Sep
08

The #Beautychallenge10 : experience + empties

Last July, the awesome Tamara from Rainbow Feet, did a video on Instagram challenging us to use up 10 products, before making any beauty-related purchases. Samples did not count, and depending on the product type, some travel sizes were allowed. The challenge is still on going, anyone is welcome to participate anytime, and some are even taking the challenge to 20 products! How awesome is that? As soon as the challenge started, I cleaned up and re-organized my whole stash, to see what needed to be used first.  I also cancelled my suscription box, as I didn’t want to accumulate more.


If you follow me on Instagram, you may have already seen the 10 empties, however I’m just going to go through them again for a mini review:

1. Alva Bath salts from the Dead Sea 
Salts from the Dead Sea contains more magnesium and calcium than sea salt, which is why it’s great to soothe skin woes and muscle pains. With regular uses, I could tell my skin was softer, but most what I loved the most about it, is the fact that it relieved tensions and muscle aches very quickly.

2. Acure Facial toner balancing rose + red tea
It was in my first iHerb order, I really enjoyed this toner, because it was gentle enough to deal with my crazy skin. Compared to the SW. Basics toner, I found this one less effective when it came to blemish prevention. However, I could tell that it helped balance my skin during the hot and humid summer days. Overall it’s more gentle and less drastic than SW. Basics.
3. Balm Balm Rose & Geranium lip balm
Mixed feelings about this, nothing to complain about the ingredients, but I blame the packaging. I’m sure this product is lovely in a pot, and not in a tube. The consistency is too oily, it’s only once I was half way through this product, that the actual balmy consistency would come out of the tube.
4. Ilia Mascara in Macao
It seems like you can never go wrong with Ilia. In terms of performance, the mascara is of high-quality, long-lasting, with a natural finish. It gives a beautiful amount of volume while adding some lash definition. I could see myself purchasing the black version. You can see how this copper color looks on here. It’s great for providing a luminous look.
5. Sante lash balm
A great multitasker, it prepped my lashes before mascara, and tamed my eyebrows. I used it for the Signature Summer look tag, and for the price of 7 Euros, it will be a repurchase.
6. MuLondon White Chocolate Elbow, Knee and Heel cream
Winter is coming soon and I’m out of this goodness, which was one of my top 2013 products. I can’t sing its praises enough, it’s a cocoa-rich skin delight and my skin felt instantly nourished.
7. Odacité Pure Elements, Black Cumin-Cajeput Serum
Oy! Another incredible product gone. Luckily, Content Beauty is now stocking Odacité’s Pure Elements serum, which means that I won’t have to be separated too long from this goodness. It’s a must-have in my anti-pimples arsenal and I reviewed it here.
8. Green Love Vanilla Strawberry Deodorant
Green Love is a Swedish brand, I mentioned them here and all their products are made of raw and natural ingredients. Compared to Schmidt’s deo, the consistency is much creamier and it smells absolutely amazing.
9. Lavera Vanilla Coconut Dream Shower gel
Just as delightful as it sounds. It leaves a yummy tropical scent on your skin.  To me, it was summer in a bottle.
10. The Juice Beauty Blemish Clearing Powder
I already miss this product: a concealing powder that dries the spots very quickly, and controls redness and excess shine. As you may have read from a previous post, it’s one of my go-to products to hide and heal blemishes.
Extras (samples) : Gaia Creams Chia & Peach kernel seed oil (reviewed here) Dr. Alkaitis soothing gel (reviewed here) and Ann Marie Gianni citrus cleanser.

A little clarification
While I’ve never been much of an hoarder, I did accumulate a certain amount of products. Before the challenge, my mom jokingly mentioned that my bathroom looked like an apothecary, but still. I get why she’d say that, between my regular beauty routine and the occasional samples and test sessions, it can look a bit crowded in the bathroom shelves. I’m aware that one person doesn’t need so much in average, one can live with a soap and brush – a bit extreme but you get the point 😉 As a blogger, I obviously ramble a lot about skincare and makeup, and I thoroughly enjoy writing about green alternatives. I look back at at my  Twitter feed, and yes there are a lot of discussions revolving around spending bans and splurges. Same applies for my Instagram, I  post quite a lot of product pictures hehe, but it’s all part of the blogging fun. I don’t spend all of my time making sneaky purchases. Naturally, I am curious and tempted by new releases and product reviews etc., but I make sure to never go beyond my planned budget. I’d consider myself an irregular shopper, I’m perfectly fine not buying anything for months (real necessities excl.) and then occasionally spend a bit more in a short amount of time. Once I find something that I really enjoy, I don’t feel the need to go try something else. All in all, what I’m trying to say it that I wouldn’t want for the blog to turn into an ode to reckless consumerism hence why I think those spending ban initatives are great to keep things in perspective. My blog traces back my personal green journey – I’m still figuring out what product work best for me and learning to lead an overall healthier and more eco-conscious life – and simultaneously appears as a catalogue of “safer” or rather less harmful beauty alternatives.

