This week, I cancelled my Birchbox subscription.
It's not because it wasn't fun to get a box of random girly goodies once a month. But that joy only lasted a few minutes and I ended up with a massive pile of the boxes, mostly untouched, and a drawer full of random beauty products I wasn't using.
And in my effort to simplify my living space, and my life (though if I'm being honest, that's not going very well), I decided it was time to end the madness.
I went through the samples again and pulled things like small tubes of moisturizer with sunscreen, other sunscreens, hand lotions, lip gloss, chapstick, a small mascara and the like and put them in a small makeup bag that had been sitting in a drawer for years.
That bag got tossed into my purse and it's actually been handy to have the mascara when I forgot to put some on for work last week, the lip gloss when my chapstick ran out and the sunscreen since I've been outside more, on the go.
This was my strategy to start using up the stuff I had accumulated and actually had use for.
There's also currently a row of face cleansers, scrubs and exfoliators in the shower so I remember to use them up. And a few small lotion bottles on the counter so I remember to use them when I get out of the shower in the morning. There's a small bottle of moisturizer on my bedstand now too, so I use that up at night.
If you come to my house in the next year, you'll probably get a box of random beauty products that I think you might like as a welcome gift, or find a jar of the stuff in the bathroom in case you forgot something.
Here's the thing, I am not a beauty product kind of person. I hardly wear any makeup, ever, and have a pretty simple routine.
My morning routine looks like this:
Shampoo (usually only every other day): Organix, whichever variety I have on hand, I've been rotating through them.
Conditioner (only if I'm blowdrying): Organix
Face cleanser: Never A Dull Moment from Origins
Face polisher: Never A Dull Moment from Origins
Moisturizer: Lately, it's been one from a Birchbox, otherwise, it's usually VitaZing from Origins, or one of the other many, many pots of lotion I've also acquired from Origins.
Mascara: I don't have much preference on this, but I've been using some from Ulta for the last year or two and just stocked up on more.
That's it.
Seriously.
All the beauty magazines, commercials, ads and society somehow get me thinking I need or want to use more products for a more polished look every day, and so I've end up with all these things I don't need. We also live on a septic system, so we have to be careful about what we put down our drains and there are certain chemicals that we absolutely can't put down the drain without risk of destroying the septic system that works pretty well.
For some girls, there's enjoyment in all of that, but for me, it's just not there. I do, however, have a current obsession with Essie nail polish. My nails have always been short and I struggle to keep them growing, so the polish is a trick to keep me from messing with them.
I'd been thinking about canceling Birchbox for months but kept putting it off for fear of missing out on something that I might get in my box and enjoy, and mostly, just procrastination. But the more I looked at how much I hadn't used in the three years of boxes and how I'd spent $10/month on those unused things and how much I worry about costs associated with house renovations and startup farming, the less sense it made for me to keep paying for something that carried little value for me.
So much of life is out of my control and lately I've been feeling like too much of the world's weight is on my shoulders, so I finally took action on a small thing that actually made me feel like several less things were weighing on me, and that's worth more than the $10/month I now have to put toward the sheep I'm getting this fall, or new skates, or a house project. All things that will give me a joy and satisfaction that will last much longer than what Birchbox could ever give me.
What about you? Do you get enjoyment from beauty products or actually know what you're doing with them? Or end up with a pile of unused tubes and bottles because you keep reverting to a simple routine like me?
It's not because it wasn't fun to get a box of random girly goodies once a month. But that joy only lasted a few minutes and I ended up with a massive pile of the boxes, mostly untouched, and a drawer full of random beauty products I wasn't using.
And in my effort to simplify my living space, and my life (though if I'm being honest, that's not going very well), I decided it was time to end the madness.
I went through the samples again and pulled things like small tubes of moisturizer with sunscreen, other sunscreens, hand lotions, lip gloss, chapstick, a small mascara and the like and put them in a small makeup bag that had been sitting in a drawer for years.
That bag got tossed into my purse and it's actually been handy to have the mascara when I forgot to put some on for work last week, the lip gloss when my chapstick ran out and the sunscreen since I've been outside more, on the go.
This was my strategy to start using up the stuff I had accumulated and actually had use for.
There's also currently a row of face cleansers, scrubs and exfoliators in the shower so I remember to use them up. And a few small lotion bottles on the counter so I remember to use them when I get out of the shower in the morning. There's a small bottle of moisturizer on my bedstand now too, so I use that up at night.
If you come to my house in the next year, you'll probably get a box of random beauty products that I think you might like as a welcome gift, or find a jar of the stuff in the bathroom in case you forgot something.
Here's the thing, I am not a beauty product kind of person. I hardly wear any makeup, ever, and have a pretty simple routine.
My morning routine looks like this:
Shampoo (usually only every other day): Organix, whichever variety I have on hand, I've been rotating through them.
Conditioner (only if I'm blowdrying): Organix
Face cleanser: Never A Dull Moment from Origins
Face polisher: Never A Dull Moment from Origins
Moisturizer: Lately, it's been one from a Birchbox, otherwise, it's usually VitaZing from Origins, or one of the other many, many pots of lotion I've also acquired from Origins.
Mascara: I don't have much preference on this, but I've been using some from Ulta for the last year or two and just stocked up on more.
That's it.
Seriously.
All the beauty magazines, commercials, ads and society somehow get me thinking I need or want to use more products for a more polished look every day, and so I've end up with all these things I don't need. We also live on a septic system, so we have to be careful about what we put down our drains and there are certain chemicals that we absolutely can't put down the drain without risk of destroying the septic system that works pretty well.
For some girls, there's enjoyment in all of that, but for me, it's just not there. I do, however, have a current obsession with Essie nail polish. My nails have always been short and I struggle to keep them growing, so the polish is a trick to keep me from messing with them.
I'd been thinking about canceling Birchbox for months but kept putting it off for fear of missing out on something that I might get in my box and enjoy, and mostly, just procrastination. But the more I looked at how much I hadn't used in the three years of boxes and how I'd spent $10/month on those unused things and how much I worry about costs associated with house renovations and startup farming, the less sense it made for me to keep paying for something that carried little value for me.
So much of life is out of my control and lately I've been feeling like too much of the world's weight is on my shoulders, so I finally took action on a small thing that actually made me feel like several less things were weighing on me, and that's worth more than the $10/month I now have to put toward the sheep I'm getting this fall, or new skates, or a house project. All things that will give me a joy and satisfaction that will last much longer than what Birchbox could ever give me.
What about you? Do you get enjoyment from beauty products or actually know what you're doing with them? Or end up with a pile of unused tubes and bottles because you keep reverting to a simple routine like me?
RSS Feed
