I’ve been meaning to write this for far too long and with empties, the longer you wait, the longer the post will be. I also have a whole bunch of lip products and nail products and face stuff that I’m throwing out for one reason or another. So there’s lots of literal junk to look at and talk about today!

But wait!

There’s more!

Actually there’s even more but we’ll get to that later.

Let’s start with the actual empties.

Banana Boat Baby Sunscreen

Product rundown: I talked about this sunscreen in my 2014 favorites but in short, this is my go-to sunscreen. It’s found in the drugstore, it’s a mineral sunscreen (I can’t wear chemical sunscreen or bad things will happen to my skin), and it’s affordable. It DOES leave a white-cast and you DO have to powder over it because it’s greasy so it isn’t an ideal product, but it’s very very good.

Number of times purchased: maybe 3?

Would I repurchase: Yes

Neutrogena Acne Stress Control

Product rundown: A tingly cucumber scented face scrub with salicylic acid. I only use this if I’ve been breaking out heavily and this is the one product that will reduce breakouts for me without irritating my skin.

Number of times purchased: More than 10. I’ve been buying this since it was introduced to the market maybe 10 years ago? A long time.

Would I repurchase: Yep

My Beauty Diary Sheet Masks

Product rundown: I don’t notice too much difference between the Imperial Bird’s Nest and the Mexico Cactus as far as what these do for my skin. They’re both pleasant and I enjoy using them. The actual mask doesn’t fit my face very well, but the product is nice enough.

Number of times purchased: 1

Would I repurchase: Maybe. I would rather try other products once I use up my back stock of these.

Essie Fill The Gap Base Coat and Seche Vite Top Coat

Seche Vite:

Product rundown: This is a thick, shiny top coat that dries incredibly quickly. It does have some shrinkage that happens particularly as the product ages. It also get gloopy when you get about half way through the bottle but it makes my manicure last all week and it keeps me from smearing my nails because I can never wait for them to dry.

Number of times purchased: More than 5

Would I repurchase: I already have. This is absolutely my favorite top coat to date.

Essie Fill The Gap:

Product rundown: A nail treatment and base coat. This dried quickly, worked as a good base coat and kept my nails healthy.

Number of times purchased: 1

Would I repurchase: Yes but I’m using something else at the moment.

L’Occitane Vanilla Bouquet Hand Cream

Product rundown: This was part of a trio I purchased around Christmas. This was ok. I wasn’t crazy about the scent but the hand cream was nice enough.

Number of times purchased: 1

Would I repurchase: No. I have other hand creams that I prefer to this brand.

Fragrance Samples

I’m swimming in fragrance samples and I want to keep track of which ones I actually like, maybe I need a spreadsheet? A wishlist? I’m not even sure. For the time being, I’ll post them here.

Paco Rabanne 1 Million: This cologne is ridiculous in so many ways. The website is crazy. Check this:

The 1 MILLION man is flamboyant, daring and uses his charm to play with a touch of humour. He loves the feeling of exploring new sensations, his dreams and fantasies always takes him further.

Wut? I mean seriously. I also read a description of this on Fragrantica that said you should only purchase this cologne if you want to smell like a Ukrainian night club and that made me laugh. But see, the thing is, sometimes I really DO want to smell like a Ukrainian night club. I don’t care if this is the cologne that every a-hole wears, I LOVE IT. It smells like hot weather and sweat and cologne and it’s sweet and comforting and sexy all at once and I need a bottle of it stat!

Official notes: Top – Peppermint and blood mandarin. Middle- Cinnamon and rose absolute. Base-Leather accord and amber metal

Katy Perry Killer Queen: This is another one that I feel like I should hate, but I really really love this scent. It’s super sweet, a little fruity but mostly kind of cotton candy smelling but one of my goals in life is to achieve a permanent state of smelling like a dessert. Give me caramel, vanilla, cotton candy marshmallow cake scents and I’m a happy camper.

