I first started getting into makeup when I was a freshman in high school, around 2009. All of my friends were wearing eyeliner and I wanted to as well. No one in my immediate family wore makeup so I was pretty much on my own. I started off with just black eyeliner and lip gloss. I very slowly started wearing a little bit more makeup over the next few years. After that I slowly moved into eyeshadow and lipstick. Embarrassingly enough, mascara, foundation, concealer, and brows came much later! As I started to get more into makeup, I needed some instruction. I did some searching and stumbled across the fairly new beauty community on Youtube. I began watching beauty videos and learning how to apply makeup. Very quickly I started to realize the size of the makeup collections people had and I found myself wanted a huge collection as well. I thought it was so amazing to have so much variety and how convenient it was to have so many products. Run out of face powder? I could just go into my back stock of powders and just pull one out and not have to worry.
I started out with drugstore products only. I didn't have a job so I could only buy makeup with what little money my parents gave me. Once I got my first job, I started dipping my toes into some high end makeup by purchasing s few products from MAC. It was what every beauty Youtuber used pretty much exclusively at the time and there were so many tutorials using MAC products. I would save money and then when I was at the mall I would buy two MAC eyeshadows at a time. $30 on two eyeshadows was a lot of money at the time! Slowly, I built up my MAC eyeshadow collection and started to branch off into lipsticks and blush. As I got a little more comfortable with spending money on makeup, I branched out into Sephora. I was only buying one blush or eyeshadow at a time, but I was curious about other brands. Slowly I started buying more and more to the point where I would spend $100 on one purchase.
My makeup buying hit a peak at the end of 2015 to the beginning of 2016. I don't know what happened exactly but I was spending a TON of money on makeup. I had hit Rouge at Sephora and Platinum at Ulta. I was spending all of my time watching Youtube recommendation videos and researching swatches and reviews on different products. I felt like I had to have everything! I wouldn't just buy one or two different eyeshadow colors, oh no, I would buy every color that I felt I would use. It got to the point where I was placing a $300 Sephora order every two to three weeks. I was buying so much stuff, I didn't even get the chance to try everything out from an order when the next one would come in. I would go into Sephora and wander around for hours just looking for something to buy. I would go in there just because I wanted to buy something. How insane does that sound?!
In March of 2016 I stumbled upon the Makeup Rehab subreddit and it really opened my eyes. I found a place with like minded people. You have to understand that everyone in my life thought I was crazy buying all the makeup, and I was. I thought that the collections girls had online was normal. Makeup Rehab showed me that it is not normal. There was a whole community of people there to support each other and give out helpful advice. There was so much information and I learned all about TMOs, no-buys, low-buys, pan projects, and pan that palette. I'm not sure what it was exactly but something just clicked in my head. I didn't want to keep spending so much money on makeup. I didn't want to have so much makeup that was basically new because they were only used once. It was time for a change.
I started picking out a few products to try and use up and I picked out products to destash. It was incredibly difficult at first because I spend so much money on a product to just get rid of it. Why? When I could just keep it and use it maybe once a year. Let me tell you the progress was slow. The first year a made good progress but I made even better progress in 2017. I started my Makeup Rehab journey in March 2016 with 638 total makeup products in my collection. I had a Alex 9 drawer and the Malm dressing table from Ikea both filled with makeup. I also had a lipstick holder on top of my vanity with all of my lipsticks. As of January 2018 I have got my collection down to 283 items that now reside in just my one big vanity drawer! I have cut my collection down to less than half of where it was when I started. Most of the number changes are due to decluttering but I am very proud of how much I have used up as well.
Consciously making the effort to use up specific products really shows you how long it takes to use up makeup. It honestly takes FOREVER! I would have never been able to make any progress in any of the products I owned before they expired. I am to the point now where I get anxious when watching huge hauls where people are buying thousands of dollars in products and buying vaults. Vaults! I hate watching favorites videos on Youtube where people show palettes and blushes and lipsticks that are their holy grail most favorite products ever that they use all the time and the products look BRAND NEW and like it was used once. I despise that. DESPISE IT! My whole attitude has changed about how I approach makeup buying.
I honestly owe a good chunk of my success to the wonderful people on Makeup Rehab. It is such a supportive community and I check it daily. I don't post super often but I do lurk all of the time. Whenever I did post, people were so helpful. You should definitely check it out if you haven't already.
So, that wraps up my Makeup Rehab journey! I hope you enjoyed it and if not I hope it helped you at least a tiny bit. I have totally done a 180 in my makeup buying and collecting. If you would like to share our story with me, please don't hesitate to do so. If you need a cheerleader for your journey, I am here to support you!