I have a ton of really old MAC products (I’ve kept almost everything they’ve released since I started buying it), but it’s so much rarer now that a product returns with a lot of fanfare, so I don’t think physically having anything that old is necessary any more.
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Well, lately as soon as I find an old product and it’s obvious that it doesn’t perform any longer or may pose a risk, I throw it away. I figure I have sooo much stuff that I need to work through it all. About the only type of product that I really have to think about before getting rid of are eyeshadow palettes. I finally threw away my first Too Faced palette (Natural Matte) that was way old either last year or the beginning of this year. So, I can’t really think about three products in particular other than that one.
1. Chanel Ebloui Illusion d’ombre eyeshadow. It has dried up into a little loose puck inside its jar but it’s still usable. I never thought it was the best colour for me but I guess I keep it for nostalgia and for the 1 or 2 times a year that I get a yen to use it
2. MAC Family Silver Mineralize Eyeshadow duo. It is gorgeous in the pan and should be stunning on my eyes but it doesn’t show up well and is a bit fallout prone but over a darker base, the darker shade can be nice but I rarely use it (but still, it looks SO pretty in the pan)
3. UD Maui Wowie eyeshadow. I actually have TWO pans of the stuff, one in a palette (so fallout prone as to be unwearable) and a second single pan when they released the “reformulated” single that was supposed to be less fallout prone…alas, it’s NOT). I keep the 2nd one just because it’s so beautiful and I keep the palette because it’s a palette containing other great shadows.
As an addendum, I bought some UD eyeshadow pencils when they first came out and I loved them for all of 6 months or so, until they dried out. I’ve kept 2 or 3 of them in the vain hope that some day, I’ll figure out a way to “restore” them and also just for nostalgia more than anything else!
Hey Mariella,
Do you know about Inglot’s Duraline? It might be able to being your jar of Chanel back to life. It’s worked for me with dried out cream shadows, gel liners, liquid liners and mascaras. Maybe there’s a way it could help out the UD pencils too,….?
I use Duraline all the time and I’ve used it with is shadow but it doesn’t “re-inflate” it to fill the pan. The shadow is still usable, even without Duraline but Ebloui’s not really a great colour on me so it’s not a big deal. You know, I’ve used it on pencil liners that have dried out – a drop or 2 on the tip of the pencil (the actual product) and then cap it and store it on its end so the product seeps down and it does make dried out pencils usable again, at least for a short time.
Old highlighter backups. I’ve got a few I purchased when it was rare and difficult to find silicone-free liquid highlighters that were light enough to use on my skin. Since then a few others have come out and my old backups in their clunky packaging may never get used.
I’ve also got a few old Urban Decay singles (10+ years old) and Vice palettes that I’ll just never use. Newer formulas are much better. But some of that stuff is nostalgic so until I get sick of shuffling past them they’ll still hang around.
Really just one: I have way, W A Y too many face powders. I’d already mostly stopped using them before The Rona but I just can’t make myself get rid of any of them.
I have some loose cosmetic glitter that I use once in a blue moon as a fun eyeliner to “go out” in, but going out is something I don’t get to do often anymore, even pre-covid.
A blue Mac gel eyeliner I won in a gift basket, it’s bad quality and also I don’t wear blue eyeliner.
My Anastasia countour kit. I never use it and when I do I blend it out so much cause idk what I’m doing lol. The lip palette could probably go too.
I have far too many lipsticks to be normal
This reminds me I have a Fix+ received as gift with purchase somewhere in my backup drawer, and I don’t have who to pass it on. 😅 I hate setting sprays and I was used to pass them on to my brother’s girlfriend when traveling was a thing.
There’s way more than just three! But for starters:
1.) All but one UD Vice palettes.
2.) MAC Pink Nouveau lipstick
3.) MAC Pink Swoon blush
In the last two years or so I have applied my foundation and concealer with my fingers, but I still keep a Beauty Blender and a foundation brush, just in case; although at this point I don’t think a more than two years old Beauty Blender is to be used, even sanitized. 😅
I also have an unopened liquid liner (a think it’s a mini of the Too Faced one), I haven’t worn liquid liner since March, but I keep it just in case. Most likely by the time I need it, it would be dried out or expired. Also… none of my other eye pencils are being used, but I keep a brown and black one just in case.
Just three? There are quite a few products I have hung onto and really I must part with them because they are getting past their use by date. A few examples are:
Estee Lauder’s Sea and Sky – it was my first palette, but really it wasn’t that great, but it was the first to come out with some beautiful blue and teal shades.
Besame lipstick – my sister bought it for me and it is a matte orange red – a bit too matte and a bit too orange, so I find I don’t wear it.
And probably Vice 2 – it is starting to look ‘old’ now but I do love 5 shades: Derailed, Ambush, Radar, Damaged and Madness.
What a shame about your Vice2 palette. Mine is still in pretty pristine condition and I think I’d be sad if I had to let it go.
I LOVE Derailed and all the colors you listed. I can’t let go of mine either.
My deeper NARS magenta and red blushes, and MAC Velvet Teddy. I keep thinking I will turn to the blushes when my coloring is deeper and the trends go in that direction, but I really don’t need to keep holding onto them. MAC Velvet Teddy never really suited me, but sometimes when an influencer raves about it, I swatch the color to understand the gap between their recommendations and what will work on my skin color.
I went through my ColourPop Super Shock shadows, blushes and highlighters today. I got rid of a few that were dried out. I put aside the ones that were too glittery and will offer them to my daughter.
It’s such a great feeling to have them fitting in my drawers again!
I have Too Faced’s Natural Lust palette and it’s awkward, the color payoff is terrible in many of the shades, and it’s slightly irritating to my sensitive eyes. Will probably pass on to my BFF or another friend soon, I just keep pulling it out and trying it to see if there’s something redeemable.
I also have too many red lipsticks from MAC. Dislike red lips on me and no idea why I have so many. Really should do a Back to MAC but I feel weird doing it with COVID right now.
I react horribly to NARS Sheer Glow in Gobi. Love the color on me though, so I keep it as a color reference for foundation matching. I wish it worked for me as it’s a great color.
ABH Modern Renaissance and Jackie Aina palettes… I just never reach for them, or any of my ABH products for that matter. And a matte bright orange lipstick from ColourPop called Flower Szn. The color just doesn’t look right with my skintone, but I keep it because I think I might rock it in the heat of summer, but I never do.
1. Naked Smokey: Nothing wrong with it but I can do the same thing with my newer palettes. I do take it for travel sometimes.
2. My loose pure pigment mineral eyeshadows. I haven’t touched them in years but I used to enjoy pressing and making my own palettes. They are still usable but I just have too many other things to play with.
3. Too many perfumes. I get super nostalgic with scents and over the past 5 years, scents change on me from one season to the next due to hormone changes. I won’t get rid of them as I love to “shop” my collection and what worked for me last year may not this, but then 3 months later they are fine. I have some staples that are consistent and maybe I should whittle down and go for just a few, but nope.
Nail polishes that I’m never going to wear but keep talking myself out of getting rid of because maybe they’d be cute in some nail art. Most everything from Sinful Colors falls into this category.
Lipsticks that I got because I was in a mood for a certain color but can’t make it look right on me. Mac’s Cyber comes to mind.
Eye shadows that I haven’t really used but feel guilty about getting rid of specifically because I haven’t used them, double down on intending to use them but haven’t because my blending game stinks. This is most of them.