How do you rotate through your stash? Share!
If I’m not reaching for an old favorite, then I’ll reach for something that I recently reviewed but really loved to wear again.
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I’m really bad about reaching for eyeshadow palettes (which is why I’ve banned myself from buying any more) but I keep all my single eyeshadows in a single Z Palette, so every time I open it up I see everything and can kind of look through it all. That’s also true for my blush pans (MAC and one Tarte), those are kept in a single Z Palette.
Almost everything else I keep in a makeup case all together, so when I go to grab something basic like concealer, I have to dig through allllllll my different blush compacts, bronzers, highlighters, etc., to get to it, so I tend to mix up what products I use a lot. And like I said before, as far as eye products go I keep all my shadows together.
For lips, I’m not great about rotating a lot, since I have like 3 or 4 favorite lipsticks I wear the most. My lipsticks I keep kind of separate in a different case that I don’t as often go through. However, I have a little pouch in my purse I keep my favorite lipsticks in (along with a powder compact) and every few weeks I like to take out all my lipsticks and chose new ones to go in there, because I know that way I’ll reach for them.
I have been on a lipstick buying rampage lately! Would you share what your “3 or 4 favorite lipsticks” are?
What helps is I usually check the weather the night before, plan what I will wear for tomorrow, then figure out which makeup to go with it, so that I can rotate through my stash. Otherwise, it’s too easy to just keep reaching for the same old favorites. Another trick is that I sort my makeup by color, so I keep all my green shadows in the same drawer, so I can easily find and grab something that hasn’t been used for a while.
It’s not easy, lol! Basically, because I tend to pick my items for that day’s look based on my mood, or what I’m going to wear that day, it may be awhile before I realize that I am overlooking things in my stash. So then I will guilt myself into using them! Or I’ll open it and remember what I loved about it in the first place! And then there actually are items that just don’t get attention anymore, so they just sit in my makeup graveyard…I am not very good about rotating my stash!
I have my essentials in a bowl on the bathroom counter, plus a hanging organizer with clear plastic pockets on the bathroom door where I put seasonal shades and products I need to test. The rest of my stash is stored in a small chest of drawers and I’ll reach for something specific (like an eyeshadow palette) when I need it.
I have a makeup bag full of my “everyday” makeup. Once in a while I’ll play and do a swatchathon and rotate my everyday stuff and put out older eye shadows/ blushes into my everyday makeup pouch so I reach for them.
I try to do this once every two months or so, but I really can’t be too experimental with my everyday makeup since I work in a kitchen. So I feel a lot of my makeup isn’t getting as much love as it deserves. Or I just have way too much!
I forgot to mention that when I visit my sister, we also do a makeup swap. We organize things the other person might want to try, etc. That way we both get to try new products without spending more money. This includes nail polish too!
I don’t really have a system. I just grab whatever tickles my fancy that day 🙂
I’m pretty sure I could use the Naked 3 palette and the Chocolate Bar every day for the rest of my life and be ok, but always doing what you’re the most comfortable with gets boring really easy. So I try to challenge myself to create looks with my difficult and not so wearable makeup as often as possible, and the results almost always surprise me. I love thinking up color schemes and makeup is perfect for that.
I try to consciously stay out of ruts, and to keep looking and swatching and productsunderstanding the subtleties of the products I have. One way this works is to try to do it when not needing to apply makeup just hen–a separate moment of mucking around with the.
I generally have a selection of products that I use and rotate through. Then eventually I’ll swap them out and replace them with something else from my collection. At any one time I’ll have the following (roughly) to choose from each day:
One matte primer
Two or three foundations (one BB cream/tinted moisturiser, one medium coverage liquid and one powder)
Two concealers (one for face and one for undereyes)
One transparent loose powder
Two blushes (one warm-toned, one cool-toned)
One powder highlighter
One setting spray
One brow pencil
Two or three eyeshadow palettes
One eyeshadow primer or longwear cream eyeshadow
One black liquid liner
One double-ended eyeliner pencil (black and brown)
One eyeliner pencil in a bright colour
One mascara
One mascara sealer
Three lipliners (pink, red and one the same colour as my lips)
A bazillion lipsticks in all different shades and finishes because I am addicted
As you can see it’s fairly comprehensive and reasonably restrained (until you get to the lipsticks that is). I like to be able to cover all bases with whatever makeup I have on me, and although people despair with me when I travel and take all the above with me it doesn’t bother me at all. I’m prepared for anything! 😛
I like to give myself little challenges or assignments, such as “this week, use only shadows from X palette or Y brand” or “this week, use only makeup from the drugstore.”
I do something very similar. I just finished up a “palette of the week series” & am now doing a “blush of the week” series. I also used cream eye shadows every day in July to see which ones really held up to humidity. I ended up tossing about 10 that didn’t pass the test (or had just dried up) It’s helping me use what I have & really give things a fair shot before deciding if it’s worth keeping. When I finish with blush, I think I will do a big series featuring a “color of the week” every week.
