It was exactly 3 weeks ago yesterday that BF and I moved into our new place, and we are finally, finally, just starting to have everything organized and in place. A mini-emergency with his oil pan during a routine oil change on Saturday left his car out of commission until mid-day yesterday, so we both took the opportunity to take a day off, re-group and get some things done. We hung the DVD racks we had purchased on Sunday, and put up the little shelf in the kitchen that I wanted for my cookbooks, and now, I really feel like things are coming along nicely.
One thing that I had been sort of dreading was dealing with all of my cosmetics. And, I’m not just talking about actual makeup – this includes bath products, soaps, lotions, hair products, etc. etc. During the unpacking process, I put pretty much everything that I came across into a few big plastic bins, which had been sitting in the middle of our bedroom floor ever since. This weekend, though, I dumped them all out and began the big sort.
I knew I had a “product problem” – but I had no idea it was as bad as it really was! I ended up sorting everything, junking anything that looked old or nasty, or that I knew I would never use, and putting the rest of it away. I found that I had at least 6 new, unopened toothbrushes, a few extra tubes of toothpaste, probably 5 different sets of shampoo and conditioner, over 30 different lotions, including at least 5 different lotions specifically designed for feet, numerous bottles of body spray and perfume, and probably 25 different hair products – everything from pomade and hairspray to heat protecting sprays and curl inducing gels. I’ll have to take a picture of it all tonight, because its pretty frightening.
I also have a surprisingly large number of things in sample size – all of which i put into a container and stored in a closet. I also pre-packed my favorite makeup bag with all the things I could possibly need for a trip out of town – smaller versions of shampoo and conditior, contacts case and lense solution, deoderant, body spray, lotion, shower gel – its all there, I just would need to throw in a hairbrush and my day to day makeup, and go.
I’ve actually been doing this for a while, but the sorting and organizing really emphasised it for me – I do not need to buy any more of these sorts of products for a very, very long time. The only thing that I can possibly think of that I will run out of and need to replenish is my daily facial moisturizer – but then I realized that just because I prefer to use Clinique, it doesn’t mean that I should replace it every time it goes empty. When I use up the other things, it will be a reward to myself to buy the brand I prefer.
