Makeup Rehab and Recent Declutters

Looking at the above photo, which has the three palettes I recently decluttered from my collection, it honestly doesn't look like much. It's just three palettes. And that's funny because getting rid of these three palettes has felt like an immense feat, like I've cleaned out so much of my collection. 

When I started this blog, I had close to 30 large eyeshadow palettes. That wasn't counting smaller palettes or quads. I believe I successfully completed four months of my one week, one palette series, which means that I got through about 16 of those palettes. Several of my palettes were what I considered "companion" palettes, and I left them out of that project. 

Now, I am happy to say that, including custom palettes, I have 12 large eyeshadow palettes. Excluding custom palettes, I have 7 large eyeshadow palettes. I have 9 smaller palettes/quads/Melt Stacks. 

Of the large eyeshadow palettes that are not custom:

• 1 is the Urban Decay Electric palette, which I consider a "special" palette that isn't really in the daily rotation 
• 2 are companion palettes (Viseart Dark Matte and Kat Von D Pastel Goth)
• 1 is a travel palette (Tartelette in Bloom)
• 1 is a sentimental one (Tarte Rainforest of the Sea)

So, considering all of that, outside of the custom palettes, the large eyeshadow palettes that I own that are "regulars" are:

• Coloured Raine Queen of Hearts
• Viseart Bijoux Royale 

And so I guess that's why, even though the numbers are still high, it doesn't really feel all that high to me. 

Even in my smaller palette/quads:

• 1 is the Melt Lovesick Stack, which I may end up decluttering
• 2 are companion (Melt Rust Stack and Kat Von D Shade and Light Eye quad in Plum)
• 1 is only for inner corner highlighting 
• 1 is a travel palette 
• 1 is a custom palette with bight colors, which I also consider a "special" occasion palette

Which leaves:

• Milani Earthly Elements (slightly altered by me)
• 2 Tom Ford quads

I know that all of that sounds high maintenance, and sure, I'll take that. But this is what works for me. I like to have companion palettes, I like to have travel palettes, and I like to have those bright palettes that I don't use all the time. 

Now, I also have a large collection of single shadows, so I am by no means saying that I have a small makeup collection, but I feel I am actually getting close to an ideal collection for me. And that's what I think sometimes gets lost in the "makeup rehab" community. Sometimes I think people take the urge to buy and instead apply that to decluttering or panning. And then those practices can get obsessive as well. Now, I am certainly a fan of decluttering and using up products, but I do think that it's more important to work through why the impulse to buy is there and to evaluate your collection over a long period of time. 

Some people are happiest with an enormous collection with drawers and drawers of palettes. Some people are happy with a minimal collection or two eyeshadows. And some people, like me, are happy with an admittedly large collection that is incredibly curated. And as I say that, I still think there is room for improvement and downsizing in my collection. But several months ago, I thought I had gotten to a healthy place. And I have decluttered more than 10 palettes since then. I think decluttering is a process. But I really think it's worth the time to evaluate your collection and really figure out what you personally need and what works best for you. 

So, here are the three latest declutters in my collection. 

Viseart Boheme Dream:

I spoke about this in my Weekend Looks post this week, so I won't go on too much here. Essentially, this is a great palette that I just wasn't using. I don't need light, medium, and dark versions of green, pink, and blue, and I already have the Electric Palette and the custom smaller palette with colors. I also have all of these neutral colors elsewhere in my collection. So, this palette was just sitting in my collection making me feel guilty for not using it. I don't need it, so out it goes. 

MAC C'Est Chic:

I've really enjoyed this palette and found it challenging to declutter. This was actually a birthday gift to myself last year, and that kind of thing adds a sentiment that makes this hard to get rid of. Honestly, that entire bottom row will get no use from me. All of the lighter shadows lack pigmentation, and the main colors that I used I have elsewhere in my collection. So, out it goes. 

Kat Von D Shade and Light Eye:

This is admittedly cheating as I kept my favorite four shadows in this palette. I've mentioned often that the Melt Rust Stack is now my absolute favorite companion palette and that it has essentially replaced this palette. And that's true. Even still, there were still some warm (and cool) shadows that I wanted to keep. The white shadow that is in the cool (middle) quad is one of my favorite brow bone shadows of all time, so I knew I wanted to keep that. And the large cool and warm shadows and the orange shadow in the warm quad were the main reasons that I bought this palette. And because of that, I figured I might as well keep them. I don't need the rest of the palette, I just want what I like. And what's interesting is that when I look at the above palette, without these four shadows, this palette looks so boring to me! Not only that, it looks incredibly repetitive. 