I decided to do that just this month! I was reorganizing my palettes, and realized I have barely touched my WnW palettes, yet still bought the 3 new “pigment” palettes… I’ve pulled everything out, put it in one bag, and am allowing myself to only use those for a month. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been going so well, as it has been sooo hot & humid, I’ve only been using sunscreen…
Next month, and going forward, I plan to either limit myself to one palette a week and/or one brand per month. My UD Naked Smoky & KvD Shade & Light Eye palettes are just *begging* for attention, so I’m trying to stay strong.
Since retiring I take more time with my makeup and enjoy a greater diversity in looks. I pick items to use based on what I’ll be wearing, the weather, how long I’ll need the look to last, whether or not the look has to be converted from day to night, etc. It only takes a few seconds to figure it out because I have all my makeup organized in drawers by type so it is very easy to see what I’ve got to play with.
Before I retired, I used to get up at 5:00 AM. I wore the same foundation, finishing powder, eyeliner, and mascara every day. As for the color products like blusher, lipstick, and eye shadow, I kept those things organized in two plastic containers. One container contained everything I needed for a warm look and the other contained products for a cool look. Both were pretty neutral and predictable, but at 5:00 AM I really didn’t want to have to think about it 🙂
Having a cool and warm tones basket is a great idea! Thanks for sharing that 🙂
OMG – getting up at 5 am every day! I hope you get to sleep in now! It is more enjoyable to take time over your makeup when you can do so leisurely.
If I remember, I’ll make a list the night before of something or some things I want to use – just an old-school paper note saying “Use UD 15th Anniversary Palette, Hushabye blush, Sephora pencil liner” – just stuff like that. Because I may remember something in the evening and then, in the morning rush to get ready, I’ll forget all about it. I will also sometimes put the items I want to use in a small plastic basket and put that on my bathroom counter, so it’s right there and I can’t forget. Last night, I put Amber Rush into the basket (with my shadow primer, CC cream, concealer, etc.) so it would be right there and I’d remember to use it.
I live in a state where we experience every single season at its fullest. I’ve built my stash based upon all 4 seasons. I’m forced to rotate through my makeup stash, no matter what. As the seasons change, my skin tone changes (I’m sometimes duo-toned or tri-toned — which truly is a pain in the butt); my facial perspiration and oiliness levels fluctuates at any given time; and then, there’s also adapting to my skin’s overall changes as I get older. I use many and specific makeup products that can withstand and adjust to all these transitions my face/skin goes through on a yearly basis. So for me, the cycle is constant.
I compare it to a speedway car race. The car is my face, the track is the seasons, and the pit stop/crew is my rotating stash.
I love my eyeshadow and blush palettes. I will use a different one for every day I wear makeup. If I find I am not going through it like I’m supposed to, I will open my drawers to my niece, and she will take care of the excess. Just had a cleanout.
Usually, I’ll see something Christine busts out and then I’ll think “I gotta wear that sometime. That’s a great product. “. I’m the worst offender of that with lipstick and gloss because I just have too much. So, about , every 2 weeks, I try to rotate out these two little decorative boxes I fill with lipsticks which I try to use throughout those two weeks. But, most the time I wind up,buying new ones that take over and that plan gets shot down. 🙂
I work on panning basic items (powders, foundations, bronzers, highlighters) but give myself permission to rotate and enjoy blush, eyeshadows and lipsticks. Rotating those 3 items allows me to enjoy my collection and, if they go bad and I have to throw them out, I am ok with not having used them up as I have gotten lots of enjoyment from them.
I tend to rotate seasonally, and whenever I’m going to visit my sister (or someone in the area is going to visit her) I sort through my stash and make a care package of all the items that I just don’t reach for anymore. But I also don’t have too much makeup (except lipsticks…) so I usually have one item for a particular usage in the case of stuff like foundation, primer, concealer, powder, etc, and try to make sure things like blush and highlighters are not too similar to each other in finish or shade. I also keep things like blush and eyeshadow in their own drawers but also in sort of seasonal groupings, and move the group more fitting to the moment to the front.
I’ve never been one to have a lot of different face products open at once, so primer, foundation, concealer, and setting powder, I tend to have 1 to 3 max at any one time. Color products, I rotate usually monthly. I’ll pick a sort of loose “theme” for the month and pull products based on that color palette. (For beach vacation time, it was all about pulling some blues and greens for eyes and corals and pinks for lips, for example. November, I’m usually all about warm golds, browns, coppers, berries…)
I do the same with lip products and nail polishes, but I always try to reach for the oldest products on top of that, so I can catch any that have gone bad and clear them out entirely.
I don’t rotate. I use one product until it’s used up before moving onto the next.
The color products depend on my mood, event, clothing, and time of day. My moisturizers, primers, foundations depend on the weather and time of day, event. I use SPF creme foundation in the Day time, often powder foundation at night and much more moisturizing cream in the bitter windy cold weather.
