Makeup Inventory 2015

This post is simply for wanting to know my exact numbers of what is in my makeup hoard. I honestly thought they would be bigger in all, and some categories had larger numbers than I even expected. Yesterday I cleaned out any old, yucky, "I won't ever use makeup", and that might have helped some numbers be lower than what I expected them to be. I did write down in my notebook exact colors, but I won't do that here because no one cares and it would take me all night to re-write them down. As I finish up items, I can mark them off in my notebook, which will show me progress visually. I organized my vanity and am just happy everything fits on the top and in one drawer (not shown):

Without further ado, here are my makeup inventory numbers for 2015:

(First number is how many I actually own & second number is how many I strive to get down to.)

• Foundation : 5 / 2
• Face Powder : 2 / 1
• Face Primer : 6 / 1
• Eye Primer : 4 / 1
• Lip Primer : 2 / 1
• Mascara : 6 / 2
• Liquid Eyeliner : 10 / 5
• Pencil Eyeliner : 20 / 10
• Gel Eye Liner : 2 / 2
• Jumbo Eye Pencil : 4 / 3
• Lip Pencils : 12 / 8
• Cream Shadows : 10 / 8
• Powder Highlighters : 5 / 4
• Bronzers : 2 / 2
• Blush : 18 / I have not decided yet...17?
• Eyeshadow Palettes : 8 / 5
• Lip Scrubs : 2 / 1
• Lip Gloss : 30 / 12
• Lipstick : 30 / 18
• Single Eyeshadows : 49 / 40

Approximate Total Items: 227

In my counts I did not add in my 2 concealers, any of my MAC pigments/glitters, and I left out a few single eyeshadows that I am trying to decide if I will actually keep.

Thankfully I do not have a body care or candle problem...

I do have a semi-excess amount of sample size face washes, eye creams, etc., that I will be using but will not count in my numbers. That said, I plan on using all my sample sizes and a few different opened bottles of face wash/face masks, before I purchase any more. Also, some of the eye and face primers are samples, but I included them since a little goes a long way with those types of products. Oh! I also did not include my beloved ColourPop single shadows, just because...

Wish me luck! And what a happy day it will be when I can finally say my total items is lower!

Project Pan - The Items I Will Use Up

Project Pan here I come! I am starting out with small, actually attainable goals, with items I just want out of my stash. April 11, 2015 is 100 days from now and my deadline for using up the items in the photo below. If I use up something before the deadline I will add in another piece.

 

Starting at the top and going clockwise:

Urban Decay 24/7 Eye Pencil - Perversion : It's almost gone! I am tired of using this already.

MAC Eyeshadow - Sweet Lust : One of my 1st MAC eyeshadows, I have already hit pan but it needs to go! It will work great as a brow/inner corner highlight.

Tarte Lip Scrub : I have hit pan already, but plan to use this nightly. There is maybe 1/3 of the product left.

Victoria's Secret Lip Primer : Twisted all the way up, this is all that is left.

Estee Lauder Illuminating Primer : Half a tube is left, it is an okay primer, but was expensive and I need to use this up so I can finally work on the sample size primers I have.

Bare Minerals 5 in 1 Cream Shadow : This is a sample size and works great as a base or by itself. Again, I just want it gone.

I will post about these products again in 2 weeks and how my progress is going. My hopes for this self-challenge is to use up what I have and save some money as I am also on a semi-serious 'no-buy', meaning I will not be purchasing any makeup for the next 100 days. Fingers crossed I can stick to it...my last no-buy lasted roughly a week. I am at the point where I am not seeing a dent in any of my products and guilt has sort of set in.

As a prequel to this challenge, I finished a can of dry shampoo, a foot scrub, two sample size mascaras, and something else (which is completely lost in my mind right now). The feeling I got of throwing the empties away was satisfying.

Here's to a great 2015!

Project Pan

I have too much makeup. Hi, my name is Stephanie and I am a makeup addict. There, I said it, it's now out in the open. I feel better...well, not really. I thought I would do a no-buy, but realistically, I might falter at that. After watching a few YouTube videos about Project Pan, I figured this would be a better route to take. Instead of strictly not buying makeup for a set time period, I am going to make it a point to actually use up some products. It is currently 8 minutes before the clock strikes midnight, turning me into a pumpkin...no, before 2015, so I figured what better time than now to make this 'resolution'.

Tomorrow morning I will be going through my hoard, er, makeup stash, and picking out a few items that I need to hit pan/use up. I will document my results here, to give me some credibility, and remind myself that this is important.

Happy New Year!

ColourPop's Fantasy

Fantasy...I love the name of this Super Shock eyeshadow. It is everything I could ever want in a bright shadow: purple yet pink and chock full of glitter. It makes my inner fairy princess want to come out and play!

ColourPop Super Shock Pressed Pigment in "Fantasy"

The more I use these shadows, the more I fall deep in love with them. Fantasy is considered a pressed pigment, and wound up staining my arm where I swatched it. So, for today's eye look, I made sure to prime with Too Faced Shadow Insurance and put down a base of MAC's Paint Pot in Painterly. I have found that using a base makes the color pop even more, although they do not need a primer to stay perfectly in place until I take off my makeup at night.

Fantasy was dabbed on the outer 3/4 of my lid and slightly into my crease. Then I added I Heart This on my inner corner and on the upper edges where Fantasy stopped. The two blended together really well. As a brow bone highlight of sorts, I used White Chocolate from the Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette. A thin line of black liquid liner gave the finishing touch. You can faintly see the glitter in the picture, but in person = sparkly goodness to the max!

