Rolling Project Pan update 3

March 31, 2020March 26, 2020 / shellssells / 1 Comment

Hello all! How’s your project pan work going? Is it similar to mine? Makeup getting a little less prominent in your daily routine?

Let’s take a look at what is going on for me. My current prompts are:

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
7. A product you haven’t used in a while.

Here’s last month’s photo and this month’s photo directly under, then I’ll go into more detail.

1: product with cute packaging is my pretty vulgar setting powder. Last month I was at 73 grams, this month at 72 so I was only able to use 1 gram.

2: An expensive product. This is my hourglass ambient lighting powder in dim light, and my intention is to hit pan then roll it out. I have not hit pan. If I look closely, there now seems to be a dip in the flattened dome, so maybe I am closer.

4: a drugstore product. That’s my NYX eyebrow pencil. I am getting a bit closer to the lettering, but haven’t hit it yet. I am using this almost exclusively, but it’s running slow. However, the pencil itself does feel shorter when I use it, so that makes me feel like I am making progress.

5: A product I bought because of youtube. My CYO lifeproof foundation was getting very little use this past month. In my attempts to use up a primer from my partners in cream project, I stopped using this foundation and used a powder foundation instead. Spoiler, still not done with the primer I wanted to finish. And now there’s working from home, where I am not using any makeup at all.

6: An old favorite. I am working on finishing my sample size of hula bronzer. I am seeing an actual serious dip in one side of the pan, and while it is difficult to see in the photos, I do see it in person and am expecting to hit pan toward one side within the next two months.

7: A product I haven’t used in a while. That’s my blue silkissime liner. I only want to use it past the “L’Oreal” mark toward the top of the pencil, but I haven’t gotten anywhere near the lettering yet.

So, since I still haven’t met any of my goals on the products in this project, I can’t roll anything new in. I will absolutely have to roll out the pretty vulgar powder as the weather heats up, it does not do enough oil control work during the warmer months. But I can use it for the upcoming month I believe. I am hoping to hit pan on the hourglass product soon so I can roll it out. And, I’d love to hit pan on the hula bronzer simply because it would help my motivation.

While progress has been very slow over the past month on this project, I can say that I’ve been forcing an uptick in my use of skincare. If I am working from home, I have given myself the rule that I must mask daily. I’ve got a wide variety of masks, so this works well, I can rotate my usage of them.

If we end up with a stay in place order (Hasn’t happened for our state and county yet) I will actually just put this project aside for the time being and resume when it’s time. We are currently “essential” but a stay order would keep me working from home unless things really go pear-shaped at the hospital, and even then, my boss and my peer working on the patient care side would have to both be sick for me to be called in. While I hope that our state can ride things out as we currently are, I don’t believe we can, and I think we are just behind the larger cities by a few days. We shall see how it plays out. We’ve worked out all contingency plans now, have one in place, and will get the other up and running if we have to.

Stay safe my friends, and do your part either by staying home or by being essential with appropriate precautions in place for your area.

Ranking All My Eyeshadow Palettes Top Tier

March 30, 2020March 28, 2020 / shellssells / 1 Comment

I see this type of content on youtube pretty regularly but I never think it translates all that well to a blog post. But, I got inspired to do it over the weekend. In part, I think it’s good to grab the whole collection to again see what I have. This works for making me realize the last thing I need is more eyeshadow. But also, it gets the creative side of my brain working, and I’ve really been struggling with that lately. I used to “toss’ my yarn stash, meaning take it all out and look at it and then put it away again. Now I did it with eyeshadows.

Now, how I did this was split things into various tiers. I just off the top of my head pulled everything out and made piles of things I loved the most and things I liked the least and then found what I’d group together. Then, I took each tier and put them in order of my favorite to least favorite.

I am splitting these posts up, this’ll be a series. It would be awfully overwhelming to do the entire collection at once.

And here’s my top tier.

