I am ending this around a week early. And why? Because I finished the item I so wanted to finish in this quarter, the Stila foundation!

Now, let me preface this post with some information-you will not actually see fantastic progress on many of these items this second half of the quarter. You see, in the first half of the quarter I did wear makeup extremely regularly. But in the second half of the quarter I lost almost 3 weeks of usage due to a skin biopsy on my face. Thankfully everything turned out to be fine, but at the same time I wanted to follow the doctor’s directions in hopes to keep scarring to a minimum. Even 4 weeks later I still have a pretty significant divot in my face and the entire place the spot was formerly is very red. But I do think I did well with getting it to heal prior to wearing makeup again.

So since my progress was basically cut in half for the second half of the quarter I was extremely surprised to realize that I’d made it through the Stila foundation! I shouldn’t be, it’s a very runny and watery foundation which I generally had to use about 4 pumps of to get appropriate coverage on my face. So I was definitely racing through it in a manner that doesn’t happen with thicker foundations.

Where I started in January:

A month and a half in:

And now:

Now on to progress:

-Stila Foundation, gone
-Mac Fix Plus Rose-a bit of progress made but not much. I will be working on finishing this bottle up this year though. I will intersperse use of it with other facial sprays in the quarterly stash shop.
-Maybelline Concealer, surprisingly it seems like the progress is similar to the previous half despite not having worn makeup nearly as much.
-Mac Mineralized Skin Finish powder started at 71 grams, it was 70 grams last time and remains at 70 grams. However, I did notice that I can start to see the clay pan (it’s a baked product) at the very top of the container so progress has been achieved.
-Mac Painterly Paint Pot-same here, I had used a gram in the first half but it weighs the same now.
-Mascara Maybelline falsies lash lift-this one is done as it’s been open for 6 months.
-Clinique eyeliner-I’ve used it consistently but there’s no way to show progress. I’ll keep after this one this year as I believe I will be able to finish it.
-Elf brow wax-no discernable progress even though I have consistently worn it.
-Maybelline liquid eyeliner-I did not use this at all this half of the quarter. I am not going to add anymore liquid liners to the stash shop because I don’t really use them.
-Hourglass ambient lighting edit palette. This one also remains the same weight as last update. I did use it very regularly and I am pleased with the progress. The difference between the first photo and this update is significant. I’ve got lots of pan in the bronzer in particular. I also made a lot of progress on the two face powders. The blushes are, of course, slower but the warmer toned one is far flatter than the cooler toned one. And the highlighter has a very large divot in it in one spot.

So, to review, in this quarter I finished:
-Eyebrow pencil
-Sunscreen
-2 mascaras
-Stila Foundation
And good progress was made on the other items, with two I believe I can finish this year even while keeping up with a quarterly stash shop. While progress was slow this month and a half, the overall progress of the 3 months was quite good. Now to relax for a week and then post and begin the second quarter stash shop, post will be up either at the very end of this month or beginning of next.

I’ve got a little update on my first quarter stash shop, and I am delighted to report that despite the fact that I am not out here intending to purposely pan any items, I did finish two things.

Here’s what I chose for my first quarter:

And here’s where I am now:

So, for progress-

The Stila foundation I don’t like and am determined to finish up this year. I’ve been hitting it pretty hard. At the beginning of the project I had 87 grams and it is now at 80.

The mac fix plus rose, the washi tape has a marking indicating how far I have gotten, I think that’s pretty decent!

The maybelline concealer has had progress, again indicated on the washi tape. It’s slow going.

The mac mineralized skin finish powder is going pretty well, I feel like I am making a good dent in it though I have not hit pan. According to the scale I’ve only used 1 gram.

I have been consistently using my mac paint pot and the scale tells me I used a gram of that as well.

Next up is my first empty-the dr. jart’s cicapair sunscreen. I am glad it’s gone.

I have two mascaras in this project, but I think I am done with the tarte maneater, not a lot left on the brush as I attempt to apply it.

I finished the brow pencil completely, so that’s gone.

I’ve been using my clinique eyeliner regularly. I have panned one of these in the past, it’s just a travel size. I think it took me all spring so I am hoping that by the end of this project I’ll have finished.

I am finally making a tiny bit of progress on the elf brow wax. While I wouldn’t repurchase, I don’t need to toss it out either.

I have used the liquid eyeliner maybe twice, not a lot of progress there.

And finally, my hourglass palette. I’ve used this every day I’ve worn makeup. I have used two grams. I do think though that the pans on the finishing powder area are far more increased, particularly the bronzer. And while it’s hard to tell, I think I am making good progress on the blushes too, they do not seem as domed as they previously were.

All in all a pretty good month and a half. I so greatly dislike the foundation that I just can’t wait for it to be done. My current plan is to keep hitting it hard through this first three months of the year, then if I still have more left, I will try to make a point of using it at least once a week until I am too summer tanned to do so. It may take me all year, like the mac foundation I panned last year, but I am really determined that this one needs to go. Other than that, I am left with good products I enjoy so it’s not terribly hard to keep working on them.

Despite this though, I am thinking that if I were to do this type of project again, I might do it as an every two month situation. While I would not make as much progress on individual items, I would get more use out of my collection as a whole and feel more inspired waiting on the upcoming change.

Around christmas time last year I did a complete inventory in anticipation of going on a replacements only low buy this year. I knew that I had a few things that were still going to arrive but tried my best to account for them prior to them arriving. I also knew I would purchase a beautylish lucky bag, and I am subscribed to lush kitchen subscription.

So, what came in to my life? a bunch of samples from an order I’d already accounted for, 2 countable items in the lush subscription box, 3 countable items in the beautylish lucky bag, and 2 items that I purchased when Mr. Ink asked me to purchase a certain type of soap for him. The soap is not mine, it doesn’t count. But, I purchased a container of australian gold mineral sunscreen for bike rides, I need something above a 30 and all mineral so it doesn’t bug my eyes. And, in order to get free shipping I purchased a container of sheamoisture body moisturizer. I can’t technically make it work for my low buy, but I did it, I am admitting to it, and I’ll work on that.

In a more productive note, I have had many empties.

As I mentioned in the original inventory post, if it’s a sachet style sample or perfume sample I am not saving it. I am tossing it. But here are the somewhat larger items.

Kenra dry texture spray, I’ve used these many times but I think I am over it, I’ve got other texture sprays I like better.

Nexxus mousse, love it, would repurchase, but cannot until I go through a container and a half of what I already own.

This moisturizer has been in our bathroom for years and no one ever finishes it. So I finished it.

I purchased the TJs charcoal and peppermint shampoo around november 2021 and have been working at it since then. I finally finished.

Clinique take the day off is a fav, would repurchase, but I have a few to work through first and also I like to get this one half price.

Beauty of Joseon essence I really enjoyed and I would repurchase someday when it is needed.

Bedhead thickener, I’ve used this a few times and this is my last time, won’t repurchase.

What was in the Laura Mercier powder was a make up forever powder I finally finished. It was in my project pan last year and I didn’t finish in time. I’ve been working at it since.

I had a perricone MD travel size of the cold plasma treatment. I used it, I have few feelings about it.

There’s a mario badescu clarifying serum, again, few feelings to share.

Pyunkang Yul’s Black Tea Reverse eye cream was lovely. Lasted all year, there’s loads of it in the container and it’s a good price. Would repurchase.

And a gucci sample mascara which I liked far more than I wished I did but I wouldn’t spend that much on a mascara.

So, for inventory, I will only list the categories where there were changes.

Mineral Sunscreen, added 1, now have 3
Gentle Cleanser, added one from lush, now have 3
Cleanser, added 1 from the lucky bag, now have 7
Retinol, added a kit from before the new year, now have 4
Face masks, added an exuviance face polish sample, and also added and used a Dr. Jart sheet mask, I now have 6
Cleansing Balm, used 1, now I have 4
Eye Cream, used 1, now I have 3
Eye serum, added 1, now I have 4
Exfoliating serum, added 2, used 1, now have 3
Vitamin C Serum, added 1, now I have 2
Daily moisturizer, added 2, used 1, now have 7
Toner, added 2, used 1, have 6
moisturizing serum, added 2, used 1, now have 9
Hair repair items, used 1, now have 2
Hair primer, added 1, now have 2
Hair oil/mask, used 1, have 2
Hair mousse, used 1, now have 2
Hair thickening product, used 1, now have 2
Hair texture spray used 1, now have 4
Shampoo, used 3, now have 9. 2 of these were sachet samples
Conditioner, added 2, used 3, now have 11. All used were sachet samples
Added a dry shampoo, now I have 1
Body moisturizer, added 1, used 1, have 6
Body wash, added 1, now have 4
Fragrance, added 2 samples, used 3 samples, now have 43 total items.

Overall, in the past month and then some, I added 25 individual items, most of which are sample sizes. And total used was 22. Not completely even, but close. Next month should be better. As I was updating my inventory, I also took note of the items which I am pretty sure I can count on being finished next month. I can count 10 that I am quite certain will be finished. So next month inventory will look a bit less unbalanced, as I was working against stuff that was ordered already and arriving during the month.

