My Cosmetic De-cluttering Quest: Taking full stock

Clutter in one's life is always something we as individuals want to attack in the hopes of a life with less is a life less stressful and superficial. And I certainly see the value in such behaviours which is why I do try to emulate that philosophy where I can. I regularly purge my closet and do my best to keep the junk to a minimum overall. I consider every purchase I make and I make sure it is something that I'll use.

And I'm big on everything having its place in my life and my room and as a result, love my organizational options.

Granted, I'm not perfect at it. Often my purges don't go deep enough especially when I get caught up with the money I spent on it previously or the fear that I might need it. Ultimately it comes down to the way I was raised in which we are taught as children to never let things go to waste and always clean out your plate.

It's a good lesson, but when taken the wrong way it makes it hard for you to throw anything out without at least justifying the purchase to begin with. Or as other people may like to call it, hoarding. Or clutter. Either way, sometimes I really do just have too much stuff.

Which is basically what happened to my cosmetics.

For a time in early 2012, I went a little bit nuts buying large quantities of make-up without really thinking about whether I need or want them. This went hand-in-hand with my nail polish craze, which is still going but given that I accumulated a HUGE hoard of nail polish since, has cooled significantly.

All of this basically culminated into me now having a huge collection of make-up I either haven't yet used or only used a handful of times before getting bored of it. And most of them are now all sitting in a box under my bed waiting for me to dig into.

I can't just throw them all away can I? Well I can, but then it goes against my "don't be wasteful" upbringing and I likely won't dig deep enough to throw everything out without my "I might need it" monster rearing its ugly head.

So what did I choose to do? I'm going to force myself to need the items. And if I can't find a use for them, well, maybe I should find someone who will find a use for it otherwise.

Here's full stock on the number of cosmetic items I have in my life:

Not my actual collection but a visual approximation.

Nail Polishes - 62
Foot care - 2

Perfumes, Deodorant & body scents - 7
Face & Body Lotions -34
Bronzer & blush - 8
Foundations, Concealer & BB Cream - 15

Eyeshadow - 17
Eyeliners - 17
Mascara - 7

Lip products - 33

So... a lot of stuff, and this was after my sister helped herself to a few surplus lotions that I had and didn't need because it's not a lotion I need to use or do use regularly, unlike her, at the moment.

So here's the deal here. Every month at the end of the month, I'm going to provide a running tally of items I use up, buy and what items I liked and disliked by the end of it. The hope is that when I finally see an end to this madness in total products I own, I will have a list of individual items I loved above other products that will encourage me to purchase it again after the whole fact.

I don't need or use everything that I listed here, but there are some items that I do need to figure out what works for me overall and would like to own after narrowing down my item totals.

And as for the items I don't need or use often, I need to come to realize why I bought it, where I was wrong in making the purchase and then deciding if it earned the honour of being tossed into the trash afterward.

This is not a one year quest. It may have taken more or less a year to accumulate this amount of cosmetics, it's going to take well over a year for me to figure out what works for me. And well over a year to get into a regular habit to use on a daily basis.

It's not a promise, but it is a start to try and get the clutter down in my life.