Beauty Cull 2020 - The Prequel

Hello lovely ladies.  

We’re knee deep in January eh.  It’s a time of reflection and of new beginnings.  It’s also my time to review my beauty products and toiletries.   And with the cold and windy weather we’re having and gardening not on the cards anytime soon, the house is getting some long-awaited attention, and that includes my bathroom cabinet.

I was chatting this morning with the so lovely Janet of The Gardener’s Cottage and she’s going through a bathroom review too.  You can read her post MY BEAUTY BUDGET, HERE,  do pop over.  You’ll enjoy this and ALL of her posts, I’m sure. 

I’ve only just started my annual review/cull/replace and I’ll report back with my findings soon.  You may be doing the same thing, so I thought this an opportune time to repost my post from a few years ago, then you and I can see how my 2020 review compares.  

Will there be repeat buys?  Will there be never-to-be-repeateds?!

Does that sound like a plan?  Fun, even?!!

I’d love to hear how you deal with your beauty review, whether you’re doing a review right now or if you totally ignore best before dates and best after opening dates.  

Please drop me a comment with your thoughts. 

My 2017 Post

Hi guys!  Gosh, I'm sounding so American.  But "guys" sometimes just sort of, well, fits.

Just thought I'd touch base with you on my declutter programme ... and the floodgates decluttering can sometimes open.  My programme continued in the bathroom.   I don't think I dare show you my chuck-out pictures.  Embarrassing.  

All past BBD medication were taken to the chemist for disposal. 

Here's my tidy cabinet.  I'm enjoying it as it won't stay like this for long!

And with medication addressed, I moved on to make up.  Firstly,  all make up and toiletry bags were washed in The Great Make Up Cull of 2017.  Then make up was culled, using the approach detailed below.  The cull exposed so many worries, it opened up The Floodgates of Concern.   There were many but I now give you my two main areas of concern regarding make up.  I have many other areas of concern, but make up is a pretty safe topic to open up about!

Best After Opened (BAO)

Life was simpler before those blasted little open jar icons started appearing on beauty products. Common sense was used back then.  A product was thrown away when it was empty, had dried up, looked dodgy or when I realised I'd bought it in a country I'd visited in the last millennium!

Along came that little icon and opened up yet another area of my life that I should be very concerned about.  Nay, paranoid about.  Because it frequently touches on eyes and those I am uber-paranoid about.

Those little icons are useful - but only up to a point.  For how on earth can you remember when every single item of make up was opened?  

They're bought at various times.  They're opened at various times.  They have varying BAO periods.  The labels are minute so you can't scribble opening dates on them.

I'm still fairly relaxed when it comes to non-eye area make up (I don't see much danger there) but it's a minefield for someone as concerned about eye hygiene as me!

So the test I applied during this latest make up cull was draconian but necessary.  Any eye make up that I bought prior to last summer has been binned.  Most are in the 3-6 months range anyway and this chuck-out gives me a clean slate to work from.

I've devised a simple new make-up control plan.  Buy make up at the beginning of the year then I can easily control opening dates.

  

I'd be very interested to hear what you put in place to control your make-up's recommended life.

Or is this paranoia restricted to Pout World only?!

Eye Pencil/Crayon Sharpeners

I like eye pencils and a couple of years ago I became a big fan of chunky eye shadow crayons too.  

But I've recently started worrying about the hygiene aspect of the pencil sharpeners needed to keep them in their prime.  During my cull I washed make up brushes, tweezers, scissors, that sort of stuff, all in really hot water with lots of rinsing, but when it comes to those sharpeners I washed, well I see lots of hiding places for germs to lurk and I'm still dubious about using them for eye products again.

As a result of my paranoia, a lot of pencils and crayons have been binned during this purge.  Some have been used only up to the first need for sharpening and around the time when my sharpener paranoia set in.  Many are within their BAOs but need sharpening - so they have to go.  

They have pointlessly given up their lives (see what I did there?!).

How do you keep your eye pencils and crayons hygienically sharpened?  I'm intrigued.

But there is some good news.  Nature's way of compensating for my old age fuss-potting about eye hygiene is that when retired, you tend to use less make up.  In recent years I wear it less frequently and use fewer items.  So my new controlled approach to make up is a doddle and easy on the purse - I need to buy fewer items and they should last me the duration of that dastardly BAO icon!  

So last week I bought a couple of eye shadows, new brushes, eye liner and brow pencil.  

Frequently used foundation, mascara and skincare products are replenished on a rolling programme. 

 And the big news is that apart from a blast of red lipstick for special occasions, I tend not to use lipstick anymore.  I use flavoured Lipsyl or The Body Shop's Born Lippy.  I think they look better on pensioner lips. 

So this is what my streamlined make up bag looks like now.

Neat, huh?

So an embarrassing amount of make up has been culled and it leaves me with two three questions, 

1) Is anybody out there as paranoid as I am about eye make-up hygiene and BAOs? 

2) Anyone know if there are "self-sharpening" chubby crayons on the market? 

3) This hurriedly added third questions is, have you become more of a worrier, more paranoid about things generally as you've got older? Does just about everything in life give you cause for concern these days?

 I certainly have become a worrier (as evidenced in this post) and it's not a nice place to be!  

I'm forever being told "You worry about everything!" or "You're a scaredeypants!"

A la perchoine.