Just like #NoBuyJanuary, I absolutely enjoyed #BeautyChallenge10, and my happiness was in no way altered by the lack of purchases, on the contrary, avoiding letting products go to waste felt immensely rewarding. I remember making a little *squee* sound after emptying my first product because it got me so excited. Not to mention the support and cheering of green lovelies, which played a huge (if not the biggest) part in the fun of this challenge! Now that the challenge is over for me, I only purchased a few necessities, with the exception of one lip product, which could be perceived as a bagatelle, but it’s been on my wishlist for some time (hey, I’m still me 😉 Besides that, I’m determined to continue using up my stash. Turns out that I have quite a lot of eyemakeup, so no more eyemakeup purchases for me until I’m done with at least half of it.

Thank you Tammy for coming up with the brilliant #BeautyChallenge10!

Take care,

Liz

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15 Comments

  • What a fun tag! Of course my wishlist full of products won't make it easy. I think this #BeautyChallenge10 also can help us rediscover old loves too!

    Reply
    • Thank you! And yes, those types of challenges are great to unleash your creativity with the products you've got. During #NoBuyJanuary, I came to love again two products that I had been neglecting in the past 🙂 xx

      Reply
  • I saw most of these on Instagram, but still nice to see them all together 🙂 Congrats on finishing! Good luck on the makeup front – I stopped buying eye shadow over a year ago, and I still have way too much, lol. The only ones I've gotten through are highlight shades, but I did run out of those entirely recently and get to buy a few new ones:)

    Reply
    • Thank you lovely! It was about time I took a picture, because I couldn't stay with those empties any longer. Now my beauty cabinet feels less crowded 🙂 Regarding the eyeshadows, I guess I'll have to wear heavy eyemakeup everyday if I want to use it up fairly quickly lol xx

      Reply
  • I'm currently doing a 3-month spending ban and there's definitely a point when you feel euphoric! Makeup is so much harder to use up unless you're a drag queen – good luck.

    Reply
    • lol so true about makeup! Thanks, good luck to you with your spending ban, it does get easier overtime 🙂 xx

      Reply
  • Loved reading about your experience, I think I am a bit of a hoarder. Not that I buy outside budget or every single month, but if I really like the sound of something I will get it despite the fact that I have a similar product in the stash, and since this challenge it is pretty clear that it takes me longer to finish products, so I will be trying to devise a new approach. Thank you so much for taking part it would not have been nearly as much fun without you xx

    Reply
  • I have to say I really enjoy watching all the empties from you guys on Instagram, Tammy did good with this challenge 🙂 I have to try Green Love deodorants, so they work the same as Schmidt's? And that Mulondon cream is just the best thing ever!<3 xx

    Reply
  • i really enjoyed reading this post Liz.. i liked the experience of this challenge and thanks to +Tamara for this great idea.. the end of your post remind me the book l'art de la simplicité (dominique Loreau).. i recommend, this book treat about consummation and the art of .. Xx

    Reply
  • This challenge has been great for me because I have a lot of stuff. I often try something for a while then get something new and if I love it I forget about the others meaning a lot of products have accumulated on my beauty shelves! I felt like my blog had started to become review after review after review as I was getting sent a lot of stuff and I don't want people to think I am lying or just pushing reviews out without testing them properly so this challenge has been really good for me to use up the products I wasn't so keen on or finishing off those that were nearly empty! I love MU London too…so glad I had a back-up now that Winter is coming and I also really liked my Acure toner too but I agree it isn't as strong as others I have tried! xx

    Reply
  • Aaaah, how in the world did I miss this post?!! I'm so sorry Liz, all I can say is that I've been inundated with casework from school that my life has pretty much been about researching procurement details for dishwasher detergent (I'm not kidding). I dream about this stuff as well which goes to show how much of my waking AND sleeping hours I've spent on this case! But now it's over. Until tomorrow morning when a new course starts hence me gorging on blogs this evening!
    Super congrats on finishing the beauty challenge and we seem to have very similar thoughts when it comes to purchasing behaviour and attitudes, ie you don't want your blog to be an ode to reckless consumerism (had myself a good chuckle there, loved the phrasing!) but that you also aren't immune to trying out new things/being tempted by the latest. I don't think I will ever buy anything solely for my blog, rather my blog is about finding products that work for my skin type and hopefully along the way I can help some other like-skinned people out! So there may come a time when I won't have a whole lot to blog about but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it 😛 I'm not limiting my posts to product reviews either so I'm sure it will organically evolve over time. Anyhoo, enough of my rambling, just wanted to say I enjoyed your post and thoughts regarding using up products and I wholeheartedly agree with you! xx

    Reply
  • Ps. Have totally missed that Content Beauty now stocks Odacité's Pure Element series! I think you just made my evening! That and finding out that Alice & White will now be stocking RMS Beauty!

    Reply

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