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.