De Clutter Your Life, Life Tips

De-clutter Your Life Fridays – Makeup cleanup!

Posted by vvremixes on

First off… HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Today is the start of a new year, and to celebrate – I’ve decided to start another weekly series – “De-clutter Your Life”.
Take advantage of the spirit of change today, and get some new habits started. 🙂
But it’s this is not just a series, it’s a challenge!

It’s not your typical yoga pose or squat challenge, though it might require some interesting poses to get things done. 😉

I will be posting a new challenge every Friday. Take one hour a week to complete the challenge and you’ll be amazed how free you feel after just a few weeks! Heck, even one week is better than nothing at all. 😉

To be a good example and to “practice what I preach”, I will be taking part in each week’s challenge and will be sharing my results via my various social media platforms (instagram & Facebook).

Now before we get into the step-by-step, let us observe the typical shelf life for cosmetics – organized by type.

Typical shelf life for most cosmetics: 

  • Mascara – 3-6 months
  • Foundation – Up to 1 year
  • Concealer (liquid) & Cream Blush – Up to 1 year
  • Powders (press powder, blush, eyeshadow) – Up to 2 years
  • Eyeliner (liquid) – 3-6 months (pencil) – Up to 2 years
  • Lipstick – 1 year

I didn’t want to believe this, as I was the type to shell out the big bucks for the high grade, “designer” products, but its a known fact!

Now Let’s De-clutter our… MAKEUP! 

A step-by-step

  • First off – anything over 6 months old that isn’t powder, pencil, foundation, etc. toss it! (see shelf life criteria above)
  • Next, anything put everything into a pile that is over a year old.
  • Examine each piece of make-up, looking for imperfections, cracks, separation, etc. Throw away any piece that doesn’t match the criteria (in good condition, clean, etc.)
  • Next, ask yourself – “When was the last time I wore this _________”? Obviously there are going to be exceptions, but If it’s been over 6 months, toss it!
  • Now, with what you have left, organize first by brand.
  • If it helps you, write down/type out all of the brands on a list (you’ll need them for the next step.)
  • Visit this handy guide (via peta.org) to find out which brands you are using are cruelty-free. Keep in mind, a company can not test on animals, but still use animal products in the ingredients. This might be a bit of work.
    Once that is all sorted out, it is obviously up to you what you want to do with the items that don’t fit the cruelty-free criteria (a few ideas – use it until it goes bad and then vow to not buy it again, donate to a friend, or throw away), but I’d recommend the latter of the three, as that is what I will be doing. 🙂
  • Wash all of your make-up brushes, disposing of the broken or ones that are over 2 years old.
  • Lastly, organize the remaining products into whatever categories you like to use (eyes, lips, face or maybe more specific… again whatever works for you).
  • De-clutter complete!

References:

A couple of handy PDF options for the peta.org list of cosmetics:

Hope to see you next week! I will be starting to post recipes again next week, so I hope to see you then. 🙂
Originally posted January 1/16.

What chu think?