SERIOUSLY DOWNSIZING MY BEAUTY COLLECTION

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I think it's fair to say that I - and my blog - have been through a bit of a journey over the past 5 and a half years, in terms of the amount of products I have and my general attitude towards beauty. Today I just wanted to sit down and write a bit of a chatty post about downsizing my beauty collection and being more mindful about my purchases...


I think I started blogging thinking that 'more is more'! I'd kid myself I couldn't afford one £30 Urban Decay eyeshadow palette but I'd buy six from Revolution that cost me £5 apiece. If there was a 3 for 2 on at Boots; I was there, probably picking up at least one product I'd have had no interest in if there wasn't the allure of a 'deal'. I guess I was young and stupid but I can't help but looking back and wanting to give past-me a good shake. I guess everything was new and exciting then; I didn't really know what worked for me, so I tried a bit of everything. If it didn't work out, my attitude was 'oh well, it was only £7' and the eyeshadow palette or foundation in question would get pushed to the back of my drawer. I'm honestly a little disgusted at my wasteful attitude towards buying.

As time went on, I began to understand what suited me and what was worth my money. I'm still far from perfect and I've made a few missteps this year and purchased things without doing enough research on them, but I bought them thinking I'd love them and have been able to pass them on to a loving home with friends and family. The truth is that I've worn the same two lipsticks and one eyeshadow palette for the past two months at the time of writing this and I'm ok with that! We're so flooded with images of drawers and drawers and drawers full of makeup that no one person could use in their entire lifetime (let alone before it all expires) that we don't really realise how damn hard it is to pan an eyeshadow palette, for example. I'm a blogger, I review products, so of course I'm always going to have more than the average person but I think my Marie-Kondo-obsessed friend has finally seeped into my brain because I'm of the mind that if it doesn't spark joy then why bother? If I'm not excited to reach for an eyeshadow palette; why is it in my collection? If my socks aren't knocked off, why would I review the latest launch everyone's talking about?

It actually makes me a little sad to think of unloved products sat in my drawer so I'm not only buying so much less but trying to really limit the PR I get to products I'm excited about and think you guys would love to hear about too! Obviously I'm still going to have the odd random thing show up that I never signed off on and I'm not particularly interested in, but I'm trying to just put those products straight into giveaways to give something back to those who support me. If a product hasn't worked out; I just pass it straight on to friends and family who can get the use out of it that I can't. I just don't want as much 'stuff' cluttering up my life as I have had in the past.

Not only am I downsizing for 'life' reasons (I'm not going to have as much storage space going forwards into next year) but I'm doing it for me; I want to feel excited about everything in my collection, I want it all to have a place and I want to get a chance to use the things I truly love. That means making some tough decisions, but it's actually felt really liberating! I've felt for a while that my interest is more focused on skincare and reviewing brands and analysing ingredients, so my content has moved more towards this. It's also the sort of stuff I can use up and fully enjoy, as opposed to having dozens of eyeshadow palettes I'll never make a dent in.

Sorry if this post was a bit rambling, but I feel I've had something of a revelation and wanted to share it. I'm absolutely not perfect, but it feels good to know what you like and stick with it. Maybe it's not the most exciting thing in the world, maybe I won't have endless products to photograph for Instagram and maybe my makeup is a bit 'same-y' for a beauty blogger, but I'm ok with that because I'm far happier opening my drawer to 10 palettes I love the hell out of as opposed to 50+ that have barely been touched and will just end up in a landfill site.

Do you love lots of options or do you prefer a capsule approach to beauty? Have you ever done a big declutter?

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Read more posts from this series here!