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.
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The Great Make Up Cull of 2017, a.k.a. Poutey Scaredypants

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.