I’ve decided I’m going to do 2019 a little differently and by that I mean this year I’m going to use my favourite products instead of using the items I want to be moved out of my collection as I have been.
So What Did I Learn in 2018?
I struggle with no buys but I have learnt what helps me stick to it.
The first was listing everything I own including all new purchases before I can use them with the cost attached. Going Cruelty-Free and Vegan in my collection really helped. Technically everything in the UK is Cruelty-Free but sticking to tighter guidelines really helped. Thinking about environmental waste that comes from not only the making of the products I’m buying but the items I am then destashing. Lastly, Beauty Guru drama. I mean Kat Von D coming out as an anti-vaxxer definitely put the breaks on wanting her stuff.
I’m getting bored with Project Panning. When I first started Project Panning it seemed like a great way to move items out of my collection but at that point, I had no idea how long it took to use up certain items. I’m definitely over the 18 in 18 project pans and the roulette-style projects.
I like having options. One of the Project Pans I was doing last year was called Bullseye. It was me targetting everything that I had from a certain brand and I liked it because it left me with a lot of lip options.
I also like not having options but only if it’s when I’m using a product that has options, such as eyeshadow palette panning. I’ve found being restricted to the Venus 2 has forced me to be more creative with it when before I was stumped on what to do with it.
Saving empties has taught me all it’s going to. In 2017 I saved everything, skincare, haircare and makeup items. It was revealing how much and how little I was using of each item. 2018 has been me just saving my makeup empties and it’s really only taught me the same as last year, just a smaller bag at the end. I think saving my rubbish has done its job. I know how much I use in a year and how long it’s going to take me to use what I have.
Collection Results
So as part of my tracking I’ve kept a record of how much my collection cost and how many of each item I had at the beginning of the year. So at the beginning of the year, I had £5866.24 worth of product, the end of the year I have £5883.95 worth of product. So there’s a difference of £17.71. That’s terrible. I wanted it to be so much better and I needed to try and work out why.
| Category | 2017 | 2018 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blush | £349.14 (28) | £152.98 (15) | -£196.16 (-13) |
| Brows | N/A | £43.99 (9) | N/A |
| Concealer | £47.99 (13) | £78 (10) | £30.01 (-3) |
| Contour | N/A | £126.97 (11) | N/A |
| Eye Liner | £505.91 (43) | £345.42 (37) | -£160.49 (-6) |
| Eye Primer | N/A | £101.90 (11) | N/A |
| Eyeshadow Loose | £437.48 (40) | £326.14 (33) | -£111.34 (-7) |
| Eyeshadow Palettes | £889.91 (64) | £1301.77 (74) | £411.86 (10) |
| Eyeshadow Single | £373.63 (43) | 350.01 (36) | -£23.62 (-7) |
| Face Primer | N/A | £231.98 (14) | N/A |
| Fixing Spray | N/A | £18 (3) | N/A |
| Foundation | £195.44 (12) | 155.99 (10) | -£39.45 (-2) |
| Highlighter | £160.99 (20) | £233.43 (21) | £72.44 (1) |
| Lip Gloss | £141.98 (21) | £125 (17) | -£16.98 (-4) |
| Lip Liner | £109.95 (24) | £108.44 (25) | -£1.07 (1) |
| Lipstick | £759 (64) | £658.49 (57) | -£100.51 (-7) |
| Liquid Lipstick | £1356 (111) | £1315 (109) | -£41 (-2) |
| Mascara | £125.95 (10) | £87.96 (8) | -£37.99 (-2) |
| Powder | £68 (13) | £62.49 (9) | -£5.51 (-4) |
| Primers (all) | £344.87 (31) | N/A | N/A |
| Setting Spray | N/A | £59.99 (4) | N/A |
From the figures here I can see I only destashed/used up 37 items overall and that the replacements, in general, cost me more than before.
Breaking down the rest of it, I have an entirely new category, brows. That’s added an extra 9 items and £48 to my total. I don’t see those values changing due to how long those items last and the changing colour of my hair.
Blush and contour were together and despite only losing 2 items has actually lost £69.19 in value. I have unfortunately gained a whole lot of contour products due to ill-advised purchases. As I don’t use these I need to move a lot of these out of my collection.
The primer category has split as well. Total items remain the same but value has jumped by £67. That means cheaper items have been replaced with full size/more expensive ones. I’m hoping to reduce this one next year.
The major increase is with my eyeshadow palettes. This is one I am very much unhappy with. The value has increased £400 and the count by 10. That does, however, mean I’ve been picking higher value palettes which have raised the mean cost of each palette.
The overall trend seems to be to replace cheaper items with more expensive ones but even that needs to stop, especially in the eyeshadow department.
Skincare wasn’t really tracked this year but I have been aware of what I have and haven’t moved out. It’s definitely grown and a section I do not need to buy any items in at all next year. Most of the new items have not been purchased during the year, they’ve either come from my Pink Parcel or in the Body Shop Advent Calendar I get at the end of the year.
The Plan
There’s a No Buy happening for me. It’s happened because not only do I want to stop spending but also because of my credit card. I rarely used it last year so that the balance would go down and therefore so would the payments. Only my card company had other plans. They’ve not raised the interest, just the minimum payments to a level that’s a little uncomfortable for my income. Of course, if I say I can’t do it they’ll consider it defaulting so I’m leaving it as is and dealing with having no spare cash. At least my balance will shrink faster.
I am going to ‘Destash’ everything down to what I think is my ideal collection. By destash I mean box up and place in the storage space under my bed. This will only leave me with the stuff I really want to use, most of which I’ve been putting off using because it’s my favourite.
So my ideal collection consists of mainly Lime Crime items. They’re the bulk of my products this year, with lips and eyeshadow mainly covered by Lime Crime. The one area I am not keeping my Lime Crime items out is highlighter. I’ve got someone ones I LOVE from Revolution, so I’ll be using those to start off with. I’ll be keeping out only one mascara, the rest will go in my ‘destash/backup’ until that one is used. I’ve picked out my Revolution Pro eyeshadow base because I was impressed and I’ve been wanting to use it for a while. I’ve basically scrapped contour although I am keeping out a palette with a contour in it.
The only exception to the use what I love first is my foundations. I have barely used most of my foundations, so I needed to do something different. For that, I decided I’d use a different one every month until I’ve used them all and then decide which ones I like and am maybe going to keep.
As for skin care, I’m going with the same use what I like the best first and for me, that’s all the items from the Body Shop Advent Calendar. It’s also its own kind of Project Pan as I am going to see if I can use all the items out of the calendar up before December 2019. I am also going to track the value and number of items in my collection at the start of the year as well. So just like MakeUp, I can see how and where I’ve either failed or improved. For that, you need to see my numbers. They are as follows.
| Category | Value | Total Items |
|---|---|---|
| Body Lotion | £128.99 | 14 |
| Body Scrub | £50 | 6 |
| Body Wash | £168.83 | 26 |
| Cleansers | £351.61 | 20 |
| Eye Cream | £226.99 | 7 |
| Eye MakeUp Remover | £17.95 | 3 |
| Face Masks | £477.94 | 21 |
| Face Oil | £209.90 | 5 |
| Foot Cream | £9.50 | 1 |
| Hand Cream | £112.48 | 13 |
| Lip Balm | £58.42 | 9 |
| Moisturizer | £280.15 | 16 |
| Serum | £64 | 4 |
| Toners | £61 | 4 |
So that’s the plan here is in the immortal words of Buffy Summers ‘Seize the day, because tomorrow you might be dead’.
What are yours for next year?