Viseart Petit Pro 5 Soleiel. This is my absolute favorite palette. I love the pretty, tiny packaging, I love the color story. The bright rich purple and the pretty yellow just sing to me. It’s a bold palette, and I have to take that into consideration when I wear it, but I just adore working with it and wear it often.
Viseart Petit Pro 3. Another tiny and beautiful palette of gorgeous shades but neutral and easily incorporated into daily use. This one is new to me and I’ve only worn it a few times, but since it performs as beautifully as the petit pro 5 and has the ease of a color story that could be worn daily, it comes in second place.
Tarte Be a Mermaid and Make Waves. This palette is the unsung hero of the limited edition tarte palette world. For them, it was a pretty bold color story. It was my first higher end palette and it maintains it’s high status in my collection. You can see it has gotten loads of use. While it feels like it leans red/burgundy, these colors translate as fairly neutral on my skin, making for a palette that is extremely wearable but also has a pop or two of fun colors (that I rarely touch!)
Anastasia Beverly Hills Sultry palette. This was my wedding palette and it was a perfect choice. I love how my look turned out. And, I used it on my maid of honor, looked great on her too. I’ve worn it a lot and it just never fails me. A fantastic investment.
Coloured Raine power palette. This is really new to my collection, I purchased it at the end of last year. I haven’t played with it all that much but when I do it really stands out! Each of those shades performs beautifully. The white is actually an amazing duochrome, surprising me each time I use it with a strong purple/pink shift. This is the type of palette that is so good it makes me want to purchase other palettes from the brand. Much like Viseart.
Alamar Cosmetics Reina del Caribe Volume 1. I got this in a boxycharm and I have been so pleased with it. The mattes are beautiful to work with and when I am craving a particularly warm shadow day, this is one that I always want to pull. While I rarely use the blue and the teal, the other two metallics are gorgeous and I use them regularly when I want something that really stands out.

So, my absolute top favorites bring me a week’s worth of beautiful palettes, some colorful, some neutral, all with outstanding performance that just make any morning using them a delight. Stay tuned for tier 2 shortly, all of which are really good. I’ll be interesting to see if I can explore why they were tier 2 rather than tier 1.

Quarantimes Part 3

March 28, 2020 / shellssells / 4 Comments

After three precious work from home days, I have mustered the energy to pull together a bit more blog content. It’s amazing how the brain works. When you can get a break from the constant questions and planning, get slightly more time for downtime, since you are no longer commuting, get slightly more sleep for a similar reason, get somewhat used to this new type of normal even though it’s pretty awful, and have the space for bigger work projects requiring time, quiet, and creativity, thus making you feel productive, suddenly you’ve got a little more left to give to your other hobbies. And that’s what happened for me in the past few days.

At the end of last year I had begun a little spindle spinning project. I am almost positive I didn’t blog about it, as I wasn’t blogging much due to being both busy and mourning Lizzie. I might have, and if I did, I apologize for presenting this as new. But, I’ve been working on it again in the past day or so. This will become a gradient laceweight two ply yarn. As of right now, it’s a very enjoyable spindle spin.

I cannot immediately remember who the batt is from, but I suspect fat cat knits.

It’s a lovely neutral toned batt with some interesting pops of silk and flax. I am feeling rather eager to be doing some spinning again, and with the weather warming, that feels like the right time to be eager to do it.

Speaking of the weather warming:

These lovelies survived some snow and a serious 2 or 3 day freeze to bring us this color and joy during a difficult time.

I’ve noticed all over the yard signs of flowers peaking their way out of the ground in anticipation of the beautiful spring blooms. This year it feels all the more beautiful, even the tiny shoots of green, as we need to be able to take whatever we can get to make us feel like life is moving forward and going through its normal cycles. This spring I am grateful for each and every one of them.

That’s it from here today. We are keeping a quiet day. It’s cloudy (again) and sometimes rainy, as it is spring, and we do need the rain. This will make the dog park out of the question today, but hopefully, we can get a little walk done during the breaks in the clouds.