Official notes:  Top Notes –Dark Plum, Wild Berries and Bergamot. Middle notes – Red Velvet Flower, Rainbow Plumeria and Natural Jasmine Sambac. Base Notes – Cashmeran, Natural Patchouli Heart and Liquid Praline

I’m not going to lie, I just bought a bottle of this on clearance yesterday and I smell delightful.

Man, this fragrance segment just took over. Maybe I’ll do a separate post next time.

Now on to some things I’m just throwing out to de-clutter.

Nail Polishes

Essie Cashmere Matte Nail Polish in Wrap Me Up – I hated this polish. It applied badly, it was patchy and unflattering and I just didn’t like it.

Formula X Brushed Metallics Nail Polish in Ambitious – This is a gorgeous color but it stained my nails mustard yellow and it was horrible. I won’t ever wear it again because of that so I’m throwing it out.

Salon Perfect in Yowza Yellow – This wasn’t a bad polish, but I have an Orly polish in a similar shade and the Orly version doesn’t require a white base coat. This one does.

Lip Balms

Burt’s Bees – These are ok but I sometimes think that the menthol actually dries my lips out. One of these is empty and the other one is too old to keep around.

Aquafina Lip Balm – I just didn’t love this enough to keep it.

Korres Lip Butter – This was a gift from a friend and I really liked it initially but then I just stopped using it and now it’s quite old.

Burt’s Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream: This was very nearly empty but it went rancid before I used it up completely. This is a decent cuticle treatment. I wouldn’t call it a cream so much as a balm. I might repurchase this in the future but I would rather find something that I’m head over heals for.

Physician’s Formula Highlight: This was part of a three pack of concealers. The concealers were terrible but I used this as an actual highlighter. It smells weird (it always did) so I stopped using it in favor of much prettier highlights that smelled better.

Face and Hair Products

Batiste Dry Shampoo for dark hair: This was ok. I purchased it when I actually had dark hair. What I really HATE about this is that the black product transfers. If you run your fingers through your hair your fingernails will be brown. If you lay down, your pillow will be brown. If any of the spray gets on your face, neck ears, whatever, there will be a darker patch of skin. It’s just kind of nasty.

Pond’s BB Cream: I actually liked the finish of this product but it has octinoxate in it and as previously mentioned, I just can’t use chemical sunscreen.

Almay Smart Shade Blush: This is one of those products that starts out white and as you blend it in you burst the little color pods so it changes to a pink color. I’m going to just rant for a minute. Bursting color pods to release color is not the same thing as a white product KNOWING what color will suit your skin and changing into said color. Marketing people please stop with this nonsense. Thank you. Rant aside, I don’t think this was particularly flattering on me but it’s also YEARS old and definitely not something I should keep around.

Ole Henriksen Total Truth Eye Cream: See previous statements about sunscreen. I have no idea if this is any good, I didn’t even try it. It was a gift with purchase a few years ago. I do like the other products in this line though.

On to the lip product! I actually have swatches of everything because I’m a swatchaholic. It makes me happy ok!

Rimmel Kate Lipstick x 2

I’m not crazy about the Rimmel lipstick scent. It’s not the worst thing in the world and for a unique shade I’ll endure the scent with no problem. In the case of these two shades, they are not particularly unique to my collection so I don’t ever reach for them. The texture of this lipstick is delightful though. I can’t speak to wear time because I never ever wear these. It’s time to let go and and throw these out.

OCC Lip Tar Samples

I really really want to love OCC Lip Tars but I just don’t. The colors are amazing, the potential for color mixing is amazing but they’re a huge pain in the ass to use. It takes forever to apply and I still haven’t figured out how to reapply during the day. I also find them particularly drying and uncomfortable. I know a lot of people really love these, I’m just not one of them.

But look how pretty!!!

NSFW is amazing. And that unknown shade is gorgeous too! I need to find a sparkly metallic red lipstick that doesn’t wreck my lips. If you have suggestions I’m all ears!

