You know, I really thought that in May my beauty balance would get easier but I need to quit taking my kid shopping. She’s an expert at getting me to purchase stuff. We went to Ulta to pick up some dry shampoo for her. In the dry shampoo aisle, this conversation happened:

Miss Butterfly: Mom, my stepmom doesn’t like batiste, she likes not your mother’s dry shampoo. You should try it!

Me: I haven’t even tried batiste yet!

Miss Butterfly: Well, then you should. You should get one of each and compare them to see which you like better!

And that’s how I ended up with these:

Thankfully, they are sample sizes. But, I could totally have waited on both of these as I am working through a large container of oribe dry shampoo I got in a subscription box. There is No Need for me to have picked these two up at this time. And that’s precisely my problem. My desire to try things often overrules my desire to be logical about my beauty purchases. I am getting better, much better really, but not yet good enough.

So, I started this post at two products leaving over what entered my collection and now I am evenly balanced again. I seriously considered not even posting these because I was so frustrated, but that would completely make these posts pointless. The entire point is to be accountable while trying to weed down the collection.

On the upside, this month I’ve gotten better at moving through some samples. In fact, so much better that I now no longer have any sachet size samples of haircare and I have only one sachet size sample of skin care. I’ve rocked the sample use up this month.

First of all, the not a sample. That’s the belif true cream aqua bomb. I very much like this product, but I switched my daytime moisturizer to the Youth To The People instead. I do have another belif aqua bomb sample size in my collection, but I am hanging on to it for summer travel. It’s such a nice convenient size.

Below that I’ve got a Verb sample of shampoo and conditioner which were fine but I don’t have a particular love for them.

I tried a tatcha the water cream sample and boy were they stingy with that one! It was not one where I could make it last a few days, it was absolutely a one time use sample. That’s a lot of pretty packaging for such a stingy sample. Obviously not going to purchase.

The hourglass mineral veil primer I used up, it’s another fairly stingy sample. I did manage to get two days of use out of it though. I can’t say it did anything special for me. I’ve wanted to try this for so long. Hourglass really did my skin a solid when it was a mess from lack of any skincare when I started playing with makeup that I tend to believe that hourglass has miracle products. The thing is, that ONE product was a miracle for me, but it was a miracle because I wasn’t doing any other good work on my skin. It’s a lot harder for a product to perform a miracle when I am already doing my skin as many solids as I can.

And then there’s the obagi serum. This was a generous sample and I was able to use this over multiple days. But, I didn’t really research the product well and still am not completely sure what it was supposed to do. Nevertheless, I used it up and it’s out of my collection.

So, despite my frustration with myself (And my kid too, quite frankly) I did manage to work through some things and since it’s still mid-month, I suspect I’ll have a few more empties before the month is over. But, I also need shampoo, so I’ll have one or two arriving as well, depending on what I choose to pick up from the ulta hair sale. Thankfully I’ve got enough conditioner to last me a very good long time, and I have amassed ridiculous amounts of styling products as I carefully devote my time to the deva curl product I am trying to pan, so I truly ONLY need shampoo.

One of the reasons I do these posts multiple times a month is because it does help me to evaluate and then not shop. But, I will admit, the true reason I do them multiple times a month is that saving my trash is really annoying!