I have put myself on a 3 month no-buy or replacements only no-buy though I genuinely do not believe that I’ll have to buy any replacements in this 3 month period. So, there’s nothing coming into my collection at the moment.

So, this will be my only beauty balance post for this month. First of all, you may remember that I gave up my beauty balance posts in December because we had an awful month personally, I couldn’t keep track of anything in general, my sadness was too large, and I overdid it in the “retail therapy” department in that month. I’ve reigned it all back in now, and am back to finishing up products. And decluttering. Shall we discuss the declutters first?

These are the 6 items I am decluttering. The leave in conditioner is brand new, never used. I am giving it to Miss Butterfly as it’s the last thing my super short hair needs. The reason I didn’t give it to her earlier is that if I give her 3 items of the same thing, she tends to get really careless with them, or she starts giving them to her friends. It’s better if I hang onto them and when she’s out of an item, I “declutter” another to her. We’ve reached that point. This is a good leave in conditioner, I did use it when my hair was long and I liked it quite a lot.

Then there’s the thrive causemetics eye brightener. I had this in a project pan, used it regularly, tried it all sorts of ways, and it’s just not for me. I can’t even use it as an eyeshadow primer. It’s just NOT for me. Perhaps Miss Butterfly would like it, or one of her friends.

Then there are 4 nyx liquid lipsticks from the advent calendar. Not sure if entirely this year or one from last year as well. What I’ve done this year to rotate through my lip items is pull them all into a large box, and then I have Miss Butterfly choose one for me to wear next. Once I wear it, I put it back in my drawer so it doesn’t get chosen a second time. The problem is, when she’d pull one of these particular liquid lipsticks, I’d instead choose not to use the lipstick at all, and repeatedly just use a lipstick I keep at work for when I forget to put one in my pocket on the way into work. This, for me, was a sign that I really don’t like the formula and it doesn’t matter to me what color it is, I just don’t want it. I grabbed those I could see in the container and dropped them in here, keeping only one dark metallic one that I really loved, and one super dark vampy brown that I loved. It’s likely more of these little ones in other formulas will be in an upcoming beauty balance, but these are the ones I just know I don’t want to wear.

And here are my actual empties, products I have worked my way entirely through.

I did not care for the moroccan oil volumizing mousse, I want something a little stickier and a little more thickening. This didn’t do it for me. They’ve got another I may try someday, but I’ve got a spray mousse going right now and can’t purchase new until that one is almost gone.

I finished my oribe dry shampoo as well. I had worked my way about halfway through this while my hair was long. I cut it early last summer, and I wasn’t using dry shampoo at all. But, then I decided to try this as a texturizing product, and it worked ok. So, on the weekends when I cared a little less about how my hair looked, I used this as my texture spray. I finally finished it this month.

I have been working my way through the Ahava hydration mask for ages. I got it in a subscription box, never loved it, but decided it was good enough as an overnight mask to work my way through. I am thrilled to be done.

I’ve got an it cosmetics illuminating cc cream which I had in a project pan at the end of last year. I am glad to have used every last bit of this product, I liked the product quite a lot, and I would repurchase in the future though it’ll be some time before I am really on the market for a new foundation.

And finally, in a subscription box, I received some makeup wipes. I have removed makeup wipes from things that I purchase, but I enjoyed working through these.

All in all, between the decluttering and the using, I have moved 11 products out of my collection this month. This year I have far fewer sample sizes so it’s harder to get through products in a month. I am feeling pretty good about my 11 items. I mean, except for the wipes, every product I used up this month was a full-sized item.

I have decided to forge my own way, sort of, with a project pan this year.

I’ve seen multiple people do the project pan roulette colabs where they draw prompts and choose an item to pan based on those prompts. I have decided to repurpose those prompts and work my way through as many of the 50 prompts as I can in one year.

I plan to keep it to 6 items at a time, when I finish a goal on one, I’ll just grab the next prompt on the list and figure out what item to roll in.

Prompts:
1.  A product with cute packaging
2.  An expensive product
3.  A product in loose form
4.  A drugstore product
5.  A product I bought because of youtube
6.  An old favorite

Here is the photo of the 6 items I have chosen.

