British women spend nearly £22,000 on make-up in their lifetime, according to new findings by hair and beauty retailer Hairtrade.com.

The online store claims that, on average, British women will spend around £306 on make-up products per year, totalling £21,420 over an average lifetime; an amount equal to buying 48 pairs of Louboutins.

The projected costs include mascara which, if replaced every four to six months as recommended, equals around £45 per year.

Using a bottle of foundation every three months could cost up to £4,200, while expensive eye palettes could set the average woman back £980 in their lifetime.

Joanne Dodds from Hairtrade.com says: “Us women love beauty products, but these findings are certainly a little scary. All beauty products eventually have an expiry date;we did keep this in mind when doing our research. We also took into consideration that a person has more than one favourite lipstick but, unfortunately, buying two reasonably priced lipsticks a year can cost £1,400 over the course of a lifetime. And this is just for affordable makeup – buying expensive makeup is probably triple this!”

Other products taken into account to reach the predicted figure include face powder, blush/contour products, eyeliner and liquid eyeliner, lip liner, lip gloss and nail varnish.