Quarantimes Part 2

March 26, 2020March 26, 2020 / shellssells / 1 Comment

This part is the one in which I have begun doing some work at home. I am not able to work every day from home, but more than I was. Doing so has been interesting. I had hoped for scads of quiet time where I could work on some longer-term projects I was saving up. It has certainly been busier than I expected. That’s ok though! I suspect we are in this situation for the long haul, and those projects will be there.

The long isolation has Miss Butterfly getting a little creative with her time. She wants to go to the dog park daily, which we are in agreement with, and the dogs are totally down for. I understand, when it’s basically the only time she gets out of the house, it makes sense that she’s up for doing that which she’d previously have avoided. A few other things she is doing-making us dinner. This is a shocker! Since she can no longer do her camp volunteer work, as all activities are canceled, the camp coordinator sent out the recipe for their hobo dinners. Miss Butterfly decided she’ll make us hobo dinners, and she did. Now she wants to make them weekly. To be honest, they are pretty tasty so we are not opposed. And it gives Mr. Ink a night off.

She sliced the potatoes thinly so they would cook fast, added broccoli to the recipe on her own, and also cut up carrots. Under all that is ground beef, though I think we could easily do smoked sausage as well. And onions, they are also involved.

She’s working on schoolwork online. Originally she said there wasn’t much of it, but they’ve added to her workload so she’s gotta stay on top of it now.

And then, when all that is done, she is playing sims4. Now, I got the game for me, and I have played quite a bit. She tried playing, but didn’t love it. Until I showed her build mode. She has been creating these floor plans for years on graph paper. She draws them out carefully and adds furniture, etc. So, I got her started building houses in sims4 and she’s obsessed. I am glad, it’s a fun and sensible past time. And, it gives me the opportunity to say “Get your online schoolwork done and then you can play the game.”

I am still working at my lintilla shawlette when I get an opportunity. I am still appreciating the long rows of garter stitch and the handspun yarn. With working from home a bit, I am able to better turn off my brain and let work go, bleeding into the next day in ways I was unable to do previously.

So, that’s us, that’s here. We are doing what we can to flatten the curve, doing what we can to keep what is allowable and essential up and running, and attempting to appreciate this new way of life in the meantime. We do hope things are similar for you and that you are doing ok, staying healthy, and staying practical.

Beauty Balance in March

March 23, 2020March 22, 2020 / shellssells / 4 Comments

I’ve kept myself on a replacements only low buy since the beginning of the year. I was wanting to make sure I wasn’t spending cash on things that just weren’t necessary when we had so many exciting trips planned for this year.

The first of this year’s trips has been canceled. The second one is a waiting game, we’ll know in a month if we are closer to being able to travel by the end of July. That being said, with the current crisis, saving money is the name of the game.

I’d told myself the end of March for the replacements only low buy, but that was in part because I wanted to be able to pick stuff up at the ulta 21 days of beauty sale. The sale started early this year.

I did pick a bunch of items up, but the grand total for all of it was just over $4, as I had a lot of points to spend and a free clinique foundation coupon and so on. I was very fortunate. I’ll be back on that replacements only low buy until the spring hair event where I’ll stock up again on hair items.

Here’s what I picked up:

The first two The Ordinary items are replacements, you’ll see the empties in my next empties post. Then the free clinique foundation which came with a free sample of hydrating jelly. I picked up a white foundation mixer to lighten up foundations that are too dark. I picked up the it cosmetics powder foundation and mac mineralized skin finish. I’ve heard great things about pur love your selfie foundation and the stila hide and chic foundation so I wanted to give them a try as well. I needed to add a low cost item to my order so I grabbed another hairspray, something that needs to be in my arsenal with my weird haircut. That’s 10 items in.

I was at 30 items out of my collection so far this year over what came in (prior to this only one item came in) so that brings me down to 20 items out over what came in.

But wait, there’s empties!

7 empties to be specific, so that’s 27 out over what came in.

I’ve got a redken powder grip hair powder. I’d originally been kind of salty about this as it has less in it than other brands and cost more. But, this really did last longer than those same other brands, so I don’t think it’s that bad of a value and I would pick it up again potentially.