I didn't have any room in any of my custom palettes, so I needed to declutter a bit more. Here was what this custom palette used to look like:

And this is what it looks like now:

(The round shadow that is no longer in this palette is Make Up For Ever Pearl. Don't worry, I didn't get rid of it. It has been moved into another palette.)

What I find amusing about this is that now I only have 8 shadows left from both Viseart Paris Nudes and Sultry Muse. And maybe all of these colors just came out of one of those palettes and I have unknowingly decluttering the other palette shadow by shadow. Either way, I find it funny that these palettes I once loved so much have been reduced to just 8 shadows. I'll also mention that this is my least favorite of all of my custom palettes, and I would not be surprised at all if I decluttered this entire thing in the future. But for now, it stays. 

So ultimately, while I am only getting rid of three palettes, this declutter has freed up a lot of physical space in my collection and has made me feel a bit freed up in my mental space as it relates to my collection as well. 

Recent Declutters and Depotting

I know a term people like to use a lot in relation to by blog, which is tongue-in-cheek, is "makeup rehab." And that's because a lot of people, myself included, have struggled with a very real makeup/shopping addiction.

Ever since I became interested in makeup seven or eight years ago, I have always had more makeup than the average woman. I have gotten several friends into makeup, and I have always enjoyed being a soundboard when they've had a question about a product because they know that even if I haven't tried it, I've probably at least heard of it.

But things became a problem for me in the last few years living in NYC and especially when I started graduate school. NYC is not for the faint of heart, and it's sometimes not even for the strongest among us. This city has battered me around more than anything I've ever experienced, but I am still here because of people and obligations in my life. But when things have felt particularly rough, I would turn to makeup. Every day felt like a fight, and on the days I lost, I would buy makeup. I talked with my dad about this, and he told me that the most important thing was to get through the day. And he said if I needed to buy something to get through, then I needed to do it. Because I needed to get through.

And I did.

And a few months after graduating from my program, I started writing this blog. The blog was supposed to be a way to keep me accountable and to really talk out my frustrations with the beauty community and how consumerism had run rampant. What I wasn't expecting was to learn a lot about myself, my preferences, and the products I enjoy. And that might sound a little foolish, but I honestly thought I knew myself and what kind of makeup I enjoyed before staring this blog and really trying to get to know my makeup. As I have mentioned a lot recently, the most striking and important things I've learned are that I do not enjoy palettes, I much prefer singles, and most shadows are just not that unique.

And with that realization, for me, comes decluttering and downsizing.

Recently, I got into a decluttering mood, and I wanted to share what has left my collection.

Milani Bare Necessities: Decluttered

I considered keeping this for a few hours after I wrote about it in a "This Week's Looks" post, but then I realized I had no reason to keep it, so it has been decluttered. I actually took the matte dark brown shade and repressed that into the Milani Earthly Elements palette, but I don't have plans on using that on the eye (and seeing if it was successful) until indie month is over.

Milani Plum Basics: Decluttered

The pink glitter shadow on the top right was enough to make me want to declutter this palette without another thought. Like the Bare Necessities palette, I repressed the matte white/cream shade into the Milani Earthly Elements palette, and I am excited to see how that turns out. 

Becca Ombre Rouge: Decluttered

This was not an easy declutter for me as I really enjoy this palette. The problem is, in the last year, I have maybe used this palette three times. I call it my "professional" or "interview" palette, and indeed, I used this palette for my job interviews and when I had a really important meeting at work in the first couple months I worked there. Now, I am much more comfortable at work and don't need to wear such a conservative look anymore. I think this is a really lovely palette filled with beautiful shades, but the majority of it was just redundant to my collection. I wasn't using it, so it was time to let it go. 

Ciate London Smokey Suedes: Decluttered 

This was also not an easy palette to get rid of, but I have only used it twice in the last six months. This was actually the palette that made me take a break from the one week, one palette project, because I just did not want to wear only this for a solid week. There are so many pretty shadows in here, but none that I don't have elsewhere, so I decided to let it go. 

Juvia's Place Nubian 2: Decluttered

This was the hardest item to get rid of in this entire lot. I fell so hard for this palette when I used it for the one week, one palette project, and I especially loved Nairobi, Nefertiti, Jezebel, and Leyla. Thing is, I have not reached for this palette once since I used it in one week, one palette. I know if the shadow pans were smaller, I would totally depot the shades I just mentioned, but they are not, and I don't want to repress them into smaller pans. I have similar shadows to those anyway, and the stress of feeling guilty about not using this palette finally got the better of me. It's a beautiful palette that I really enjoyed using, but I just have too much in my collection, and I wasn't reaching for it. 

