I've been spending my days filling in my catalogue of kits, colors, blushes, and tools that I own. (Everyone's got a hobby. Mine is organization.) I've been concentrating lately on the BE items, since they make up just over a third of my total collection.

Total number of BE kits on the spreadsheet from BEAddicts.com (after I added in the Get The Look eye trios): 313
Total number of BE kits of which I own all eye and cheek colors: 171
Total number of whole BE kits I've actually bought in kit-form: 36

So I own over half (54%) of all released BE kits/collections, but I only purchased about a tenth (11%) of all released BE kits as kits. While I have bought quite a few items from boutiques and from BE themself, I've bought most of my collection from a double-handful of Ebay sellers.

One of the big cautions of buying things on Ebay is not only paying too much when it isn't necessary (anyone contemplating buying an “HTF” BE color off of Ebay should do themselves a favor and check the BE webstore - you'll save money), but the possibility of buying fake merchandise. I came across a seller at some point who was selling eyeshadows that had the same names as their BE counterparts, were even using the BE images…but cost approximately $3 a jar and were definitely not BE. (I decided to give the fakeouts a try just to see if they were any good. They weren't - there was a screamingly obvious difference in consistency and texture.) The biggest problem one encounters when searching for BE on Ebay is wading through all the sellers who use the words “Bare” and “Minerals” somewhere in their listing, and who may have similarly-named items.

(My big gripe these days is all the folks on Ebay who are peddling complete Key West kits with a minimum bid of $50. After the whole debacle with the kits - both on the Q and on the BE site - seeing those listings really frosts my cake. You just know those folks bought as many kits as they could the instant they went on sale, with plans to sell the kits whole - because they know that Ocean is available as a single, and it's still possible to find individual jars of Sundress floating around…but the third color is highly desired and impossible to find on Ebay -=at all=-. All I want is one more jar of Key Lime, dammit!!)

One big selling point of many of BE's kits is that you save money over buying the colors separately. Well…yes, and no. There are enough legitimate Ebay sellers (folks who buy the kits from the Q, then sell off the parts) that by buying the items the way I did, I actually saved money. I didn't have the countless jars of Mineral Veil, foundation, and now Rare Minerals treatment which I'd effectively be throwing out. And don't even get me started on the brushes!! I have a large box of “spare” BE brushes, so unless there's a Grand kit that includes a bunch of brushes I've never seen before and am interested in - or includes the retractable soft focus eyeshadow brush, which I love to bits - I'm just fine buying the bitzenpiecen that catch my eye, and saving that money.

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