I have the sexy hair surfrider dry texture spray. I liked it, but there are others I like a lot more so I won’t repurchase.

I have clinique waterproof mascara which is totally kicked.

I am letting go of a metallic liquid lipstick from the advent calendar, this is probably all the liquid lipsticks from nyx now gone.

I also finished a bite beauty agave lip treatment, which I did like a ton and I am sad to see it finished. I do have another to use though.

There’s a skinfix moisturizer which I used up as a night cream. Wouldn’t repurchase.

And there’s a fragrance sample, it’s hermes twilly. I liked it quite a lot, but not enough to want to seak it out.

So, the replacements only low buy, despite ending a bit early, has really done its trick to keep the items leaving my collection more than what comes in, and now I am back on the low buy. To be honest, there are a couple items that interest me in 21 days of beauty, but I truly don’t think that I am interested enough to purchase. There’s always the fall one, and I’ve more than enough to get me through until then.

Quarantimes

March 22, 2020 / shellssells / 1 Comment

I recently read that people who enjoy writing should be daily logging this experience so that they could look back and have it on record. Quite frankly, there’s nothing I’d like to do less, despite the fact I enjoy writing.

I think we all develop coping skills and strategies that ideally work as best as they can for us, for some that will be writing. That’s not the case for me. Thus far, my coping strategy has been working 100% of the time I am awake.

I am classified as a healthcare worker. I do not work directly with patient care. But they have deemed us critical even so, and I get it. I have spent the past two weeks working on plans to split my team in two in order to have half work from home and half physically at work, switching weekly. In part, this is to ideally keep my entire team from getting sick at once. We are also aware that if things go completely pear-shaped, we will be called in to work patient care in some manner though we are all hoping it will not come to that.

We move to the split shifts this upcoming week and I am hoping things run as smoothly as possible because I think we are in this for the long haul now, and I am hoping my team works together to prove we can operate in this manner.

Planning for work situations is where my brain is right now. If I am not directly working, I am thinking about work and what I/we can do to help. I am really struggling to turn that off, and since I can’t turn it off too well, I tend to end my days completely exhausted. I appreciate my understanding family.

Mr. Ink is in danger of losing about half his hours, or more, as the shop begins to make moves toward splitting their team as well, plus parts warehouses are in danger of shutting down completely. We are extremely thankful for my stable job right now, even though things might get tight.

All this is to say, in part, that I haven’t had a lot of time or energy to be working on knitting or crafting projects. Before this all started, I’d cast on a lintilla shawlette as I wanted something mindless out of my handspun, and lintilla is one of those knits that really brings me peace and joy.

It is already the size it would be if I was using 4 ounces of fiber, but I am using an 8 ounce handspun so this one is going to be mega-sized. I am totally ok with that. I can knit on this forever and not get bored. And I greatly appreciate having this long term piece to knit on when I am feeling like attempting stillness.

I do hope you are all quite well out there, and are holding up in place and aren’t putting others in danger no matter how hard it is. We are in it for the long haul, and like everything, this too shall pass.

Empties and Beauty Balance

March 11, 2020March 7, 2020 / shellssells / 4 Comments

Now that I’ve published my latest project pan, I can get through my empties for the past month. May I remind you real quick that for the first three months of this year it is my intention to be on a replacements only low buy. Until this month, I did not purchase any makeup/skincare/haircare items. I did this month though. My clinique waterproof mascara was starting to dry up, I opened in in September, so that’s no huge surprise. I decided that I wanted to try a tubing mascara. I’ve had my eye on the thrive one that is so highly rated, but I didn’t want to spend the cash and it’s so rarely in stock at ulta. I decided to dip my toe in the tubing mascara water using a drugstore brand.

I decided to give the L’oreal double extend a try. Now, I do have a bit of a gripe about this product, and it’s simply that the wand is hard to deal with. Since there are two tubes of product, the wands on both are rather short, which can be cumbersome. But, as far as the wear and use of the mascara, I am really liking it. It does not transfer on my browbone like even waterproof mascara does, and for that alone, it could win my heart. I haven’t used it much, but I am pretty pleased with my purchase.