I tried to keep the rest of my face fairly simple, but needed to use Becca's Opal Highlighter to tie together the shimmer in my eyes to the semi-glossy pink lipstick I used (Estee Lauder's Color Envy in Desirable). I hope you like this! I did not want to use Fantasy all over my lid since it is such an "in your face" color anyways, but I like to think it can be highly wearable this way. Have a good Christmas!

ColourPop Super Shock Eyeshadows

ColourPop Cosmetics has amazing eyeshadows. They are a bouncy, creamy, highly pigmented sparkle explosion for your eyes. I am officially hooked after using them for the first time two days ago. Best used with your finger tip for maximum color payoff, they can also be used with a synthetic brush (think concealer type brush). I used a Sonia Kashuk concealer brush and the teeny-tiny brushes from Real Techniques to get the look below. This post is going to be heavy with pictures: unboxing, swatches, and up close shots of each of the six shadows I ordered. It is a feast for my eyes, which is why I want all these photos in this one spot. All pictures taken in natural light with no flash & no filter/editing.

~The best part: Every item from ColourPop is only $5! And a $30 order gets you free shipping!~

Each shadow was wrapped in bubble wrap and the handwritten note is something I have never seen a company do before.

~Bae~

~Deck~

~So Quiche~

~Amaze~

~I Heart This~

~Fantasy~

Swatches in same order as listed above. Very bottom is Frida, one of their LippieStix.

 For today's eyeshadow I used Bae and I Heart This. Super simple to do: Dab Bae on eye lid, up towards crease. Apply I Heart This into crease and up towards brow bone and also on inner corner. Using a Real Techniques smudge brush line lower lash line half way in with Bae, and line the inner part with I Heart This. I also tightlined my upper lash line with black liner and added two coats of mascara. No joke, easiest eyeshadow I have ever done and the one I have been extremely impressed with. The colors are original and the glitter in the shadow itself blows me away. It did not photograph like I had hoped, but in real life....BAM! Ugh. So Purdy me thinks!

Mascara is 2 coats of CoverGirl's Full Lash Bloom, my new favorite.

Here's looking at you, babe!

Mah face...blush is Makeup Geek's Spellbound.

If you are an eyeshadow addict, I highly recommend trying a few of ColourPop's Super Shock Shadows.

Clinique Foundation

I feel like I am always on the search for the perfect foundation. Different times of the year call for different foundations. My coloring changes constantly it seems, as well as my skin needs. I thought I had "normal" skin, come to find out it is actually dry, with oil in the T-zone, and acne prone on my chin. It's a hot mess.

I went on the hunt this morning for a new foundation. One that is medium coverage, allowing my freckles to show through, I don't like the muskiness that the EL Double Wear gave me. (Double Wear sucks for dry skin, by the way). I found myself at the Clinique counter in Nordstrom's, after telling an employee I would not spend more than $40 on a foundation when she was trying to talk me into Givenchy. Uhm, no thank you. It's foundation. I wash it off every night.

Below is a picture of what I purchased:

Clinique Superbalanced Makeup in 04 cream chamois, Blended Face Powder in 03 transparency, Cheek Pop in 04 plum pop, Chubby Stick in 20 jumbo jasmine, All About Eyes eye cream.

My first impressions of the Clinique Superbalanced Makeup are good. It is not too thick and came out of the pump easily. I only needed 2 pumps to cover my whole face, using Sephora Pro Airbrush #55 (I forgot how much I love this brush!) It blended well, and surprisingly concealed the redness from blemishes and helped hide my under-eye circles.



No makeup at all. Fresh faced, dark circles, blemishes, & all!

Superbalanced makeup, one coat, no concealer.

Blended face powder, Cheek Pop in 04 plum pop, & Chubby Stick in 20 jumbo jasmine (that's it! NO concealer or anything at all. I would be comfortable walking out of the house in JUST this makeup)

I have high hopes for this foundation/powder combo. I think we all just want to be comfortable in our skin, so please don't fail me Clinique! For me, the best part is the price point. Nothing was over-the-top $$$, which enabled me to be willing to buy more than just the foundation. I'm happy.

Side note: The Cheek Pop is to die for. The formula went on so smooth and settled into a nice, natural flush...I'm hooked! After being disappointed in Revlon's Kissable lip balms (too drying), I now know why Clinique had the first chubby lippies. They are GOOD! Creamy and pigmented, does not crack or make my lips feel dry.

Mossy Green Subtle Smokey Eye

I had gotten a Lancôme Color Design quint in the color "507 Metallic Moss" last month, but never used it. My reasoning for buying it was that I didn't have any green shadows, and this would be the last palette I get before going on a no-buy. Today I cracked that baby open:



Lancôme Color Design - 507 Metallic Moss (flash/natural light)


If you've never used a Lancôme quint before, the colors all  mesh together beautifully, taking the guesswork out of what colors to pair with one another. It even tells you where to place the separate shadows on the eye. Easy peasy. The formula is a dream to blend, but there is a lot of shimmer (which I don't mind, but others may). The highlight shade (middle row, all the way to the right) is to die for. I don't know how else to describe it, except: light wash of beige with micro multi-colored shimmer...it is so pretty and is ultimately what drew me into this palette in the first place. The bottom pan (dark shade) can be used wet/dry as eyeliner...it's pretty much the best formula I have ever used for "shadow as liner".

 

These shadows are not overpoweringly bright, and the effects of the shadows are hard to see unless you are right up on someone. I personally like the subtleness of Lancôme products in general, especially on normal days. Again, I know my pictures aren't the greatest, but this blog is more for myself, a diary and a place to keep my favorite looks/products/thoughts. Have a good day!