Decluttering my extensive makeup collection is something I try to do at least four times a year. At the beginning of Fall, Winter, Summer and Spring, I take everythingout of my drawers and start the process of deciding what to get rid of. Out with the old. In with the new. It’s like Spring Cleaning but for every season. Incredibly refreshing but also a lil’ painful. It is never easy parting with an eyeshadow palette you once used everyday or a palette you barely touched but thought it would be your holy grail. Usually when decluttering my palettes, I just try to throw out what I know I definitely don’t like. However, this process usually results in me only getting rid of one or two palettes. So today, I tried a new process in hops that I could get make a sizeable dent in my makeup collection and get rid of a few more palettes than I’m used to. So here’s what I did.
First I laid all my palettes out so I knew exactly what I had and none were hiding anywhere. I then decided to start by picking out the five eyeshadow palettes I could not live without. I immediately grabbed the Huda Beauty Corals Obsessions palette and the Urban Decay Naked Heat Palette because warm toned colours are so me right now. After that, I grabbed the Urban Decay Born to Run palette since it’s so versatile and the Marc Jacobs Eye-conic Glambition palette because this one will never not be my all time favorite palette (love a double negative). And lastly, my Deck of Scarletsingle shadows (review here) because they’re so pigmented and fun to play with. These are the five palettes that if i ever needed to greatly downsize my makeup collection (heaven forbid), these are the five I would definitely keep.
After I had my top five palettes out of the way, I then picked my top five neutral palettes that would allow me to create my everyday neutral, natural eye looks that are so common in my life. Surprisingly, all five of these palettes were by Urban Decay. What can I say- I guess Urban Decay just knows how to do a damn good neutral palette. After-all, they are the inventors of the whole Naked palette movement. These five palettes included the Urban Decay Ultimate Basics, the Naked Basics 1 and 2, the Naked 2 palette and lastly the Urban Decay Kristen Leanne Day Dream palette that’s not reallya basic but definitely a basic to me.
Now with my top ten palettes out of the way, I now had to work on decluttering a few. So to get rid of a couple, I reached for palettes I KNOW I haven’t used in at least a year. These included the Hard Candy Glitteratzi Glitter Gel Palette (never touched), the Pur Minerals Night Fantasy palette (boring), a random Elizabeth Arden palette, the Pur Minerals Transformation palette (again, boring) and the Revlon Seashells Cream Shadows that I know I haven’t touched in 8 years and is 100% expired (and long discontinued). These all went straight into the trash. No tears were shed.
Next, I decided to select five palettes that although I haven’t worn in a while, they’re extremely unique and fun to experiment with. These are palettes that I like to keep in my collection for special occasions like creating makeup looks for Halloween or New Year’s Eve. My more fun palettes that I decided to keep include the Urban Decay Kristen Leanne Kaleidoscope Dream Palette, Hard Candy Galactic Eyes, the Covergirl Peach Punch palette (also smells like peaches, yum), the Makeup Geek Dream Palette (the best purple palette) and the Urban Decay Lightbeam Palette. Who knew I had so many Urban Decay palettes?!
After keeping five more palettes, I knew it was time to declutter five more. Again, in with the new, out with the old. It had to be done. So for this round, I decided to throw out palettes that were just too similar to ones I was already keeping. Why keep a mediocre dupe to one of my favorite palettes? There’s no need for that. These included the Stila Eyes are The Window Body palette, Maybelline Pink Edge, Quo Smokey Eyeshadow Palette, Hard Candy Pinking of You and the Quo Prismatic Eye Palette. Sadly, nothing special there.
After that, I was on a decluttering mission and decided to get rid of five more palettes that I just didn’t get excited about. All of these palettes are gorgeous and contain shades that I would definitely use on a daily basis. However, there’s just nothing particularly exciting about them and because of that, I tend never to use them anymore. And funny enough, they happened to be all matte, neutral palettes AKA boring palettes like the Pur Minerals Day Dream palette, the Smashbox Trio in Litho and Multi-flash, the Aloette Little Black Book of Glam and the It Cosmetics Naturally Pretty palette.
Now that I had decluttered a good chunk of palettes, the process started to go a lot quicker. I kept a bunch of mini quads because they don’t take up a lot of space in my collection and they’re always perfect for travel. This se
ction included the Lancome Colour Design Palettes (the bestglitters), The Face Shop palette in Peach Fantasia, an old Anastasia Holiday Palette I just couldn’t part with because it was my first ever “high end” palette that was ever sent to me for my blog and a burnt orange Makeup Geek Wish palette, along with a few others.
Then I moved on to the final decluttering round which turned out to be less than amazing, All I got rid of was some more Smashbox Trios containing shades I would most likely never wear again and an Essence Palette that was extremely well-loved and beat up. I then looked at the rest of my palette and decided I could not, under any circumstances, part with any more. My motivation for decluttering had been thrown to the curb along with all of the palettes I had already thrown out.
I was then left with about 10 miscellaneous palettes that although definitely aren’t my favorite, also aren’t palettes that I am willing to let go of (at least for now). I have a feeling that in the future, these might be the first to go.
So how did I do? Well, in total I kept 37 palettes, which seems like a lot BUT I also was able to declutter 21 palettes from my collection. Not bad, not bad. One day, I hope to get my total eyeshadow palette collection to under 20 palettes. That is my goal for 2020.
I hope this was helpful for all y’all and inspired some of you to get rid of some palettes in your collections as well! What is one palette you could neverget rid of? Leave your answer in the comments below and also let me know what part of my collection I should declutter next!