Oh Crap! – Musings of an Unperfect Mommy

Shopping Your Makeup Stash

November 13, 2017

Otherwise known as – Using What You Have. I had no idea this was actually a thing with makeup, but apparently it is. I first heard of it somewhere online (of course) by women who have a lot of makeup and skincare (they buy too much) and then forget they have it so it doesn’t get used. However, I’ve heard of doing this in housekeeping for years with food – use what you have in your freezer and pantry before buying anything else so I understand the concept. I just didn’t know it applied to makeup now.

If you don’t know what this is, here’s what you do. You look in your stash and pick out what products you will wear/use in a week (or maybe even a month since it takes that long to see benefits from your skincare products). Then you stick with those products for that week/month and then rotate them out again if you wish. And what does this have to do with me? Well, since getting the monthly Sephora Play Box AND deciding to buy mostly sample size products to find some things that will actually work without investing a lot of money in full sized products, I find myself with a LOT of stuff!  It was time to do something about it.

Now, I don’t have a huge inventory like some of you out there, but it’s more than I can keep track of at the moment. I used to be a bona fide makeup junky before I had kids, but then I realized I had to pare down to just essentials. Which I did and it worked well for quite a while. Well, the kids grew up, my depression lifted, and I found myself gravitating to all those beauty and skin care items I used to love so much. However, now that I’ve officially walked through the Menopause gates, my skin is radically different. The old stuff doesn’t work anymore, and that’s why I went to buying small sizes to find stuff that works and then buy the big sizes and stick with those items. Well, that’s the plan. I’m still in the testing stage, but getting to a more permanent fix. I had my items stored in three makeup bags and I was bouncing around skin care items and my skin was not loving it.  So when I found out about shopping your makeup stash, I was all over it!

I started with these four products for a skin care routine: L’Oreal Cream Cleanser, Estee Lauder toner, and Revlon Eterna 27 Moisturizer, and L’oreal Eye Makeup Remover (my go to).  Well, I ended up chucking the cleanser and the moisturizer as they were irritating my skin, but kept the other two products. I can’t remember what I used the next week, but after that, I took down my Caudalie set (a 500 point bonus from Sephora!) and have been using it and I’m continuing with that for another week. I don’t love the cleanser, but will stick with it until the end of the week. The other three sample sized products will be used up by then and I can move on to something new next week.

Now, here’s what I did with my makeup: I started with L’Oreal Lumi Foundation, Make Up Forever HD Finishing Powder (sample), Urban Decay Anti Aging Eye Shadow Primer, Cover Girl mascara in brown/black, and Clinique Pop Lip Gloss in Wink. No blush because I have rosacea – I miss it, but I don’t really need it. I also put in this trial pack of Josie Maran Finishing Balm and we’ll see how that works. I ended up tossing the Lumi (I used it for two weeks) because my skin wasn’t loving it and it was almost gone anyway. I went to my sample of Make Up Forever HD Foundation (that I got in a Play box), kept the finishing powder, added my Milani natural eye shadow palette, kept the mascara, and tossed the gloss for a Milani lipstick in a pink nude color. This week it’s mostly the same except I added in a Becca primer (I still really don’t know how to use thees new fangled products), my Sephora lip gloss in Simply Nude (another Play box product), and my Bite Beauty Agave Lip in Smashing (for when I want more color). I’m loving my natural look! And it’s easy.

So,  that’s how it works! No daily wondering what to wear or use – I’ve got what I need for the week so there are no decisions except on Friday and that’s turning out to be a fun thing.

So, if you’re in a similar predicament, you might try this in an effort to use up your stash too. One thing though – if you have expired makeup or skin products just toss them. Only use the fresh products you have. Makeup does break down over time and skin care products lose their potency over time as well. They now put expiration dates on most products so check what you have. Wasteful? Maybe, but let’s use that lesson to be a little more careful of how much we buy and use what we buy. Now, I need to work on that book stash I have. :-O

3 comments
Comments

On November 13, 2017 at 6:43 PM, Matt said:

Yeah, that's definitely how I approach the kitchen, only in a more on-the-fly kind of manner. Sometimes that fifth trip to the cupboard will yield a spark of inspiration or actually turn up something I overlooked, saving a trip to the store.

On November 14, 2017 at 5:00 AM, java_queen said:

So true! I used to do the "OMG - we're out of (fill in blank)" and run to the store to get it, but after we moved I was all "forget that shit" and used my imagination. :-D

On November 22, 2017 at 8:15 AM, Oh Crap! – Musings of an Unperfect Mommy said:

[…] time – it would be even more of a help. :-D Then, I gather all my skin care and makeup and switch out items for the next week. I also purge anything that isn’t working or toss out items that are […]

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