For my product with cute packaging, I have chosen my Pretty Vulgar setting powder. I’ll have to weigh this to track progress since it is not transparent. It is, however, cute. The weigh in on this one is 80 grams.

For my expensive product, I have chosen the hourglass ambient lighting powder in dim light. I generally use this to buff in my cheek products, it makes them look more smooth, natural, and blended. I  would like to hit pan in this product before rolling it out and choosing a new prompt.

For my product in loose form I have decided on my bare minerals powder foundation. This is almost a gimme situation as I am really close to being done with this powder. However, I tend to wear it only on the weekends, so it does take me some time to work through it. I’ve had it more than a year and I think it oxidizes on me a bit these days. This was in a former project, but I ended up stopping since I really like to have a powder foundation in my collection. Then I remembered that I also have a bare minerals pro foundation that I like using and that would serve this purpose in my life.

For a drugstore product, I am going to try to finish my NYX eyebrow powder pencil. I like this more than I liked last year’s eyebrow product which took me almost all year to finish. I like the product better as well. Plus, I don’t have a ton of brow products so it’s not really hard to concentrate on one item. To view the progress on this I am just going to go by the markings on the pencil itself. I figure I can compare to where I am from month to month looking at how close to the wording on the pencil I am.

For a product I bought because of youtube, I have chosen one of my CYO lifeproof foundations. I have two because I knew it was going to be discontinued. I thought “What if I really like it!” I do like it, but probably not enough to have two in my collection.

And finally, an old favorite. Do I have makeup that is an old favorite? Not really, I’ve only been messing around with makeup for about two years. But, I’ve had this hula bronzer sample in my collection almost the entire time and haven’t used it. I would like to use this up, though that won’t be so easy seeing as this tends to be pigmented and take a long time to use. I have a full size one as well! So this one out of my collection would be a relief.

Just like yesterday’s skincare project, it’s a relief to only be worried about photos for a few items. I am looking forward to changing up my projects this year and getting use out of these items!

Yes, you read that right, there’s not going to be a beauty balance this month. I did not keep track of incoming items due to dropping everything for my dog and the aftermath of losing her. Items did come in. Including the advent calendar, though I doubt I even kept half of that. All I did was keep the empties, and I’ll have to regroup with the beauty balance in the new year. In fact, I plan to change it up a bit, I’d like to do at least 3 months, if not more, of a replacements only low buy. More on that when I get organized in the new year.

I did manage to finish 10 items this month and am awfully close on a few more. I know that more than 10 items entered my collection though.

I finished another farmacy green clean cleansing balm. I like this a ton but would only purchase it on sale. It is too expensive full price. I finished up two The Ordinary products, the niacinamide I used until it was almost gone and then gave the remainder to Miss Butterfly who was struggling with a really large acne situation on her forehead this past month. She’s got it a bit more under control now much to her relief. I also finished a retinoid. I am now working on a different The Ordinary product that is a retinol in oil and am liking that one better, especially for this time of year. So, I won’t repurchase this one yet.

I finished a sample of the dermalogica microexfoliant. I did not love this product and am glad to have used it up. I finished a heat protectant spray from Morrocan Oil, it was fine but I don’t know that it did much for my hair. I finished a Peter Thomas Roth potent c moisturizer which smelled like bacon or pig, and it didn’t really do anything special for my skin except make my upper lip sweaty immediately after putting it on. Not something I’ll seek out.

Now, I tried the Sunday Riley UFO serum, this had a very “green” or botanical smell, quite unpleasant. Another I won’t be purchasing a full size of! I finished a Dr. Jart moisturizer that I did actually like, but won’t purchase because I really adore my Belif moisturizers best.

Then there’s the Rosie Jane perfume I thought was very synthetic and the Tarte blush I finished in my project pan.

I felt like this was a really decent empties month despite just not caring or paying much attention to it at all through the course of the month.

I’ll be starting at square one this year, tracking my empties and what enters in a beauty balance, but I am hoping the items that leave far outweigh the items that enter, especially since I want to go at least 3 months without purchasing anything that isn’t a replacement. And honestly? I will be surprised if I have to replace anything in these upcoming months.