So, in the last post I’d been able to use up 23 products. With one product in, that total is down to 22, which is still a really solid number.

Now for the empties and declutters. There’s one declutter not pictured, which is a tube of clinique mascara, travel size, which I gave to Miss Butterfly.

And then there’s the rest of this stuff. I have used up a container of almay eye makeup remover wipes. I used to use this stuff religiously, but have slowed down on my use of all disposable wipes. I do have another container in my collection but I save them for times when convenience is key.

Then there’s a container of body exfoliator that I have had in my panning projects since the beginning of the year.

I finished a bite beauty sample size lipstick in a project pan.

I am getting rid of two lip items, one from one of my advent calendars and one Miss Butterfly gave me from a declutter of her friend’s makeup. I realized I wasn’t going to wear it.

I have a sample size of lancome mascara primer which I loved but is completely used up.

And, that tiny little piece of something is a piece of a lush soap that is too small to use. I would like to get more lush soap, but also don’t want to drive all the way to the store for just that. I am waiting until I have to replace a body conditioner as well, and that’s when I will replace the soap.

That’s 8 items out of my collection this month, a bit less than I had been using in the previous two months, but still a solid number. This brings my number for the year so far to 30. And, I can count on finishing at least 3 items in the very near future, so the next empties and balance post should be quite good!

Partners in Cream project pan update 2

March 10, 2020March 7, 2020 / shellssells / 1 Comment

In my first partners in cream project pan update:

I had finished a face spray and removed a liquid shadow, adding in more primer and an almost used lipstick. I was also very close to finishing the pan of contour I was working on, and decided to keep the palette in the project, working on the darker contour next.

Here’s what is going on this month:

The bare minerals primer is very close to being done now, in fact it is so close to being done that I’ve been wearing my bare minerals foundation more often in hopes of finishing this up. I am not there yet, but I feel pretty confident I can use it up by the next update.

The darker cream contour is going just fine, I am seeing more pan than before, and I love the product. Because I am wearing a powder foundation sometimes, I have been using this less. I hope to hit solid side pan in the upcoming month.

Of the becca primers, one is completely gone, and you can see that I made a bit of progress on the other as well.

The sample size of bite beauty lipstick is used up. I love the dark vampy color of this, and I am actually sad to see it go.

Because I finished one item, I am rolling in another facial spray, this one is Skin & Co. It was in a project pan last year, as you can see the previous marks. And I have been using it consistently. I suspect this will take me about 2 months to finish, if I consider previous usage.

This is one of those projects that is feeling pretty consistent. I am getting a few things used up while still having some longer term items as well. I am appreciating how that’s working out. In using one of those primer tubes, I gained a nice space in my collection. When I finish up the bare minerals primer, that’ll be another great spot in my collection. My collection, which blossomed in 2018 and stayed about the same all the way through 2019 is finally starting to reduce.

Handspun Scarf

March 3, 2020 / shellssells / 4 Comments

You know that feeling, when you are a knitter, that you just gotta cast something on but you really don’t want to think about what and how? I had that feeling lately. I wanted the simplest of projects with yarn that was already wound into a ball, and I wanted to do exactly zero research on what that project would be.

I landed on a 1×1 rib scarf, alternating two colors of handspun yarn. They are both shades of green, one darker, one lighter. When I ran out of the lighter yarn, the scarf wasn’t long enough, nor was I done with the darker green. So I just kept knitting the 1×1 rib, leaving me with a darker edge. I don’t care. It’s fine. I knit, and at that time, that’s what counted.

But, it did turn out fine, and it’s another for the donation/give away bin. I don’t need it in my life and I hope that someday it brings someone else joy.

That’s it from me this week, see you next week!

Protect Your Meatsuit project pan update 2

March 2, 2020March 1, 2020 / shellssells / 1 Comment

While I didn’t get to roll anything new in on my makeup project pan, I am doing so on this one. Though technically I didn’t finish anything in this one either!