Lime Crime Venus: Depotted/Downsized

This is a palette that I really enjoy, but I found myself never reaching for it because of the bulky packaging and because it was buried under some other products in my collection. I really loved the artwork on the front of this palette, and even left it out for display once upon a time, but me not wanting to get rid of the packaging was actually keeping me from using the products inside. So, I decided to depot. I didn't intend to downsize any shadows in the process, but I also decided to downsize my custom Viseart palette (see below), and wanted to move the shadows from the Neutral Matte palette into the new custom palette. When I decided to do that, I realized I didn't need Creation and Icon, so I ditched those two shadows. 

Here is the new custom palette:

Includes: Natasha Denona (top left), Lime Crime Venus (top right), Viseart Neutral Matte (bottom left), and Too Faced Chocolate Bon Bons (bottom right).

Pur Soul Mattes: Depotted/Downsized

I'll just say right now that if you have this palette, you should not depot it. I have never experienced a more challenging project that ruined every single shadow in the palette. But, here's the thing about this palette. It looks like the perfect pink/mauve companion palette, but across the board, it's just not. The three lightest shades (two on the far left, one on the far right) all perform essentially the same on my skin. The third shadow in did not look mauve on me at all, and definitely leaned more brown; the reddish shade was nothing special when compared with Muse from the Venus palette; and I had shadows like the dark and light browns elsewhere in my collection. I knew I didn't want the entire palette, but there were still shadows I was interested in keeping, which is why I attempted to depot them. Again, it was a terrible experience, but in the end, I'm happy with the shadows I kept, which were the two shades on the far left, the fourth shadow, and and the light brown shadow. They are now in the new custom Viseart palette. I suspect that as time progresses, these shadows may end up decluttered as well, but as of now I am happy with the ones that have remained. 

Viseart Sultry Muse and Paris Nudes: Downsized 

This is what my Viseart custom palette used to look like. This was a combination of Sultry Muse:

Paris Nudes:

And Neutral Matte. 

And, here's the thing. There were some shadows that I really loved in this palette, and that's what made me want to keep all of it. But there were also some shadows that were not great at all. And I think because I paid so much money for them, I just did not want to admit to myself that I didn't like them all that much. But really delving into singles and indie shadows has made me see what I like and expect from a shadow, and I just had to admit that I wasn't crazy about a lot of these colors. So, I decluttered 10 shadows from both of these palettes. I am now only left with these:

In this palette, there are 11 Viseart shadows from Sultry Muse (primarily) and Paris Nudes, Make Up For Ever Pearl, one Natasha Denona shadow, and four shadows from Pur Soul Mattes. 

This Frankenstein's Monster palette is now a perfect palette for me. I can see traveling with this in a heartbeat. I'm excited to see the use this gets now. 

And since I took all the shadows out of the Inglot flexi palette, I was able to put all my Inglot shadows together in that palette. I had a 10-pan palette and a 5-pan palette, and now they are all combined:

Looking at my makeup collection now, which is still very large, I have to say that I feel a bit of relief. My palettes are not crammed into drawers and buried in a game of Tetris. There is some room to breathe, and I think that will have a great impact on my mindset. 

Finally, I would like to close this post with a note about depotting. It is not for everyone, and if it is not for you, that's okay. But the main reason I hear from people who don't want to depot is that they can't imagine doing that to their palettes. And I think that mindset can be flawed in a lot of ways, because a lot of it has an undercurrent of the hype/consumerist mindset. Some people like to have order to things and don't like asymmetry, and my comments are not for the people who chose not to depot because of these reasons. 

At the end of the day, unless a makeup item is a collectible to you, it is a product intended to be used. And if you're not using something because of the palette it is in or because you don't like the majority of colors, you're essentially wasting your money and the product by having it just sit there untouched. I think a lot of people don't want to depot because if they do, when their favorite person on YT holds up that palette and talks about it, they will have the fear of missing out. But that's silly to me. Depotting helps you get the most out of your shadows, even if that means losing some of them or combining them with other shadows that aren't exactly the same shape. 

Depotting also really helps show the duplicates in your collection. It's essentially doing what I propose in many of my anti-haul posts, which is to look at the shadows as pigments away from the packaging. When you look at shadows that way, you see what you already have. And that's what happens for me when I depot.  

I have already gotten a lot more use of out several shadows that I wasn't using previously, so this has been a successful endeavor for me.