Happy New Year folks! In the makeup panning community a new year is always super exciting. So much of what we’ve been contemplating over a few months gets to be revealed. It’s a nice way of marking the turning of a year.

This year I am not going to focus on a big project pan. Instead, I am going to do a quarterly stash shop in which I see how much use I can get out of makeup in a quarter. This will prepare me better for panning in 2024. So much of what I have doesn’t have a ton of use so panning it would mean I’d be concentrating on one item per category for an entire year and that’s not so fun.

So, I am going to be picking a full face of makeup each quarter to concentrate on. Sometimes I’ll also have a cream and a powder per category, but not necessarily. The rules are that at the end of the quarter I choose an entirely new full face of products for the next quarter, no leaving an item in for 2 quarters in a row. Also, if I do finish an item during a quarter, no rolling in a new item, a finish means an opportunity to use whatever I’d like for the remainder of the quarter. I’ll do mid-quarter updates. So in example, an intro in January, an update mid February, a finale at the end of March, an intro with the new stash shop in April and so on.

This is what feels fresh and interesting to me this year and I have been really excited to prep for it. I’ve been spending the last few months cycling through my stash and trying to figure out how I want to approach this. Ultimately there will be items that I do want to finish up this year. And one will be in this very first stash shop so that I can really hit the ground running with it at the beginning of the year. Also, in this first quarter I have not chosen a lip product to concentrate on as I intend to work on wearing each of my lip products at least once throughout this quarter. That’ll likely take me the entire quarter but at the end of it I will know if anything has gone off or if I just don’t want to bother with something and want to declutter instead.

Here’s the photo of this initial stash shop for 2023.

I have chosen to weigh some of these items since they are hard to track progress on.

Stila Hide and Chic foundation: I do not like this formula and do want to fully use this up this year. I cannot see through the container at all so I have no clue how far along I am. However I’ve used it almost not at all since I didn’t like it, which means that it is basically new. Weight with the cap on is 87 grams.

Mac fix pus: Love this item, have a back up. I am about halfway through, you can see the washi tape on it to track progress.

Maybelline instant age rewind concealer: I admit that I chose this in part because it’s typically pretty satisfying to track progress on these. I removed the sponge as it got too goopy and I will now use it without the sponge. Washi tape is placed to track progress.

Mac mineralized skin finish powder: I’ve had this in my stash for a while and in other projects as well. There’s good use on it. Currently it weighs 71 grams.

Below the mac powder is Dr. Jart’s cicapear cream. I do not like this item. It’s a travel size and I am hoping to finish it during this quarter. It has spf and it claims to color correct. I don’t think it plays overly nicely with most other products, but the stila foundation is pretty light coverage and this does help tone down the redness in my skin, making the stila foundation act like it has more coverage. No weight on this as I think progress will be reasonably easy to see.

And below that, mac painterly paint pot: There’s no way I’ll finish this in a quarter so this is simply an attempt to concentrate on one at a time, with the lid this currently weighs 53 grams.

The next 4 items are 2 eye liners and 2 mascaras. The mascaras will have to be tossed at the end of the quarter. The clinique eyeliner is a travel size so it’s possible I could finish this quarter. The other is a liquid liner that I doubt will be used up.

I have added my hourglass ambient lighting edit palette as I rarely use it because it’s “precious” to me. The Stila foundation does not accept cream products over it, so this is a great time to really concentrate on it. It has all I need so I am excited to work on it. It weighs 137 grams.

And finally my brow product choices. I’ve been working on the billion dollar brows pencil for a long time. I want to finish it this quarter and that seems possible. The elf brow wax is something I keep saying I need to use but never do. This quarter is my opportunity to use it and toss it at the end if I don’t like it. If I don’t use it in this quarter, it gets tossed for sure.

While when I initially look at this it feels….limiting, I think it’ll give me the foundation I want for the year. It’ll also streamline any day which I feel I am tight for time as it allows a solid choice to use instead of trying to make snap decisions.

I am quite eager to see how far I get before the first update. I am excited to have weights on some of these items this time as I don’t think I’ve typically tracked weights before. And since I know I am only using these for 3 months I get the excitement of also contemplating my next set of products for the second quarter while working on these.

In anticipation of a replacements only low buy through to November 2023, I spent some time this week doing an extensive inventory. Makeup is separate as I keep that in an app, this inventory was specifically for skincare, haircare, bodycare and fragrance. I am going to take a little time to post my categories under each and also my current numbers. That being said, please understand that the vast majority of these items are tiny sample sizes, particularly when it comes to haircare.

Skincare:

I like to keep a mineral sunscreen as well as a broad spectrum, so sunscreens are two categories.

Mineral sunscreen: 2
Broad spectrum sunscreen: 7

I use a gentle cleanser in the morning and a more intense one for use in the evening. So these are also kept in two categories.

Gentle cleanser: 2
Cleanser: 6

For makeup removers, I prefer to use a balm or an oil but I do currently have makeup wipes and a biphase item in my collection. I won’t replace those two categories once they are gone.

Makeup wipes: 1
Biphase makeup remover: 1
Cleansing oil: 1
Cleansing Balm: 5

For actives, I like to have a retinol type product, a vitamin C product, and some acids.

Retinol: 2
Vitamin C: 1
Acids: 2

I like to have 2 eye creams, one for day and 1 for night as well as a serum.

Eye cream: 4
Eye serum: 3

Lips, it’s important to me to have a lip balm in different areas of the house and also at work and in my bag. I only keep one scrub. The number of lip balms that I will always have going at once is 5. (Work, handbag, bedside table, makeup table, craft table) And 1 lipscrub. I currently have 8 balms and one lip scrub.

I like to have a daytime moisturizer and a thicker nighttime moisturizer.

Day moisturizer: 6
Night moisturizer: 3

Toners-for me, the best thing is to have a moisturizing toner for day and an active/acid one for night. But I am a bit flexible on this.

Day: 3
Night:2

I enjoy having moisturizing serums with various actives, but I’d like to get this category down to 2. Currently I’ve got 8.

Face masks. Honestly, this is the category I really struggle to even use. Mostly these collect in my drawers and I have to really force myself to use them. I actually did use my very last sheet mask today so that I didn’t have to bring it into the new year. A good moisturizing face mask is probably my best bet but it seems I’ve got a number that don’t work as well for me. In any case, I’ve got a total of 5 face masks, none of which I love.

I do keep a face oil on hand though I rarely use it. 1 is good.

And I have 1 acne product, which I keep on hand and rarely use.

Haircare-

This is, honestly, where the vast majority of my itty bitty sachet items are. I’ve kind of just been saving them up because this year I concentrated on using up two liter containers of shampoo and conditioner. It’ll be another year before I can just purchase what I’d like to be using I think, but we’ll see. I also use a lot of hair products because I have weird hair which I like to stick up as much as possible. In any case, I am completely overloaded in this category and would like to get things down to what I would most conceivably use on the regular.

Shampoo: 12
Conditioner: 12 (The vast majority of both the shampoo and conditioner are sachets or travel sizes.)

Hair repair items, currently I have 5 none of them full size.

I have 1 smoothing balm in a travel size.

Gels/balms, I have 3 in this category, all of them sachets.

Hair oils/masks: 3

Toner, this is a necessary item for my silver hair, I only have 1, I only keep one, and I don’t scrimp on it.

I currently have 4 hair powders, I use these so often that I do rather stock up. But I am going to “spend” them down.

Texture spray, when I am not using hair powders I am using texture sprays. I’ve got 2 favorites and am trialing a few others. Currently I own 5.

For whatever reason I have acquired 2 spray waxes. I actually do like these items but I also have 2 waxes in a pot and I don’t really need 4! Let’s see if I can get at least one used this year as I don’t use them often. Concentrating first on those in a pot.

Hairspray is a category I use a lot and I currently have 2.

Mousse is another item I use a ton of, I have 3 currently though one is almost done.

Thickening products: 3

Now on to body care! I made a bit of a misstep this year which I am looking to rectify in the upcoming year. I tried the original soap and glory scent in a body lotion, loved it, tried another, loved it, and somehow decided that meant I should try all the scents. Turns out the original is my favorite and I am now stuck working my way through a bunch of body lotions I don’t love. Currently I have 6 to work through.

I have 3 body washes at the moment, they are all from lush, and I love them all. However, I suspect I will finish my yog nog at the beginning of 2023.

I am ridiculously picky about hand cream. I like one kind and one kind only, and that’s First Aid Beauty. I can usually get it on a good sale, and like to have as many as I have lip balms. Currently I own 5 but could make do with 4.

I have 2 cuticle oils, and that number will remain the same.

And finally, fragrance. I have 44 fragrances, the vast majority of which are itty bitty sample sizes. It’s my intention in the upcoming quarter to go through ALL of them. I’ll be categorizing them into 4 piles. Wintery scents, springy scents, scents I don’t want to wear at all ever, and scents that are masculine enough to give to Mr. Ink to see if he wants to wear. I’ve got an ongoing perfume project pan I plan to continue in hopes I can whittle down that number well.

