While I don’t have any current project pans running beyond a perfume one, I have had a couple of really big finishes lately. I don’t keep my empties or do empty posts right now so I don’t typically highlight what I have finished. However, there are a few I’ve been working on for years that I have finished and I wanted to highlight them. I am going to use the last available photo I have for them.

The first is my Tarte timeless smoothing primer last shown here:

This photo was taken at the end of October. Basically about 2 months of use finished it up.

Then there’s the mac foundation I’ve worked on bit by bit all year. For the majority of this year we’ve had to wear masks at work and this is a foundation that did not work under a mask. So I had been using it bit by bit on weekends and at times I wasn’t at work. Then, later in the year we were allowed to stop wearing masks. So I then concentrated on the foundation and was able to finish it. I am delighted!

This photo is from mid-September when I had finished the project I’d been working on all year. I’d been using a pump from a different foundation, and right around this time I had to stop using the pump because the tube did not go to the bottom of the container. For a long time I just had to keep the bottle on its side, then I flipped it upside down and kept using it, and in the end scraped out the sides with a tiny makeup spatula. This now resides with my back to mac items.

And finally the latest finish, the oldest perfume in my collection is finished now.

It also goes down in history as the first time I have ever finished a full size of perfume. I am ridiculously proud.

All of these items I’ve had in my collection for years. All of them I’ve worked hard on all of this year. It took effort, but I am thrilled to call all three of them finished.

I’ve also had a few skincare finishes and haircare finishes that I am super proud of, but I did not save the empties. I finished a liter container of shampoo and a liter container of conditioner. I’ve never finished a liter container before and I will never purchase a liter again. But they are done. I also finished a 6.7 ounce container of face cleanser from Tula. I’d received it in a subscription box ages ago and I thought I would never finish. I am delighted that I am done! Also from a subscription box was a 30 ml container of eye serum from mudmasky and let me tell you, 30 mls of eye serum is a lot of eye serum! Took me over a year to finish it.

I am now enjoying two makeup related activities. The first is opening my homemade makeup advent calendar. My daughter wrapped up makeup from my own collection for me to open each day of this month and I am enjoying that immensely. The other activity is simply planning what I am doing for a project next year, and honestly? I don’t think I am going to have a project that works on finishing anything specific. Instead, I believe I’ll choose items to use for 3 months, see what kind of progress I make, and then roll in a full set of new products for the following 3 months. I feel like 4 sets of a full face of makeup used for a solid 3 months at a time will set me up well for future project panning plus serve the purpose of rotating through my current collection. If I do a project pan it’ll probably be body or haircare related or both.

There’s an interesting cycle that happens with every new hobby I take up that I’ve noticed over time. The first part of the cycle is an initial excitement to try all the things and acquire certain tools, etc. Then there’s a feeling of being overwhelmed by stuff, and also settling in to the hobby enough to know what I like and want to do and what tools I like to use which puts me in more of a “don’t buy more, just use what you already have if possible” zone and that’s the best place to be with any hobby. That’s where I am with makeup now and that’s where I’d like to stay over the next year.