Being True to My Make Up Life: Lessons Learned While Purging Illamasqua Cream Pigments

You will be so surprised to know how long these photos have been sitting in my Drafts. So long in fact that most of these have since been purged from my collection. While I had such high hopes for the Illamasqua Cream Pigments, I realize now that I should have known they wouldn't have ended up in my permanent collection.

I bought the shades Delirium, Androgen, Bedaub and Dab. When I did, I thought that Delirium would make a great contour shade, that Bedaub would be a good color corrector and I just liked Androgen and Dab. The issue with these isn't in the product but that I bought them without a realistic understanding of what my makeup life was. Merely hoping to play with pigments didn't mean that I would actually follow through and buying them didn't necessary seal the deal that I would. 

Delirium indeed would have been a good contour for an overall cool mauve purple makeup look if I ever bothered to wear more creative looks outside the house. Bedaub was actually not that amazing as a color corrector because of its cream formula; not understanding that color and texutre makes color correcting work led to that small downfall. In some ways, looking at it now, Dab would be an awesome under foundation brightener but that sort of layering is not part of my daily practice. While many are perfecting the trifecta of bronzing, contour and highlighting for perfect Instragram faces (with a real life result of a plastic doll, cake face of makeup) or incorporating "baking" into makeup setting, I have to keep remembering that my make up life is simple, breathable and true to my real face. 

I have kept is Androgen because it makes for a wonderful coral cream blush. Blush, sometime I do use and know how to use which isn't why I'm surprised that its the only one that's made it. You have no idea how much I hemmed and hawed over giving the rest of these up but ultimately I had to take a hard look into why I had kept them and to stick true to my makeup life. 

That being said, that lesson is one I'm still battling with as I continue to declutter. There are some creative colors that give me so much joy even if I won't ever use them and I'm learning to allow for a few of these but not too much. I think I still have Dab somewhere and it was the perfect pale purple I needed for a makeup look during halloween. I take a few steps forwards and also a few steps back but overall, as I continue this exercise, I hoping that I'll reach a collection that is authentic to my make up habits and preferences.