I often go one after the other till every single item is used then start again bt not the same with eye-shadow since I may use a bit of something from different palettes
I clean my brushes every Saturday or Sunday and on Sunday, I pick out my colors for the week via my ‘look book’. I started doing this to save me time in the morning (because I can fall down a rabbit hole with “ooh, wear this ….no this ….wait, that” and then I’m late for work) and money. I was caught up in all the LE hype and trying to buy something from every collection that came out and I ended up with a drawer full of unopened products, usually just dupes for what I already had. By Wednesday I am ready for a change but unless I pick it out the night before, I just jot it down and then decide on Sunday.
I rotate by season. When I feel the seasons change and I’m mentally, emotionally, and weather-wise into the next season, I do a makeup rotation shift.
I imagine or dream up the looks and related products I want to wear in the next season, assess how much space I have for that rotation, then I throw these two ideas together and go into my stash to come up with what I want to be using + how well it fits into the space available. It’s always an interesting process since I don’t want my favorites to go unloved or languish in storage nor, heaven forbid, be forgotten, but I like the feeling of a minimalist rotation. So I end up compromising somewhat and having more items in my current rotation than I’d like or that I end up using.
I do this with fragrances also.
I don’t have a system, really, but it really helps to keep things organized and where I can see them easily. I keep my eye, cheek and highlighter singles in Zpalettes. I keep my large palettes on shelves in plain view, and my smaller ones in a top vanity drawer. My lip colors are in plain view. That way I don’t forget about what I own. Then, I kind of just use something different every day. I factor in how oily my skin is that day, the weather, and my outfit. Also I think about whether there is something new I want to play with or whether I want to use something I haven’t worn in a while. Sometimes I’ve seen a look or tutorial online that I want to replicate.
My response is similar to Katherine’s above. Check the weather, work out what to wear, and then figure out my eye shadows that go with the outfit. I colour code my eye shadows so they are easy to find. I don’t have hardly any singles – just palettes. I also try to wear different colours so that I can wear different shadows.
I have a folder dedicated to face charts to help me use what I have! I also have a decorate box about shoebox sized that I keep my daily stuff in (so I just grab the one box in the mornings to get ready instead of searching for everything) and I rotate out the color cosmetics with items I haven’t used in a while.
I’ve acquired quite a lot of makeup for myself over the past year, and I’ve created “challenges” for myself to make sure I go through everything, mostly because I don’t want to forget or overlook something I have that I really like. I made a spreadsheet with one page for eyeshadows, one for lip products, and one for blushes. I started out with the eyeshadows and I’ve been making a point of picking two different ones each day (one matte, and at least one non-matte, and any others I need to create a look). At the same time, I’m challenging myself, as in “today I’m going to combine orange and purple!” I highlight them in the spreadsheet as I go, so I don’t use the same one twice (except the mattes, which I have to repeat).
Once I’ve run through the eyeshadows once, I’ll switch to a one-color or neutral eye and run through the lip products and blushes the same way, coordinating blushes and lips until I’ve run through all my lip products.
I keep my spring & summer makeup separate from my fall & winter to help limit my choices. I sometimes pull out four or five colors of blush and shadows I want to use and try in different ways that week and place on top of my vanity.
I’m trying to condense my collection, so I pick some products that I want to work through, put them in my makeup bag and then add other products monthly to use. I try not to spend more than 10 mins doing my makeup in the morning so I stick to neutrals, quick and easy!
I noticed on Youtube that a lot of them use an everyday makeup drawer, which helps to rotate makeup in a larger collection and make sure nothing gets neglected. My makeup collection isn’t ridiculously big, but I definitely have quite a few options for most products I use on a daily basis. I don’t have any drawers on my vanity where I do my makeup, nor do I have any additional counter space, so I just try to reach for different things. I do try to match my eyeshadow and blush somewhat based on what I’m wearing that day. There are also a few things that I’m trying to use up, so those are used on a daily basis.
I need to work on a real system and I’m planning a de-clutter where everything I keep is something that I LOVE or have not used enough to make a judgement on. I will be more organized after I have gotten rid of products that I have but simply clutter up other ones that I might actually wear and following this step I plan on having a real system then which will be:
-a list of products that haven’t gotten enough love, that I need to discover or re-discover, to work through.
-a list of products that are well loved that I want to finish
-a better set up and routine for my brushes to make eye shadows easier to use (I’m always unsure if it’s dirty from a dark colour or what, it’s all mixed up in my brushes stash)
I keep everything organized by type – I mostly use eye shadow palettes so all of them are organized on a shelf for easy viewing/access. Then, there is a drawer for everything: single shadows; blushes/highlighter/bronzers; foundation/powders/contouring; lipsticks; lip glosses; lip crayons. Small stuff is kept in open cup type holders like: mascara; lip liners; eyeliners.
Then, all I have to do is look and everything I could use for a particular use is all bundled together. I don’t keep favorite stuff apart from others, except for a few lipsticks that get their own place out (I like a few UD revolution, Dose of Colors, MAC and Bite Beauty lipsticks more than others and I keep them out).