green – keeping, yellow – finished, red – throwing out

So back here I began my product cull to tidy my makeup stash with the idea that if I wasn’t regularly using them by December they were going in the bin. I had 39 makeup products that I wanted to concentrate on which I kept in a little basket next to my vanity table that I tried to dip into in an effort to use them and it worked for some items. I managed to use up 13 of them and decided to rotate 4 back into my stash which I’m concentrating on using up as I’ve already earmarked a few products to buy to replace them when they’re gone. And while I was reassessing my stash I decided to add in a bunch of makeup I forgot I had which I have no intention using again.

So this is what’s getting binned…

I’m trying to catch up, really I am. Not too many for the end of last year but I did manage to finish a few of my use it or lose it products. I’ll do a proper purge in another post but here’s my empties for the tail end of 2016. 

I was flat out for the 3 months from August to November which ran me right into the ground so the day after the kids school term finished in September I basically collapsed with a flu/virus thing. In that whole time I know my skincare routine took a beating so I’m surprised that I managed to use as many products as I did.

A small collective haul from my last few shopping trips. Some of these I’ve been eyeing off for a while now and others were opportunity buys, i.e. a sale was on that I couldn’t pass up or it was finally back in stock so I grabbed it while I could.

A bit of hair, a bit of skin - quite Garnier heavy for June. Here's my most recent empties and what I thought of them...

Feb is a bad bill month for me and as luck would have it I ran out of a lot of my staples (plus I still haven’t replaced my night cream) so I dug into my samples box to get me through making it a big one for empties last month which I've divided into hair and body, skin care and makeup.

This year I’m going to try posting my empties monthly so they aren’t so big. January usually finds me cleaning out and tidying my bathroom cabinets and vanity so this month’s empties include some things that just needed to go.

January

The end of the year is usually fairly productive for me when it comes to finishing products. Here’s my round-up of empties for the last quarter of 2016 and a little of what I thought of them...

October

This is late...story of my life. Empties for the third quarter of this year are:

July

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.

I finally have my lappy back up and running. Lots to do and write about. Better get a move on...

April

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