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. 

Decluttering and Depotting: Too Faced Chocolate Bon Bons and Juvia's Place Masquerade

During my one week, one palette challenge, I used and thoroughly enjoyed the Too Faced Chocolate Bon Bons and Juvia's Place Masquerade palettes. I felt confident and happy keeping them in my collection. But as I have been really drawn to singles lately, I've been scrutinizing my palettes to really see if I love the entire thing or if I just love pieces of it. 

With both of these palettes, I realized I just love pieces. 

Typically when I've made the decision to declutter something, I just declutter and don't look back. If there is a "special" shade in a palette, I see if I can try to duplicate it in my collection or just buy the single shadow. 

I've mentioned before my love affair with Too Faced Satin Sheets. I've had it in three palettes, and I've decluttered all three. And every time I declutter, I think I won't miss Satin Sheets. I'll remind myself that I have a ton of shadows and I'll be fine. And each time, I miss Satin Sheets. And because Too Faced is, frankly, obnoxious and doesn't sell singles, there is no way that I could get this shadow outside of a palette.

Almond Truffle is also another favorite shadow of mine in this palette, and I know that if I didn't have it, I would sincerely miss it.

Those aren't the only two shadows I love in this palette, but they are certainly favorites of mine. And I suppose because there are a few other shadows that I love and then plenty of shadows that are totally fine, I decided I liked the palette enough to keep it.

But you know what? When I really looked at it, I love Sprinkles, Molasses Chip, and Cafe au Lait.

I like Cotton Candy, Totally Fetch, Bordeaux, Mocha, and Malted, but I have all those colors several times over.

I don't really care for Dark Truffle, Pecan Praline, Earl Grey, Divinity, and Black Currant. They are fine and totally workable, but they just aren't shadows that I'm really drawn to. And I hate Cashew Chew.

When I realized I really only wanted to keep five shadows, it seemed really dumb to keep this entire palette. I had some space open in a palette I depotted my Natasha Denona shadows into, so I thought maybe depotting would be the best option.

I couldn't find any tutorials for depotting Too Faced Chocolate Bar palettes, let alone the weirdo Chocolate Bon Bons, so I thought I would write how I depotted it.

So, first, you need to get a thin tool to wedge in the space between the brown part and the pink park. I worked the tool around the perimeter of the palette, making sure not to pry too hard as the shadows would break. I just went around, little by little, until the entire thing popped out. And guess what holds Chocolate Bar palettes in place?

Yep. Just three strips of tape. That's it, guys. 

So, now you have the shadows separated from the bulk of the packaging:

From here, I placed the shadows I wanted on top of the tiles of my hair straightener and waited until the plastic slightly melted. Then I took the same thin tool and lightly lifted the shadows from the palette. The glue was melted, so they just slid right out.

I then was able to pop the insert back into the packaging:

And here is my new, streamlined palette:

With the Juvia's Place Masquerade palette (mine is the mini), I really liked almost all the shadows. I mentioned in yesterday's post that the mattes aren't my favorite, but they are workable. And I really do think this is a great palette for someone who doesn't really have any eyeshadows at all. It gives you incredible color along with powerhouse neutrals. But for me and those of us who have a lot of neutrals, close to half of this palette is repetitive. 

So, I decided to depot the colors that I thought were most special and beautiful. Since these palettes are cardboard, the heat method doesn't work. Instead, I just pried them out and tried to be as careful as possible. 

I kept the top two rows as well as the third shadow in the third row. That shadow, along with the one above it, went into my custom palette with my other singles. I put the rest of the colors in a palette from Anastasia Beverly Hills, along with a single from Makeup Geek:

I only had one casualty, and that was Zobo. Half of it shattered, and I repressed it. As you can tell, I didn't cover the entire shadow in alcohol (likely a mistake), and after having several days to dry, I believe the shadow just looks like that now. It swatches beautifully, though, so I am hopeful that everything is okay. 

So, this process taught me a lot. First of all, it feels great to be one palette down and several shadows lighter. More importantly, I feel like this is the lesson of palettes. If you were to take a palette and only keep the shadows that you love, that are special, and that you want, my guess is that it would not be the entire palette. I really enjoyed using both of these palettes. I used every shade in both, and I was happy with how my eyeshadow turned out. But the shadows were largely just fine. They weren't crazy special or unique. They were just a part of the palette and acceptable, so why not? And those "meh" shades were really what drove me to pull the trigger on buying. Because had those "meh" shades been totally ugly, I likely would not have purchased the palette. But when I am choosing to spend money on a product, it should be a fantastic product all the way through. Or it should be something new and special all the way through. With the Masquerade palette, it is fantastic that half the shades are neutral, but for me, those weren't all that interesting because I have so many neutral shadows.

In the end, I don't think either of these palettes were a good purchase for me. And having to do it over again, after thinking more critically about my purchases, I would not have made either purchase. But, it's honestly a little hard for me to say that because there are shadows from both palettes that I completely love, and they are not available outside of these palettes. 

It's funny. When I was looking for a tutorial on how to depot Chocolate Bon Bons, I watched many depotting videos of other palettes. And in the comments, people were talking about how the video made them sick because their palettes are their babies and they could not imagine "destroying" them like that. And I am caught in between both ways of thinking. On the one hand, I do enjoy the presentation and uniformity of a palette, and it is just pleasing for me to look at. But on the other hand, depotting has been a fantastic way for me to downsize my collection while still holding on to pieces from palettes that I love. I like my makeup to look pretty, but I moreso want my makeup to be functional and used. And I can tell you that the depotted shadows from both palettes will be used a lot more now that they are free of their palettes. 

In the future, if I'm ever considering purchasing a palette again, I might ask myself, "If I were to depot this, which shadows would I keep?" And that would be keeping in mind colors that I already own and don't need to have duplicates of. And if the answer is not all or exceptionally close to all of the shadows, it should absolutely not be a palette that I purchase.