Maybelline Baby Lips

I have a problem. I actually have no explanation for why on God’s green earth I have so many of these. I don’t think I ever really liked them. The packaging is adorable but the product is…not good. That’s an unpopular opinion but I’m sticking to it. These may have sunscreen in them and therefore I find them to be incredibly drying. Or they don’t have sunscreen and are just drying. Either way, it’s not good. The wear time is ridiculous, like 10 minutes? The colors are ok, but they’re all just a tad off for my skin tone. The whole situation is just a hot mess and I’m baffled as to why I have EIGHT of these.

Maybelline Color Whispers

WHY?! I have some sort of compulsive collectors thing going on. I don’t like these. I find them drying. The wear time is stupid at something like 5 minutes for me. They do smell nice but there’s no universe in which I needed to buy five of these suckers.

Random Things

The products in this photo were actually from a de-clutter a while back. I threw out some old mascara that is discontinued I believe (sad because it was glittery and delightful) and I threw out an elf palette that I never use and was just taking up space. I would have given it away but it’s kind of old and I don’t actually know anyone that would want it.

Covergirl Smoochies

Again with the cute packaging! These are really similar to the Maybelline Baby Lips. The colors are actually much prettier though and the only reason I don’t reach for these is that there’s some ingredient that just really irritates my lips. BUT SO CUTE! It’s sad!

Milani Power Lip Gloss Stain

Um, just look at it. I think the photo pretty much speaks for itself. This is NOT a good color on me. Maybe not on anyone. But that seems like a bold statement so I’ll just stick with saying I can’t do this shade of pink. This product was a weird texture as well so I can’t say that I would even try a different color.

Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Pink Pout

I’m really not sure why I keep buying pale cool toned pinks. They really look bad on me.

Stila Coconut Crush Lip & Cheek Stain

This was a gift from a friend and I actually quite liked the way this looked. It’s a tad old to keep around though and like most stains I found it quite drying.

Burt’s Bees Lip Shine in Blush

There wasn’t anything wrong with this lip gloss but it was pretty sticky to begin with and it seemed to just get stickier and stickier so I was afraid it was going bad.

We’re in the home stretch!

Maybelline glossy stain…thing in Polished Petal

I had a bunch of these at one point but I don’t actually like them so I threw them all out. This one somehow escaped the lipstickocide but I finally caught it! Muahaha!! Also, again with the pale cool pink.

Covergirl Lipstick in Ravish

This is actually a truly gorgeous lipstick but it smelled a tad funky so it was time to throw it out.

MAC Lipgloss in Razzle-Dazzler

MAC Lipgloss isn’t my favorite formula in the world but it’s OK. The problem with this one is that it had no vanilla scent when I first purchased it but it was also my first MAC gloss so I didn’t realize that it SHOULD smell like vanilla. I think it was probably already bad when I bought it but it’s definitely worse now. Also, holy streaky mess Batman! I’ll add this to my back to MAC stash.

So that’s it! We’re done! I’m now about 5 lbs of junk lighter! Woo hoo!

How often do you go through your products and throw things out? Are you diligent about throwing things away before they expire? I’m obviously not. But I also have a really poor concept of the passage of time. Also, do you ever have the compulsive “gotta catch ’em all” kind of thing with makeup? I notice that I typically only buy EVERYTHING in a line of products if I am afraid that the product will be discontinued or if I’m stressed out. I’m really curious if you experience a similar thing.

Tidbits:

• Firefox recently promoted a few unicorn themes to customize my browser and I’m really very pleased to have a robot unicorn theme.
• So how about Pluto huh? So photogenic!
• I’ve been alternately binge watching Supernatural AND Buffy The Vampire Slayer and this has resulted in some very…strange dreams.
• It’s Friday!! Woo hoo! Longest week ever what with everybody losing their damn minds and acting all crazy like. Seriously, people were SO FREAKING WEIRD this week, I can’t even.