I think it’s a very easy conclusion on why I can do a replacements only low buy until next November. I will update these numbers quarterly during 2023 and see how much I can move out of my collection. I am also going to bring back empties posts, but only with travel size or larger items. I am going to simply get rid of sachet or sample size items. I do not want to keep those for an empties post.

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.

On this lovely spooky day at the end of October I can post the finale for my graveyard project pan. This was a project which I began in May and then ends on Halloween.

The idea is to use items which have been in other project pans (resurrection items) or use old items which haven’t seen much love recently (collecting cobweb items.)

I had a fairly small and focused group of items and was able to make wonderful progress. Here’s the original photo I started with:

My goal for these items were to hit pan on the contour, brightener, and blush. Then to finish the tiny pan of eyeshadow and to get as far as possible on the container of primer.

I eventually rolled in a powder as well which I already had pan on but wanted to keep working through. July was the start date on that one as the previous powder I’d had in the project was lightening my foundation making me look rather “ghostly” which while appropriate to the theme was not at all what I am going for during the summer months. I’ll get back to that powder this winter.

Last month I had an update which was pretty fantastic, I was very pleased with my progress.

It was at this point where my goal to hit pan was out the window and now I was eager to finish the contour entirely. I also had a tiny bit of pan on the lighter highlighter which I hadn’t expected to use at all. I’d reached my goal on the brightener but wanted to continue working on it through the month. And, I did realize that I would not hit pan on the blush but I continued to work on that as well.

Here’s where I managed to get to throughout the past month and a half:

The bronzer and the eyeshadow are completely used up. I expanded the pan on both the brightener and the highlighter. And, as expected, I didn’t hit pan on the blush but feel pretty good about the use I did get out of it. The primer is pretty close to being finished and I do want to continue using it up throughout the upcoming months to finish. Same goes for the powder, though I don’t really need as much of it right now as the weather is cooling and I no longer have to wear a mask at work. It may end up getting set aside for next summer.

As for the face palette, I am putting it away for a time. I will enjoy rotating through my stash in the upcoming 2 months while I prepare for whatever project I decide to attempt in the new year. (I am leaning toward full face of rolling project pan with quarterly refreshes again this year but I am not positive.)

All of this is to say, this was a wonderfully productive project for me this year. In part, it was made easier by the fact that we had a foster dog and puppies in our home for 3 months of this project, and I had to pack away all my other makeup to make room for puppies, keeping only the barest bones makeup stash out for getting ready in the morning. It’s easy to see progress when you don’t really use any other makeup!

This will be the last update before the finale of this project and things are still going quite well on this one. Let’s start with the eyeshadows part of the project. In the collecting cobwebs category, I decided to work my way through all the colors of certain eyeshadow palettes. In part because I wanted to see if I wanted to keep them and also get a fair amount of use out of them. For the previous month and a half I had chosen 3 Too Faced palettes.

I am not choosing more palettes to work through for the next update. With 8 puppies and a foster dog in the house I am just not able to give attention to makeup, particularly eyeshadows, the way I do when I only have our two dogs. There’s no point choosing a couple palettes that I know I won’t be able to work on. Instead, I’ll work through the base products which I am still wearing with some regularity.

Here’s the photo from last update on those:

After this photo was taken I repressed the bronzer as it had been getting difficult to use. I actually added a bit of the highlighter next to it to give it a sheen.

I had also repressed the cream colored eyeshadow pan so it’s hard to tell what usage I had on that over the past month and a half. I think it’s been pretty minimal since, again, 8 puppies and not much time for makeup. I’ll keep plugging away at it.

I’ve somewhat given up hope of hitting pan on the blush, but at the same time recognize that I finished the other blush I was working on, so if I keep using this one exclusively, there’s a chance I can hit pan on it before the end of October.

For the face powder I am actively working on, so much progress has been made! I am now working at lowering all the product toward the sides of the pan but I genuinely believe this could be finished in a month and a half.

Finally, the primer. In the last update I’d worked product out of the corners with a tool, but this time I am back to using my fingers and it doesn’t feel like a ton of progress was made. I think that is because to some extent I am also pushing the product around while I am trying to access it.

I will be entirely ready to put away the face palette at the end of this project and use some other items in my stash. But, I’ve made so much progress during this year that I do plan to go back and finish up the blush at some point fairly soon. I actually feel that way about every single item in this project, all of them are close enough to see finished up when I have the motivation for it once this project is over.

It may be that I can’t use makeup as much as usual or it may be that the weather is turning but I am full on contemplating what I’ll be choosing for project panning next year. I do think once this project is over I’ll use November and December as a break to work through choosing for the new year.

All in all another fairly successful month and a half despite the fact that we are all completely topsy turvy in our household right now!

I figured it was time for an update today because I’ve finished two more items. And because these two items bring me to 22 items gone I am technically done and calling it a finale. (Ok, in all seriousness, I am a bit bored, 9.5 months is about as much as I’ve ever wanted to concentrate on any set of items, and I am going to use the next 3 months to rotate through stash and make decisions about next year while also working on my graveyard project pan.)

Last month:

This month:

I do not think I will do a 23 in 2023 style project next year. I think I’ll do something more along the lines of a full face or rolling project with refreshes so that I can stay more engaged with the project through the year. Plus that will help me rotate through my items more as well. So maybe the goal next year will be less about fully using things up and more about a rotation and using items I didn’t really get to use this year. In any case, good success overall!

The list:

1. Hourglass Dim Light powder
2. Bare Minerals Bare Pro Powder Foundation
3. Cerave sunscreen
4. Juice Beauty primer (deluxe sample size)
5. Bite Beauty lipstick
6. Sephora green color corrector
7. Tarte Amazonian Clay color corrector
8. Colourpop supershock shadow Frog
9. Benefit eyebrow pencil
10. Elf putty primer (deluxe sample size)
11. Ilia lip balm (deluxe sample size)
12. Tarte lip balm (deluxe sample size)
13. Tower 28 gloss (deluxe sample size)
14. Sleek Face Palette (darkest contour shade only with use of the light bronzer shade as well)
15. Makeup Forever Lip Liner
16. Makeup Forever powder (deluxe sample size)
17. Laura Mercier secret brightening powder
18. Coola spray (sample size)
19. Maybelline setting spray (travel size)
20. 1 mascara of any type
21. Benefit tinted eyebrow gel
22. Ofra liquid lipstick travel size any color

Bonus items:

elf eyebrow wax
Stila lipstick
Pan of blush
Mac foundation
Clinique eyeliner
Pretty Vulgar powder

It’s been another month and that means another month of use on my project pan items. Here’s where I was last month:

I was feeling good about progress on some items last month but was perplexed about the lack of any pan at all on the blush. Here’s where I am this month.

A quick overview of the other items. The Stila lipstick is very close to being done now. I feel confident I could finish that by next update. The tarte jelly glaze is done. The makeup forever lip liner is done. I had been very careful not to put the cap on too far so that I could use up the last dregs of the liner but at some point it got stuck in the cap so there’s nothing I can do about that now. Honestly it was extremely close to being done.

I believe I’ll be done with the powder by next month or the month after. Same with the blush. Unfortunately I haven’t used the foundation at all and I have used the supershock eyeshadow extremely sparingly. I have been using the brow gel daily though so I know good progress is being made despite the fact it is not visible.

In the end, while there are some products I thought at the beginning of the year I’d like to pan, I just haven’t. And so the “bonus” list has been great since I’ve kept working on some of those instead. I’ll still hit my 22 despite having lost all desire to work on a few products on the original list.

The list:

1. Hourglass Dim Light powder
2. Bare Minerals Bare Pro Powder Foundation
3. Cerave sunscreen
4. Juice Beauty primer (deluxe sample size)
5. Bite Beauty lipstick
6. Sephora green color corrector
7. Tarte Amazonian Clay color corrector
8. Colourpop supershock shadow Frog
9. Benefit eyebrow pencil
10. Elf putty primer (deluxe sample size)
11. Ilia lip balm (deluxe sample size)
12. Tarte lip balm (deluxe sample size)
13. Tower 28 gloss (deluxe sample size)
14. Sleek Face Palette (darkest contour shade only with use of the light bronzer shade as well)
15. Makeup Forever Lip Liner
16. Makeup Forever powder (deluxe sample size)
17. Laura Mercier secret brightening powder
18. Coola spray (sample size)
19. Maybelline setting spray (travel size)
20. 1 mascara of any type
21. Benefit tinted eyebrow gel
22. Ofra liquid lipstick travel size any color

Bonus items:

elf eyebrow wax
Stila lipstick
Pan of blush
Mac foundation
Clinique eyeliner
Pretty Vulgar powder

Last update on my graveyard project pan was June 11, and I knew I wasn’t going to be updating strictly monthly. My goal was to update after I had worked through each and every shadow on of the BH cosmetics zodiac palettes. Which I did! So let’s start there.

This endeavor was under the Collecting Cobwebs heading, and I am going to do the same type of eyeshadow usage goal for the next update. Again, I won’t update until I work my way through all of these. My plan is to use every shade of every Too Faced palette I own. That’s Sweet Peach, Chocolate Gold, and a christmas palette I picked up a few years back. The christmas palette has blush/bronzer/highlighter as well, which I also will work my way through.

