Year of Decluttering: In Review and Final Numbers

I missed my third quarter decluttering review. By the time I realized this, I had mostly given up on controlling the makeup situation. But a nice reminder from the women's shelter that I donate to gave me energy to do a final push to get good unused and almost new items to ladies in need.

Still though, I won't say this project has been an all out success. Roadblocks kept me from really letting things go and at times I had spontaneous urges to just get rid of everything all at once. Neither are sustainable attitudes.

Roadblocks:

Brand/luxury: But its DIOR.

Fun colors: Maybe one day I'll use it...one day I will use that green lipstick...

Past decisions: When I bought this, I REALLY wanted it. Now, it doesn't quite work but I can't let it go because I paid for it.

They're different: I swear these 5 shades of slightly different mauve, are just different enough.

Things I'm Still Learning:

I never use the things I didn't love to begin with. 

I don't actually use fun colors; I don't actually make creative looks

I need to have makeup, but I don't need to have it all.

I don't need things now. Can you please wait until you finish something?

Purging Regrets:

(Even though there are some regret, there is no good reason why I don't have something to replace these)

These Artdeco Shadows: the colors worked so well on the lids

Pur Minerals Epic Illusion Palette: this looks like, whatever, but it is so easy and useful. If I were braver, I could probably live off of this.

Overall, I can't say I regret much though I have technically decluttered the MUFE Flash and Lorac Pro Palettes and yet they are still sitting in a bag because I'm still not sure...

Final Numbers

(The Real Deal)

This chart only looks at some products per item. A palette is counted as 1 item, rather than 20 different eyeshadow items. Product Types in Bold are a sum of the un-bolded items and some items which are not shown.

Product Type	Start	Acquired Since Start	Purged	Finish	Net Difference
Eyes	271	153	121	303	32
Eyeshadow	173	78	64	187	14
Eyeshadow - Single	145	39	30	154	9
Eyeshadow - Palette	28	39	34	33	5
Face	87	79	72	94	7
Blush	34	20	18	36	2
Foundation	13	18	17	14	1
Powder	5	5	1	9	4
Highlighter	8	12	7	13	5
Bronzer	3	2	3	2	-1
Lips	120	162	139	143	23
Nail	99	64	92	71	-28
Lashes	14	2	6	10	-4
Perfume	42	26	30	38	-4
Brushes	57	23	24	56	-1
Tools	19	1	3	17	-2

In the end:

I acquired a total of 510 products (color makeup, nail related, perfumes and tools) this year and actually purged 498 products. 

91.6% of acquisitions were PR but only 46.2% of my remaining stash is from PR. 

I started with 712 products and ended with 733, a net increase of 21. 

Biggest decrease was in nails (net -28) and biggest increase was in the eye category (net +32). Lips (net +23) came in as a close second and face products were net +7 (with a surprising acquisition of 18 foundations this year. 18!!).

I don't think I didn't as badly as I thought but I was really hoping to make a greater dent. I'm not much worse than when I began and this has reaffirmed the obvious that allowing PR products increases the difficulty of removing items. The "Still Learning" items above seem even more true after taking a look at the numbers and its still very clear that eye products, especially shadows, are my major weakness. This year I did a slightly better job of not saying yes to every PR opportunity and this has help a little but I need to redouble my efforts if I really want to see change.

If you missed it, here is the full journey:
Part I: Make Up Collection and Evaluation Video
Part II: Make Up Inventory
Part III: 1st Quarter Update
Part IV: 2nd Quarter Update