The Great Make Up Cull of 2017 - Part Deux

Warning: Readers of a squeamish disposition should look away now.

28 lipsticks

9 lip liners

7 lip gloss sticks

9 lip gloss tubes

17 lip balms, various ...

Yes, dear reader, I have confronted one of my demons.

One of the many skeletons in my cupboard.

Here's what a demon looks like.  EEEEKKKK.

I recently moved up into my "new" bedroom.  It's a bedroom I closed the door on a few years ago.  I knew when I closed the door, there were skeletons lurking in the cupboards that I did need to confront.  But by closing that door, confrontation was automatically deferred.  In my mind anyway, for I have many tools used in my striving towards Procrastination Excellence and the Closing The Door approach has been tried and tested.

But now that I am spending time in this room, I am opening cupboard doors and confronting my demons, finally.


When I wrote my upbeat and positive piece The Great Make Up Cull of 2017 back in February, I knew deep down that I was just scratching the surface of the problem,  Then,  I dealt with the make up and toiletries in the en suite of the bedroom I was calling mine at the time.

I knew that there lurked a greater demon upstairs.  But what the eyes don't see, the conscience don't fret over.

What is the journey that has led me to having 60 odd lip products sitting in a box stuffed in cupboard?  Well, when I worked I was forever popping into town for a sarnie and returning to the office with a lipstick, a foundation or an eyeshadow. You see, the best sarnies in town were in a department store.  Buying beauty products in department stores spawns more beauty products.  It creates a multiplier effect when for each product bought, samples and "buy 2, select five more from the range" end up in your shopping bag and there's a limit to what even this needy lady can use!  So I went into retirement with a lot of cosmetics and these days I use even less make up and the stockpile has remained untouched.

And now that I'm back in this bedroom, I realise that the already aging make-up I turned my back on has in the meantime aged another 5-6 years!

So the question I pose to you today is "Is 10+ year old make up still usable?"

I'm hoping some beauty experts amongst you can help me out here.  In the meantime, the fundamental question I ask myself is "Does the product touch the eyes or not?  For as you may have picked up in this blog, I am uber cautious about what goes on around my eye area.  So my keep-or-dump test essentially is whether the product gets anywhere near the windows to my soul.

Lipwear

What's the worst that could happen? These are applied well away from the eye area.  Keep?  Anyway, with the benefit of this photo I see  it's the middle rows that are truly ancient, the rest are more recent and have merely strayed, so they're keepers, defo.

Foundations, BB creams and Sun Creams

(bottom row)

These fail the eye test.  Dump.

Eyewear: Eye Shadows, Eye lines, Eye and Brow Pencils, Pencil Sharpeners

(top row, above) 

Yes, some of it may look in pristine conditions ...

... but given its 10 yr age, it's not going anywhere near my eyes!

Dump.

Cleansers, Exfoliators etc

I've had a wash cleanser for maybe 2 or so years that got lost in the make up stash.  Does this stuff go off?

If it's harmful, I don't want this stash co-mingling with items acquired in recent years which I'm very happy with.

So dear, kind, helpful, knowledgeable reader.  Can I use really old lip products without inflicting damage to my person?  And what about cleansers?
I think the clue might be in the water ratio in the product, but I'm not 100% on that.




On reflection, I tell myself this mountain of makeup I now find myself dumping symbolises a past life which I have now walked away from.  And now the time is right for me to be dealing with the relics of that past life.


Have you had to deal with clearing relics of your past life?  Maybe post-retirement?
How did you handle it?   Closing a cupboard door or confronting it head on?
And do you have any make up cull rules that you can share? Or do you have a more relaxed approach?



And the culling doesn't stop here.  I now need to head into the bathroom next door.  EEEEEKKKK!



A la perchoine.
.