Sweet Peach and Chocolate Gold are fairly well used palettes. The christmas palette less so. I am going for the goal of using every eyeshadow in my collection at least once this year, so this smaller challenge furthers the larger challenge.

For the rest of the products, here’s where I was at the beginning of June.

The mermaid palette was not in last month’s rotation, it’s a leftover from the previous month.

For this month, I am adding in a powder. The mac powder I was using (pictured above) is too light for this time of year. When I wear it, it lightens my foundation and that looks cruddy while I have been outdoors regularly and am a bit more tanned. So, I am adding in my Rimmel Stay Matte powder which already has pan in it, it also goes well under the collecting cobwebs heading.

This month’s progress. The two setting powders are collecting cobwebs and the rest are resurrection products. The Tarte poreless smoothing primer I am making fantastic progress on. I actually began using a tool with this to scrape out the side. This might be a bit of a deceiving photo as I scraped out the areas that had the least amount of product and now am left with larger amounts. But I would say that I am about halfway through using this up and am really hoping to power through it by the end of this project. If not the end of the project, certainly the end of the year.

My cover FX palette has seen a fair amount of use. My original goal was to hit pan on the bronzer, the blush, and the brightener. But now I want to finish up the bronzer completely. After I took this photo I repressed the bronzer, adding in a bit of the darker highlighter as well, and it is now sitting more in the middle of the pan. This will help me use it up easily.

I have not yet hit pan on the brightener, but I’ve been mixing it with the lighter highlighter since the summer is the only time I can use that highlighter. So progress on the brightener has slowed considerably! And the blush is a blush so it’ll take time to hit pan. In fact I fear I will not hit pan by the end of this project. But I’ll keep after it and try.

The eyeshadow that I use as a primer setting powder I also repressed as it’s hard to get any use out of it with everything concentrated at the edges.

with the Rimmel powder I am rolling in, I am really hoping to finish this one. Or at least get as far as possible during the warmer weather. I am concentrating my brush on the outsides of this one as I want to wear away the edges that are still quite full.

All in all, good progress toward some longer term goals. If I finish this bronzer, I will have finished 4 pans of bronzer this year which is amazing. I had two I finished in the sleek cream contour palette and then earlier this year I finished an hourglass bronzer. All of them had been worked on prior to this year but being able to finally finish them this year is very motivating.

I likely won’t have another update until end of august or beginning of september now, that’s a lot of eyeshadow to work through! But hopefully because of this, the next update will be interesting!

I am sorry to report that I have no empties whatsoever this month. However, I am still making progress on what I’ve been working on and I should have an empty next month for sure.

Last month:

This month:

What I am working on seems to have dwindled somewhat and while I should add more items in, I just haven’t.

The benefit gimme brow I am trying to use every day I wear makeup now, and while I’ll never finish it by the end of the year, it’s likely to dry out and get to a point it will need to be tossed this year if I keep after it.

The Tarte jelly glaze sample is extremely close to being done, this one will be done next update for sure.

The makeup forever powder doesn’t seem to have made much progress, and that’s likely because I am only using it to set concealer. It’ll be gone by the end of the year though if I just keep using it.

The pan of blush I frankened and repressed has been used, maybe about 15 uses over the month. But, I don’t see any sign of new pan at all despite good use over the past few months. I do hope to finish this by the end of the year but I don’t know if I can!

My Mac foundation I only use on the weekends and I don’t always use makeup on the weekends. Last month the progress was so small that I didn’t mark it, so this month looks like good progress. But really it’s just normal progress. The pump I have on the bottle doesn’t actually fit the packaging and I think I am getting very close to not being able to use the pump anymore. That’s the point I’ll really feel like I’ve made progress.

The Stila lipstick I’ve made great progress on! I feel closer than ever to being done. I measure it at the highest point on the lipstick so really it’s within a few months to being done.

The colourpop supershock shadow has seen use, and I have somehow really managed to disturb the shadow now, which feels like making progress. I really should get in there and smash it all back into place. I use this pretty regularly to add a little extra sparkle to any eyeshadow I am using. I used to rotate through a number of shadows that served this purpose but now I am exclusively using this one in hopes to finish it up.

And finally my makeup forever artist color pencil, I’ve also been really working hard at this one. It’s been great for using lipgloss over top and honestly I’ve managed to use up two sample size lip glosses completely this way, ones I never even documented in this project. It’s really almost finished as soon I’ll be unable to sharpen it further.

So, I still sit at 18 items finished out of the 22 goal. I will certainly have one more item used by next update if not two. And then it might be a longish slog to finish the last few items. But I am happy with my progress and excited to see how the next few updates go!

The list:

1. Hourglass Dim Light powder
2. Bare Minerals Bare Pro Powder Foundation
3. Cerave sunscreen
4. Juice Beauty primer (deluxe sample size)
5. Bite Beauty lipstick
6. Sephora green color corrector
7. Tarte Amazonian Clay color corrector
8. Colourpop supershock shadow Frog
9. Benefit eyebrow pencil
10. Elf putty primer (deluxe sample size)
11. Ilia lip balm (deluxe sample size)
12. Tarte lip balm (deluxe sample size)
13. Tower 28 gloss (deluxe sample size)
14. Sleek Face Palette (darkest contour shade only with use of the light bronzer shade as well)
15. Makeup Forever Lip Liner
16. Makeup Forever powder (deluxe sample size)
17. Laura Mercier secret brightening powder
18. Coola spray (sample size)
19. Maybelline setting spray (travel size)
20. 1 mascara of any type
21. Benefit tinted eyebrow gel
22. Ofra liquid lipstick travel size any color

Bonus items:

elf eyebrow wax
Stila lipstick
Pan of blush
Mac foundation
Clinique eyeliner
Pretty Vulgar powder

On May 4, I posted the start of my graveyard project pan, a project I’ve always wanted to do but never had the space for. It’s time for update 1.

Resurrection products last month:

The NYX cream shadow (in the cover FX palette) the goal is to use up.

The tarte smoothing primer, goal is to use as much as possible.

Here’s the update photo:

I have already hit pan on the bronzer! I am going to keep using this as I attempt to hit pan on the other two pans. I have been using the NYX cream colored shadow to set my eye base but I don’t use it every time. It’s hard to tell if much progress has been made, but there’s so little in there I am not concerned. And, the tarte primer I made a nice amount of progress on though it may be hard to tell. I am really working my way down one side in order to be able to see progress evenly as I update. Originally my goal was to use as much as possible, but now my goal is to use this up. I feel that my progress is pretty good, and even if I don’t finish it before the end of October there’s a good chance I’ll finish by the end of the year.

Collecting Cobwebs last month:

My goal was to use each eyeshadow in the palette at least once, which I did. There were a number of shadows I used 4 times over the month. I have an ongoing project of using each of my eyeshadows once this year, so I am going to roll in new palettes in this category.

The mac powder I’ve been using almost every time I use makeup. It’s a domed product and I am not sure it’s going to be easy to see any progress at all, but I do feel I’ve worn down the dome significantly.

Here’s this month’s photo:

And now to roll in something a little more challenging for my eyeshadow palettes. There’s a total of 48 shadows plus two highlighters here, as I am going to work my way through my BH Zodiac and Zodiac Love palette.

Many times I’ve considered depotting these palettes and only keeping the mattes but I am glad these are intact for now. Hopefully I can find a way for the shimmers to work well for me.

That’s it from here! I am thinking that this year’s project pans have been some of my favorite. They’ve been rather reasonable and not too crazy making. Good visible progress and some flexibility built in. I wish the same for you if you are a project panner!

Last month had been great for progress, and I am delighted that while I finished fewer items this month, it was another pretty good month. Here’s last month’s photo:

And this month:

I finished 3 items this month, the Coola spray, the amazonian clay color corrector, and a mascara. So, when including my bonus items, I am at 18 used up products out of 22.

A quick overview of the other items-I have been consistently using the make up forever powder, but only under my eyes, so the progress is slow. There’s a little blue line on the washi tape that indicates where I am now.

The mac foundation-progress is slow! While I am slightly under the line I made last month on the washi tape, it wasn’t worth marking again. But I do feel good about how much I’ve done with this over the year and I think I will be able to finish it. It’s just that it does not work for me at work, as the masks remove this foundation quickly. So, it’s relegated to days off foundation and I don’t always wear makeup on my days off, obviously.

I am happily working on my benefit eyebrow gel, but this will likely dry out before I use it up.

I did not mark my tarte lip jelly because it’s too close to being gone to mark. I really enjoy this and use it fairly regularly.

I have used my frankenblush as I do very much want to get this finished up this year but there’s a lot more of it now that I scraped the edges and mixed it with some highlighter. Plus, it’s rather a cool tone and we are in a season in which I tend to enjoy wearing some warmer toned blushes.

My makeup forever artist color pencil is going well! This is generally what I am wearing on my lips at work, this as my base with a gloss overtop. Since we are masking more than we were, this is a good product for switching between a mask and no mask.

