will keep the exact mixture on file for you, bringing the days of worrying about where you'll get your next fix to a halt.

Foundation

We know the pain of having your perfect foundation shade discontinued all too well, but luckily, there are a few options. To start, you can reach out to the brand's customer service department to find a comparable dupe. If your product of choice is under the Estee Lauder brand umbrella—like MAC, Clinique, or Bobbi Brown to name a few—make sure to bookmark their Gone But Not Forgotten page, and get ready to become really close with their representatives. They'll be able to help you track down remaining bottles of the product, or direct you to one of the replacements. Another alternative is to get your own custom-blended foundation through one of the services by Motives Cosmetics, or Prescriptives.

Fragrance

Replacing a discontinued fragrance may be the trickiest out of the bunch, but that doesn't mean it's entirely impossible. This is where your Internet stalking skills are about to come in handy, and we're not talking about scrolling 200 weeks deep into your ex's Instagram. Head over to the massive perfume database that is fragrantica.com, and type the scent of your choosing into the search bar—no perfume is too obscure, as they have options spanning back decades. Once you find it, browse the selections along the side showcasing options in the same fragrance family, and pay careful attention to the box just above the reviews where users submit their own choices for perfumes that remind them of the OG version. Get a list together, and head over to your nearest fragrance counter to try out the top contenders. They may not be exact, but we promise you'll walk out of the store with something pretty close.

Skin Care

Just like with the search for your discontinued foundation, we recommend reaching out to the brand's customer service or Gone But Not Forgotten program to help you hunt down an alternative formula. The technology used in beauty products, and skin care in particular, will often go through more updates than your new iPhone 6, so often times, it's likely that a brand has repurposed the qualities you loved about your go-to steady and reformulated it into a new version under a different title.