My items last month are above. You can see some of the markings on them, the starting point and the ending point. I had truly intended to have that tub of exfoliator done this month, but didn’t get to it. However, it’s so close to being done that I am adding something in place of it to work on in tandem. If I finish the tub in the next 10 days, you won’t even see it in the next update, as I’ll add it to my empties.

Now, you can see a green line far below the original lines on my body wash. I had thought that I could leave it in my shower and hopefully no one would use it but me. It has become clear that this was NOT the case. In fact, it only got left in the shower daily for ONE WEEK before I noticed that someone in my family was gorging themselves on it. I now remove it daily. I imagine progress will go back to being quite slow now.

The elemis superfood mask has only the smallest amount of progress. I didn’t mark it since I hadn’t used it at the start, first update is a gold line, second a green line. So, not much use there.

But, I found a massive air bubble in my elemis chemical exfoliator so that’s showing a TON of progress.

My dr. Brandt face cleanser is moving right along, I think it’ll take me another 2 months to finish but steady progress is being made.

I did open the tub of body exfoliator this time, so you can see that I am on the very last dregs of it. I’ve actually been using this to exfoliate my hands well before using a good hand lotion lately. It’s starting to warm up a bit so this is less necessary than it was in the dead of winter. I may add it back to the shower.

And adding in the shea moisture in shower body conditioner. I don’t like this product much. I don’t think it does much. I don’t like the gentle coconut smell either. I won’t repurchase this. I’ve got a no packaging product from lush that works so much better for this purpose! So mainly I am hoping to concentrate on it, finish it up this month, and find something else to add in.

That’s it for this project. Partners in cream is the next project and that update is on the 10th of the month. I feel that I’ve made nice progress on that one so I am eager to show that off next weekend!

2020 Rolling Project Pan Update 2

March 1, 2020 / shellssells / 1 Comment

Prompts:

Here are the last two months photos:

I had finished the bare minerals foundation and added the blue L’oreal liner.

I am going to grab a larger photo of last month here:

That way we are better able to see the progress on both the pencils, since I am just making comparisons to where we were before in comparing it to the lettering. Here’s this month.

I guess those can be hard to see anyhow! But I am getting a bit distracted, let’s start from the top.

A product with cute packaging was my Pretty Vulgar powder. At the beginning, the packaging weighed 80 grams. At update 1 it weighed 75 grams, and now I am at 73 grams.

An expensive product is my hourglass ambient lighting powder in dim light. I use this daily. It is a baked product, so domed in the pan. I had flattened it out. At this update, I can start to see a bit of a dip going on in the pan.

A drugstore product is my nyx eyebrow pencil. I had honestly expected this to be used faster. I’ve probably sharpened it only 3 times this month despite using it every day I wear makeup.

A product I bought because of youtube-this is my CYO lifeproof foundation and honestly? I have totally fallen in love with it. It sticks to my face beautifully and I really like how it looks. It is discontinued, and I gave my other container of it to Miss Butterfly since she needed something to use, but I am definitely sad I did. I will miss it. I believe that there’s a soap and glory foundation which is this repackaged, so maybe at the point I need a new foundation, probably years from now at this point, I’ll consider picking that up.

An old favorite is my hula bronzer, this is a sample package. I use it every day I wear makeup but it isn’t disappearing fast by any stretch of the imagination. That being said, I can see a pretty decent dip on one side now so I am somewhat encouraged. It does occur to me, though, that most of what I’ve chosen to pan this year are rather long term products.

And finally, the product that I haven’t used in a while, that’s my cobalt blue l’oreal silkissime liner. I’ve used this quite a bit, close to daily on the days I wear makeup. My goal for this one is to use it up past the L’oreal marking, so not to use it up but to make some progress. It’ll be some time with this liner I think.

No finishes this month, and I doubt there’ll be any finishes for the next months to come. I gotta remember that on this one I am in it for the long haul. I do reserve the right to “give up” on products if I just can’t take anymore, but all of these items are items I like using. so remembering the long haul is a good idea.

Suzy Sells Sea Shells

Month: March 2020