The colourpop supershock shadow is something I keep around for the moments I want a little more sparkle on my eye look. I don’t think I used it much over the past month. Slow progress!

And, my stila lipstick-while I did use it, marking it would have not worked, as the progress was minimal. Again, it’s dark and cool toned which isn’t my preference for a more summery makeup routine.

All in all though, I am pleased with my progress and excited to keep going. The jelly glaze will be gone by next month for sure. I may also be able to finish the powder. The lip pencil is getting quite close too, but I am not certain that’ll be gone by next update.

The two items I am absolutely determined to finish no matter what this year are the lipstick and the mac foundation. I would love to be able to say I finished 2 lipsticks in one year! I have lots of foundation so I am eager to finish up one that doesn’t stick to my face as well as others. So I really need to get to concentrating on those again, even if I just use the lipstick a couple times a month.

Anyhow, that’s it from here, with my master list below. Have a great weekend!

1. Hourglass Dim Light powder
2. Bare Minerals Bare Pro Powder Foundation
3. Cerave sunscreen
4. Juice Beauty primer (deluxe sample size)
5. Bite Beauty lipstick
6. Sephora green color corrector
7. Tarte Amazonian Clay color corrector
8. Colourpop supershock shadow Frog
9. Benefit eyebrow pencil
10. Elf putty primer (deluxe sample size)
11. Ilia lip balm (deluxe sample size)
12. Tarte lip balm (deluxe sample size)
13. Tower 28 gloss (deluxe sample size)
14. Sleek Face Palette (darkest contour shade only with use of the light bronzer shade as well)
15. Makeup Forever Lip Liner
16. Makeup Forever powder (deluxe sample size)
17. Laura Mercier secret brightening powder
18. Coola spray (sample size)
19. Maybelline setting spray (travel size)
20. 1 mascara of any type
21. Benefit tinted eyebrow gel
22. Ofra liquid lipstick travel size any color

Bonus items:

elf eyebrow wax
Stila lipstick
Pan of blush
Mac foundation
Clinique eyeliner
Pretty Vulgar powder

I’ve been watching the graveyard project pans on youtube over the years but never quite felt like I had the space to work on one. But, with only the 22 in 2022 going on right now, and feeling pretty confident about it at the moment, I think I could fit in a graveyard project pan this year.

So the basic idea, start April 30 (oops! Failed that already, but shouldn’t be a major issue) and end on Halloween. Items should be of two categories-

Resurrection: a product from a previous project pan

Collecting Cobwebs: a product that is getting old

Choose 5-10 products total, and it’s rolling style.

I went back through my project pans over the past few years, and it was kind of fun! I could see that by and large I tend to really use up the products that land in a project pan. Nevertheless, I made a list of items that have been in past projects and I could see continuing to work on.

Resurrection products:

1. Cover FX palette-I do not intend to work on the highlighters in this palette, only the blush, bronzer, and brightener. The hope would be to hit pan on all 3. I think the hardest goal there would be to do so on the blush.
2. NYX shadow pan-I use this as an eye primer setting shade and it was in my project pan last year. I did not finish it but I am now so close! I am confident I can finish this one.
3. Tarte Timeless Smoothing Primer-this is the first primer I purchased ever and so it’s the oldest in my collection. It was also in a project years ago but I just wasn’t using it so I removed it. I would like to get this used up, but that feels like a very distant goal. So, I’ll get as much use as possible over the course of this project

Here’s where the three of these are right now.

Collecting Cobwebs:

1. Mac Mineralized Skin Finish powder-I bought this at least two years ago now and just didn’t use it all that much. I like it a lot, it’s lightweight and pretty. So, I think I want to work on finishing it up this summer.
2. Tarte Be a Mermaid and Make Waves eyeshadow palette-this is the oldest eyeshadow palette in my collection and has been in multiple projects. As you can see I’ve got so much use out of it! And I truly still love it, it’s a fantastic palette. For this goal, I am going to say use it until I’ve worked through each shadow at least once and keep tally. Then I can roll it out and then roll in a different older palette in my collection to do the same. This will kind of coincide with a personal and not blogged about project I’ve been working on in my makeup stash.

Here’s the current photos on these two items.

I am finishing up a bronzer and contour in my 22 in 2022 project but I am so close to being finished on those so I think a different face palette will be great to use over the summer months. I will update monthly on this project since I want to roll out eyeshadow palettes and roll new ones in.

I’ve been eager to share my progress on my 22 in 2022 project again, and while it’s a couple of days early, I’ve got time now so I am going to share it. I’ve been concentrating on certain items and then rolling new ones in when I am done or close to done with the ones I am concentrating on. This keeps it from being unwieldy with too many products to photograph at once. Last month was a fantastic month, I’d finished a whole bunch of items so it felt like I was getting a serious refresh. A refresh is always inspiring so this month was very pleasant as well. Here’s what I was working on last month.

And here’s where I am now:

I am going to quickly discuss the finished items first. I posted last month that I had finished a tower 28 lip jelly but couldn’t find the container. I found the container so it’s here. I also finished a clinique eyeliner, pretty sure it was a travel size, and I’ve added that to my bonus items. I also finished, or as much as possible finished, an ofra liquid lipstick. To be honest if this was in good shape I could have pulled the stopper out and kept going. However, it’s so so dry, I purchased it a few years ago and I think sometimes the travel size packaging doesn’t keep product as fresh as it should. I also finished my laura mercier secret brightening powder. However, I am rolling in the makeup forever powder which is a sample size too tiny to use easily, so I am dumping that powder into the laura mercier container. This is the last you’ll see of the makeup forever container.

As for progress, I cut my sunscreen packaging and there was a ton more product in it, it’ll take me all month to finish what is in there, perhaps even longer. I continue to make slow but steady progress on the mac foundation. I don’t wear it to work because it wears off fast under a mask, and I do still need to wear a mask when in the halls or elevators. I work in healthcare so the rules are more strict than many places.

I hit pan on the sleek palette bronzer which I am so proud of. And I am working away at the contour shade still. Originally I said I’d just finish the contour and then let the palette go. I now want to finish both pans. Everything else has had fairly steady progress, except for the make up forever lip pencil and the supershock shadow. I’ve worn both of those items but progress is very slow.

I am adding in, as a new lip product, my stila lipstick. I’ve actually been using it pretty consistently over this past month and I will continue to do so. I’ve had this in previous project pans and never managed to finish it, but I like the formula and the color. It’s just that I have this color in newer products. So it’s time to finish this one up.

And finally a note on the pan of blush, it doesn’t look like this anymore. I have repressed it. And, I added in a bit of leftover highlighter I had hanging around after almost finishing the pan of highlighter. So, next time you see it, it’ll look completely different. Repressed and with some shimmer. But the repressing should make it easier to finish up.

So as of mid-April, I have finished 10 items. I am pleased with this progress indeed. I am not sure I’ll finish anything by next update but if I do, it’ll be the sunscreen or the setting spray. I’d be pleased with either item. And if nothing gets finished, that’s ok too. 10 items already is a serious win and I can afford to have a slow down on progress now.

1. Hourglass Dim Light powder
2. Bare Minerals Bare Pro Powder Foundation
3. Cerave sunscreen
4. Juice Beauty primer (deluxe sample size)
5. Bite Beauty lipstick
6. Sephora green color corrector
7. Tarte Amazonian Clay color corrector
8. Colourpop supershock shadow Frog
9. Benefit eyebrow pencil
10. Elf putty primer (deluxe sample size)
11. Ilia lip balm (deluxe sample size)
12. Tarte lip balm (deluxe sample size)
13. Tower 28 gloss (deluxe sample size)
14. Sleek Face Palette (darkest contour shade only with use of the light bronzer shade as well)
15. Makeup Forever Lip Liner
16. Makeup Forever powder (deluxe sample size)
17. Laura Mercier secret brightening powder
18. Coola spray (sample size)
19. Maybelline setting spray (travel size)
20. 1 mascara of any type
21. Benefit tinted eyebrow gel
22. Ofra liquid lipstick travel size any color

Bonus items:

elf eyebrow wax
Stila lipstick
Pan of blush
Mac foundation
Clinique eyeliner

I have finally worked through my extremely large collection of sample size items as well as a number of other items that I’d thrown into a bin at the end of last year. I think I have about three unused sachet samples left and I have used up ALL of my tiny floss samples that annoy me. I am ready to call this one quits.

But not without showing you all the items I worked my way through since January 23, the last time I posted an update. This finale comes with the finishing of a few larger items as well. I am pretty thrilled with getting all these tiny items out of my house. Overall very successful little project for me over the past half a yearish I have been working at it.

This is my “good” update. I finished a number of items I’ve been working on, some of which I’ve been working on for years now. Very exciting.

Here’s where I was last month.

I knew I’d have a very good month if I worked at it! So let’s start with the photo of the finished items.

I finished my bare minerals bare pro foundation, my juice beauty illuminating primer, my Ilia lip balm, a brow pencil, a bite beauty lipstick and my hourglass dim light ambient lighting powder. Not pictured is my tower 28 lip jelly that is also finished. I am not sure where the container went! But this is the second one I’ve finished this year and I am hoping to finish 2 more by the end of this year even though they aren’t on my list.

