I bought the very first Spring edit of the Marie Claire The Parcel this time last year and was impressed with it but understandably sceptical as to whether they would keep it up or go the way of most other beauty boxes, ie fabulous start, crap offerings there after. So didn't get any other boxes until I saw there was going to be a special 20th Anniversary Special Edition version for this Spring's box.

3 years ago my bathroom cupboards were overflowing with bottles of things I had bought to try or because they were on special yet had never really bothered to use. So to stop the wastage and make myself accountable I started a Project Pan to make sure I used them all up. In the process I discovered that I had been buying the same things over and over that I didn't really like because I hadn't noticed that it had simply been repackaged or because I forgot why I didn't like it the first time around.

My project pan quickly evolved into a log of my monthly empties, complete with short notes of what I thought of the product to remind myself whether it was worth repurchasing and more importantly when NOT to buy it again.

In 2014 I managed to finished 126 beauty items from 4 categories: skincare for the face, skincare for the body, haircare and makeup, with these 31 being from the last quarter of the year.

October