Now for my progress on the other items along with a few items I am rolling in.

I’ve made good and steady progress on my mineral sunscreen. In fact, the only way I can get product out of it is to take the cap all the way off and squish the tube sideways so I think that’ll be gone next month.

While I planned to roll out the mac foundation, I kind of just want to keep working on it bit by bit? I know I didn’t make great progress as I was concentrating on the bare minerals powder foundation. But I am glad I did get to work on it a bit.

The setting spray has far less progress than I would have hoped!

My Sleek cream face palette has seen a bit of use. I’ve been using both the bronzer and the counter. However, I did not use this during the time I was working on the powder foundation so that slowed progress.

The tarte undereye color corrector is seeing great progress and I am using it daily. I really enjoy this product, even more than the becca one, so it is nice to know I’ve found a substitute. I am worked at the sides to clear them out before using the other half.

elf illuminating putty primer hasn’t seen a ton of use as it didn’t work well with the powder foundation but I’ve been trying to remember to use it again now that the powder foundation is used up.

Things I am rolling in-Laura Mercier secret brightening powder, there’s a little of this left and I’ve been working at it all year. That being said, this product is slow even with daily use. An Ofra liquid lipstick which is almost dry and I am scraping the sides of the container on, it’s a great color on me and easy to wear. A pan of blush that I hit pan on last year and have just been using any time I am wearing cooler toned eyeshadow. It’s my current default cooler toned blush and I am so close now to being finished that I want to keep going. My tarte lip mask, I am keeping this at work and using it when I am wearing masks so often that lipstick is a silly idea. My make up forever lip liner which I’ve had forever and looks great with the ofra liquid lipstick, and finally, a colourpop super shock shadow in the shade frog. It’s more of a topper shadow than anything else and I am using it anytime my eyeshadow is looking particularly lackluster.

I don’t really think that there’s much I’ll be able to complete in the upcoming month except perhaps the sunscreen and maybe the powder. Next month won’t be nearly as exciting of an update I am sure, but this month has been delightful.

The list I posted at the beginning of the year, I will cross items off as I complete them:

1. Hourglass Dim Light powder
2. Bare Minerals Bare Pro Powder Foundation
3. Cerave sunscreen
4. Juice Beauty primer (deluxe sample size)
5. Bite Beauty lipstick
6. Sephora green color corrector
7. Tarte Amazonian Clay color corrector
8. Colourpop supershock shadow Frog
9. Benefit eyebrow pencil
10. Elf putty primer (deluxe sample size)
11. Ilia lip balm (deluxe sample size)
12. Tarte lip balm (deluxe sample size)
13. Tower 28 gloss (deluxe sample size)
14. Sleek Face Palette (darkest contour shade only with use of the light bronzer shade as well)
15. Makeup Forever Lip Liner
16. Makeup Forever powder (deluxe sample size)
17. Laura Mercier secret brightening powder
18. Coola spray (sample size)
19. Maybelline setting spray (travel size)
20. 1 mascara of any type
21. Benefit tinted eyebrow gel
22. Ofra liquid lipstick travel size any color

Bonus items:

elf eyebrow wax
Stila lipstick
Pan of blush
Mac foundation

Last month’s photo:

And for this month I am rolling a bunch of things in as well as showing progress.

My bare minerals bare pro powder foundation got used but barely. Under that is my hourglass dim light bronzer and I have worked very hard on that one, just a little left to go. Another chunk of my cerave sunscreen is gone and more nice progress is made on my juice beauty primer.

I had chosen last month to keep my mac foundation in the project because we were wearing KN95 masks all day at work and so choosing a foundation that doesn’t hold up well under masks seemed wise. I didn’t need it to, I just needed it to hold up on the parts of my face that weren’t masked. So about the same amount of progress was made last month as the month before. I would say I am about halfway through the foundation now. But, we have been told we can start wearing regular masks again, so I’ll be setting this aside for days where it is warmer and I am outside without masks. I probably won’t show progress on this again until progress is made.

I added in my Ilia lip balm and tower 28 lip jelly last month. Good progress achieved on both. The tower 28 jelly might be finished next month, though now that regular masks are in order again, I might try my lipsticks again.

Because the hourglass bronzer is almost gone, I am adding in my sleek cream contour. Because I am making good progress on it, I am adding my tarte color corrector. Because the juice beauty primer is close to being finished, I am adding the elf luminous putty primer. I am almost done with the precisely my brow pencil so I am adding that, it’ll be gone by next month. And for good measure, the maybelline setting spray has been marked and added.

I believe that I will be done with the brow pencil, the bite beauty lipstick, the tower 28 lip jelly, the hourglass powder, and the juice beauty primer next month. I am also going to go in hard on the bare minerals bare pro foundation. It’ll be the one I use almost exclusively over the next month to see if I can finish it up. So far, nothing completed. But I am on track to finish a bunch of things in the upcoming month.

The list I posted at the beginning of the year, I will cross items off as I complete them:

1. Hourglass Dim Light powder
2. Bare Minerals Bare Pro Powder Foundation
3. Cerave sunscreen
4. Juice Beauty primer (deluxe sample size)
5. Bite Beauty lipstick
6. Sephora green color corrector
7. Tarte Amazonian Clay color corrector
8. Colourpop supershock shadow Frog
9. Benefit eyebrow pencil
10. Elf putty primer (deluxe sample size)
11. Ilia lip balm (deluxe sample size)
12. Tarte lip balm (deluxe sample size)
13. Tower 28 gloss (deluxe sample size)
14. Sleek Face Palette (darkest contour shade only with use of the light bronzer shade as well)
15. Makeup Forever Lip Liner
16. Makeup Forever powder (deluxe sample size)
17. Laura Mercier secret brightening powder
18. Coola spray (sample size)
19. Maybelline setting spray (travel size)
20. 1 mascara of any type
21. Benefit tinted eyebrow gel
22. Ofra liquid lipstick travel size any color

Bonus items:

elf eyebrow wax
Stila lipstick
Pan of blush
Mac foundation

I’ve kept working on my bin of samples and travel size products as well as a number of items I am was close to being done with. More samples have entered my life and they got thrown in the bin as well to be used. Here’s another grouping of finished items.

The big news, for me, is that I FINALLY started making progress on all the travel size dental floss. I find the travel sizes so annoying. You use them for a week and then you go to get another length of floss and you get half the amount necessary. It’s just too irritating. But over the past month I have seriously committed to getting them used. I’ve got loads more to go through, obviously the pile of these has grown for years, but I am now determined to keep after it.

This group has a ton of sachets that I used up. Nothing here is super duper remarkable. I’ve enjoyed the project quite a bit, but it has also shown me that so much of what I use is pretty interchangeable. At least for me. I’ve got my skin in a place that is fairly good. Fairly normal. I deal with some masking related acne which is annoying but I also have products to use for that. I am no longer dehydrated, definitely not terribly oily during the winter, pretty balanced overall. And honestly that means that I can change up a thing or two here and there, use up these products, and it doesn’t screw up my skin or my routine. Kind of a fun place to be!

I knew in December that I was going to do this project or one like it, and as such, took photos and began working through the items at that time. I posted the official start of this project at the beginning of the year. But at that time, I did not take update photos because I wanted to make a little more progress.

Here’s the photo from the start of the project.

And here’s where I am now:

At the beginning of this year I said that the mac foundation was a “bonus” item and I’d remove it during update 1. I had also intended to wait to finish the bite beauty lipstick before posting an update. There’s been a massive change of plans. Due to the current situation with the pandemic in our state, and because I work in a healthcare facility, mask rules have changed drastically. The first change was that we have to mask all the time unless my door is closed and I am the only one in my office. Then, they instituted KN95 requirements, and, there’s a mask mandate for our city in general. Basically, we are back to where we were during the worst of the pandemic last year, or worse. Instead of happily finishing up a lipstick, I am working on a gloss that feels nourishing as no one sees my lips. Instead of putting the mac foundation that doesn’t hold up well under masks aside, I am wearing it regularly. I only need it to hold where the mask isn’t, and it’s totally up to that challenge. So now is the prime time to use it. It stays in the project.

I’ve made some progress on the bare minerals bare pro foundation. But I am definitely at the moment concentrating on mac.

I’ve made massive progress on my hourglass dim light powder. I think 2 more months to finish. The pan is expanded greatly, side pan is hit, but one side still has a fairly thick amount on the pan. Unfortunately when getting the update photo I didn’t notice part of it was out of the picture, that’s the area with side pan.

I am plugging away at the sunscreen and it is going fine. My main complaint about the sunscreen is that it smells not great to me. I will be thrilled when it is gone.

The juice beauty primer works well over this sunscreen which is perfect since it has tended to make other sunscreens pill up. Now is the perfect time to finish it off, except that I have a terrible time remembering to use it! But, with the jellypop primer gone, if I can remember to use it, I think I can be done next month.

And, the bite beauty lipstick had some progress, but sadly is at a stand still. Once the weather warms I imagine I can wear it to all outdoor events, and perhaps the situation here will get better in a month or two. At that time, I’ll work at it again. It’s a bummer since I was so so close to finishing!

Since the situation has changed, I am adding in a tower 28 lip jelly (number 13 below.) This works great as a bit of a balm under my KN95 so I am eager to use it now. I have not even opened this yet, but I recently finished another of this size and it went pretty quickly.

I am also adding in my Ilia lip mask (number 11 in list below) as I have been dipping into it pretty hard when working from home or in the evenings. There’s a danger that if I don’t add it now, It’ll just be gone before I document it in any way.

I will attempt to do updates midmonth, though planning that way these days doesn’t always work for me. I am hoping that I can have one finished item next month!

The list I posted at the beginning of the year, I will cross items off as I complete them:

1. Hourglass Dim Light powder
2. Bare Minerals Bare Pro Powder Foundation
3. Cerave sunscreen
4. Juice Beauty primer (deluxe sample size)
5. Bite Beauty lipstick
6. Sephora green color corrector
7. Tarte Amazonian Clay color corrector
8. Colourpop supershock shadow Frog
9. Benefit eyebrow pencil
10. Elf putty primer (deluxe sample size)
11. Ilia lip balm (deluxe sample size)
12. Tarte lip balm (deluxe sample size)
13. Tower 28 gloss (deluxe sample size)
14. Sleek Face Palette (darkest contour shade only with use of the light bronzer shade as well)
15. Makeup Forever Lip Liner
16. Makeup Forever powder (deluxe sample size)
17. Laura Mercier secret brightening powder
18. Coola spray (sample size)
19. Maybelline setting spray (travel size)
20. 1 mascara of any type
21. Benefit tinted eyebrow gel
22. Ofra liquid lipstick travel size any color

Bonus items:

elf eyebrow wax
Stila lipstick
Pan of blush
Mac foundation

I began this project in February 2021 and I’ve decided I am at a point I am ready to stop it. So this is the finale. Let’s look at last month and then this month.

And my list:

A: Mario Badescu facial spray with Aloe, Herbs, and Rosewater. This is finished, but I forgot to save the empty container. (21 uses this update, total uses 40.)
B: ABH Sultry palette Bloom-goal is to hit pan. (1 use this update, with 12 uses total)
C: ABH Sultry Palette Cinder-goal is to hit pan. (1 uses this update and 13 total)
D: ABH Sultry Palette Dystopian-goal is to hit pan. (1 uses this update with 41 uses total)
E: ABH Sultry Palette Ember-goal is to hit pan. (0 uses this month, 6 total)
F: ABH Sultry Palette Fresh-goal is to hit pan. (4 uses this update with 40 uses total and goal met!)
G: Grace & Stella Spray all Day Rose Spray-goal is to finish. (17uses, with 67 uses total and now used up)
H: Pur Highlighter-goal is to use up. (20 uses this update with 144 uses total)
I: IT Cosmetics CC cream-Goal is to finish. (9 uses to finish, so a total 24 uses in the project.)
J: Elf Jellypop primer-goal is to finish. (15 uses this update with 104 uses to finish)
L: Estee Lauder Doublewear-goal is to finish. (6 uses this update, 40 uses to finish my goal)
M:Tarte palette Mermosa-goal is to hit pan. (5 uses this update with 33 uses total and goal met!)
N: Tarte palette Nude Beach-goal is to hit pan. (5 uses with 34 uses total and pan hit!)
O: C.Y.O Lifeproof foundation-goal is to finish. (13 uses with 29 total to finish)
P: ABH Sultry Palette Pearl-goal is to hit pan. (5 uses with 93 uses to hit goal.)
Q: Tarte blush color Quirky-goal is to hit pan. (9 uses with 88 uses total and I have hit pan!)
R: Rom&nd bronzer: goal is to hit pan-goal achieved!. (34 uses with 105 uses total)
S: ABH Sultry Palette Steamunk-goal is to hit pan. (2 uses with 31 total uses to meet goal with massive pan!)
T: ABH Sultry Palette Twig-goal is to hit pan. (6 uses with 41 total uses and a goal met)
U: Urban Decay Eye Primer-goal is to finish. (24 uses with 61 total uses before finish)
V: Urban Decay eyeliner in Voodoo-goal is to use past the 24/7. (10 uses with 74 total uses)
W: Lancome Teint Idole Ultra Wear foundation-goal is to finish. (12 uses with 28 uses total and I am finished.)
X: Too Faced Boudoir Eyes (soft and sexy) eyeshadow palette use up In The Buff eyeshadow. (1 uses with a total of 35 uses) While I did not make this goal or even hit pan, I gave this palette to a friend and that still feels like a goal met.
Y: NYX eyeshadow pan (forgot to get a photo this update) goal is to use up. (18 uses for a total of 98 uses)
Z: BH Cosmetics Zodiac Palette-goal is to hit pan on the matte Virgo shade. (3 uses for a total of 29 uses to meet my goal)

The big progress this month was finishing the jellypop primer and hitting pan in the zodiac palette. 2 goals met.

I decluttered one item to a friend and did not meet my goal on 7 items. But I still feel like this was a very successful project overall. A total of 11 pans were hit. 3 of those were face products and the rest were eyeshadow. And I completely used up 7 items. Using up a full highlighter was always an ambitious goal, but I hit pan, repressed, and I have two tiny baby pans on the repressed highlighter. This year I plan to actively work on finishing the highlighter and the nyx cream colored eyeshadow. I know I can finish the nyx, and I think I can finish the highlighter if I keep concentrating on it.

I chose not to put any of the items from this project in my 22 in 2022 project I just started, so I am hoping that the the finishes I make with these items in 2022 will just be additional items I get to move out of my collection after finishing. Little bonuses!

As stated in yesterday’s post, I have been looking logically at my collection and deciding what I can work through in a planned manner over the year. I’ve chosen 22 items total plus a few bonus items to work on in case I struggle with some on the main list. I really do want to hit that 22 item goal. This project is not meant to be a rotate through my collection project, it’s a use it up project. I may mess around with a usage project in the future.

Let’s start with the photo I took last month, I am not providing new photos yet.

My intention for this project is for it to be a rolling project. Photographs otherwise get too overwhelming. I will still use the other items in the project but photograph those I am really concentrating on. But I am going to list out all 22 here plus the bonus items. For the record, the above Mac foundation will not be featured as a main 22, it’ll be a bonus item because I don’t actually think I will be able to finish it. I will not be photographing it again unless major progress is being made.

1. Hourglass Dim Light powder
2. Bare Minerals Bare Pro Powder Foundation
3. Cerave sunscreen
4. Juice Beauty primer (deluxe sample size)
5. Bite Beauty lipstick
6. Sephora green color corrector
7. Tarte Amazonian Clay color corrector
8. Colourpop supershock shadow Frog
9. Benefit eyebrow pencil
10. Elf putty primer (deluxe sample size)
11. Ilia lip balm (deluxe sample size)
12. Tarte lip balm (deluxe sample size)
13. Tower 28 gloss (deluxe sample size)
14. Sleek Face Palette (darkest contour shade only with use of the light bronzer shade as well)
15. Makeup Forever Lip Liner
16. Makeup Forever powder (deluxe sample size)
17. Laura Mercier secret brightening powder
18. Coola spray (sample size)
19. Maybelline setting spray (travel size)
20. 1 mascara of any type
21. Benefit tinted eyebrow gel
22. Ofra liquid lipstick travel size any color

Bonus items:

elf eyebrow wax
Stila lipstick
Pan of blush
Mac foundation

I will go through all these items now and try to do some progress lines, and then I’ll start taking photos of them at the end of this month.

I’ve been using the app GlowinMe to track my makeup collection. I have everything in there now from face primers to color products. I do not have skincare in there. I do have sample/travel size projects. If an eyeshadow is a single shadow but in a curated magnetic palette, I counted it as one palette. If they are individual shadows, I counted them individually.

This is all to say that working on this project has been a lovely way to see what I have when I go to purchase other items. Much like with my yarn stash on Ravelry, I have easily been able to make better decisions because I am easily able to see from anywhere what I have, and what is often an abundance.

These seems like a bit of a hobby pattern for me. Purchase quite a lot because trying new things is inspiring but eventually getting a bit overwhelmed and wanting to find a way to cut back again. Then at some point evening out to a place where the collection isn’t too overwhelming but remains inspiring. I think with makeup, I am at the place of wanting a bit more balance and knowing what types of things I enjoy.

Yesterday I took this screenshot with my phone from the app.

You can see on there that it says stash 239. Now that number is a bit deceiving because if I have more than one of an item, the stash entry says 2 but the app does not count that as 2 separate items. The good news is that there are only 5 items that I have doubles of. There are also two lip balms I didn’t enter into my collection yet, but lip balm seems more of a skincare item to me than a makeup product so I may leave those two items out.

For project panning, I have finally fully decided to do a 22 in 2022 project. I will also be shutting down my A to Z that I started last February, but I just want to finish one more item before I shut it down. It’ll likely be shut down before a year is out. I am not entering much eyeshadow into the 22 in 2022 project as I want to play in my eyeshadow collection.

As for purchasing, I’ve decided to slow things down a bit. First of all, for eyeshadows, I’ve decided I really like the Nabla and Pat McGrath formulas. For the most part, I want to limit myself to those. And since they are pricey, this ends up being self limiting. I would like to build myself some wiggle room there, with a potential purchase of one other palette from a US based brand and one from a K or J beauty site. I want to continue to try some K and J beauty items in the upcoming year, but I want to limit myself to one new foundation total for the year. I will allow myself 5 total lip products, 1 primer, 3 powders, 1 setting spray (unless I run out and need to replace) and 4 colored face products (blush, highlighter, bronzer.)

Meanwhile I hope to be working through my collection well enough that those amounts make some sense. And, that my total collection numbers actually drop.

That’s it! That’s the plan. A low buy (and I will allow replacements if that ever happens) and a well thought out project in order to drop my overall collection number. I would kind of like to end up with my collection number under 200 by the end of the year. We’ll see if that’s possible. But all this will be a good start. Tomorrow will be my 22 in 2022 intro.

You read that right! I am already posting about next year’s project pan. I am still working on my everything but the kitchen sink, and I am still working on my A to Z. But, I am also doing a full stash rotation this month in hopes to discover what I want to pan next year and I’ve already come up with 6 items. In my opinion, 6 items is a perfect number to begin. And I don’t really want to wait until January to begin.

These items will still be used sparingly this month since I am working on the stash rotation. But I really do not want to neglect them. By the time I finish the first item I should have a pretty good idea of what I’d next like to roll in.

At the top I’ve got some Bare Minerals Bare Pro powder foundation which you can see I’ve really worked at quite well over the years. I was keeping it at work and using it when I’d ride my bike or motorbike to work. But, during my stash rotation I found two more powder foundations, one of which I liked quite a bit more, so I think it’s time to get this one used up.

Next to that is an hourglass ambient lighting powder in dim light. It has been in a previous project, I had wanted to hit pan which obviously I did. This shade actually works as a pretty decent bronzer in the dead of winter so now is a great time to try to get it used up.

The CeraVe mineral sunscreen I want to love, but I like the australian gold one so much better. I kind of hate the smell of the cerave one and it also doesn’t really set down nicely for me when I use it on its own. I feel kind of slimy all the time when I use it. I have heard it performs pretty well under makeup so I have decided to try to finish it. I’ll mark this one as soon as this post is finished.

The mac studio fix fluid foundation is just not great for me. It does not hold on to my skin during a work day and mask wearing. This one may be harder for me to pan, but my hope is to use it on days I don’t need a long wearing foundation in my life. I have washi tape on the side to indicate how much has currently been used.

The juice beauty primer I’ve tried to pan before. This product is kind of a pain because there is so much skin care it doesn’t pair well with. It likes to ball up and look terrible. But lately I’ve been able to use it in certain circumstances so I am going to try to finish it. It is pretty when it’s working well! I still have another primer in the A to Z project pan so this may be slow going initially. There’s a silver line on the right hand side indicating how much I’ve used so far.

And finally, my Bite Beauty lipstick. It has been in a project pan before. And honestly, I wear the heck out of it in times of no masking. It’s just one of those formulas that feels quite comfortable to wear. And the color is kind of a neutral to cool toned pink. So any time I am wearing a mauve or more cool toned eyeshadow, this lipstick works beautifully. It’s so close to being finished though, so I’d like to just be able to get it finished and out of my stash. I may also try it as a cream blush at some point, because I think it would look really nice that way.

That’s it, 6 items to start working on in the upcoming year and even before. And while I am doing my stash rotation I am certain I’ll find more.

I decided to go back to my first A to Z project pan post to see how long I have been working on the project. I knew that I had not started at the beginning of the year. Turns out, it was February 15 of this year. I am proud to say that this update brings me to completion of a few other items, and now I only have 9 items left in this project pan. In fact, I am down to being able to take just one photo of the items for an update. Here’s where I was last month, two photos.

A: Mario Badescu facial spray with Aloe, Herbs, and Rosewater. This is finished, but I forgot to save the empty container. (21 uses this update, total uses 40.)
B: ABH Sultry palette Bloom-goal is to hit pan. (1 uses this update, with 11 uses total)
C: ABH Sultry Palette Cinder-goal is to hit pan. (3 uses this update and 12 total)
D: ABH Sultry Palette Dystopian-goal is to hit pan. (5 uses this update with 40 uses total)
E: ABH Sultry Palette Ember-goal is to hit pan. (3 uses this month, 6 total)
F: ABH Sultry Palette Fresh-goal is to hit pan. (4 uses this update with 40 uses total and goal met!)
G: Grace & Stella Spray all Day Rose Spray-goal is to finish. (17uses, with 67 uses total and now used up)
H: Pur Highlighter-goal is to use up. (22 uses this update with 124 uses total)
I: IT Cosmetics CC cream-Goal is to finish. (9 uses to finish, so a total 24 uses in the project.)
J: Elf Jellypop primer-goal is to finish. (15 uses this update with 89 uses total)
L: Estee Lauder Doublewear-goal is to finish. (6 uses this update, 40 uses to finish my goal)
M:Tarte palette Mermosa-goal is to hit pan. (5 uses this update with 33 uses total and goal met!)
N: Tarte palette Nude Beach-goal is to hit pan. (5 uses with 34 uses total and pan hit!)
O: C.Y.O Lifeproof foundation-goal is to finish. (13 uses with 29 total to finish)
P: ABH Sultry Palette Pearl-goal is to hit pan. (5 uses with 93 uses to hit goal.)
Q: Tarte blush color Quirky-goal is to hit pan. (9 uses with 88 uses total and I have hit pan!)
R: Rom&nd bronzer: goal is to hit pan-goal achieved!. (34 uses with 105 uses total)
S: ABH Sultry Palette Steamunk-goal is to hit pan. (2 uses with 31 total uses to meet goal with massive pan!)
T: ABH Sultry Palette Twig-goal is to hit pan. (6 uses with 41 total uses and a goal met)
U: Urban Decay Eye Primer-goal is to finish. (24 uses with 61 total uses before finish)
V: Urban Decay eyeliner in Voodoo-goal is to use past the 24/7. (14 uses with 64 total uses)
W: Lancome Teint Idole Ultra Wear foundation-goal is to finish. (12 uses with 28 uses total and I am finished.)
X: Too Faced Boudoir Eyes (soft and sexy) eyeshadow palette use up In The Buff eyeshadow. (1 uses with a total of 35 uses)
Y: NYX eyeshadow pan (forgot to get a photo this update) goal is to use up. (24 uses for a total of 80 uses)
Z: BH Cosmetics Zodiac Palette-goal is to hit pan on the matte Virgo shade. (9 uses for a total of 26 uses)

So, two more eyeshadow pans hit and another foundation sample used up. But, I am about to take a bit of a break from this project. I am not saying I don’t want to continue, I am just saying that this time of year I really enjoy a full stash shake up and rotation. I want to concentrate on the rest of my stash and figure out what I might concentrate on panning next year. I can tell you for certain I won’t be deliberately panning eyeshadows again next year. I might do some usage goals or something to that extent. I will, of course, consider doing some other type of panning project.

While I am working on my full stash shakeup and rotation, I will continue to work on some of the items in this project. I am pretty close to hitting my goal on the voodoo eyeliner and I think I can finish up the jellypop primer pretty quickly at this point. And the cream eyeshadow from NYX is something that will continue to be useful during a stash rotation. But the work on the eyeshadows is going to slow significantly. Once I’ve completed a stash rotation, I’ll try to finish up the final goals. But for now, I don’t intend to force myself to work on this project. See you on the flipside of stash rotation! Or in an upcoming project pan, once I’ve determined which items I really want to finish up.

Hi all,

A little over a month ago I threw a whole bunch of samples and products into a bin and claimed I wanted to get them used up. I’d been organizing my bathroom drawer and gotten frustrated with the amount of tiny items and almost finished items. I just wanted to concentrate on a few things and get them out of my drawer.

Here’s the original bin:

It’s not an organized project pan, it’s simply an attempt to clear the bin as much as possible. Quite frankly, over the month, more sample sizes have been thrown in there as they’ve come into my life. But I did try to tackle my first update in a fairly organized manner. I decided to concentrate on the sachets as well as the bigger items that had very little product left in them.

Here are the items I finished over this past little over a month. I am not going to go into great detail about them. There’s a couple of different moisturizers, all of them were almost finished when I put them in the project. I have decided I would not repurchase the murad one, it pills under makeup and that’s not great for me. I just use it as a night cream now. But, sadly, I have another full one! So I am now concentrating on getting that used up as well. Both Peter Thomas Roth items are very nice moisturizers. Through the winter I prefer something a bit heavier than the cloud cream moisturizer, but it’s a lovely one for the summer. These days, for makeup removal I prefer a cleansing balm or oil, but I am determined to finish off the three clinique makeup removers just on principle. I actually used one to assist in removing some stubborn tape residue on my craft room walls. 🙂

I am glad to let these empty packaging pieces go and start on a new batch in the upcoming months.