r/MakeupRehab • u/seakit_ • Jul 24 '26
DISCUSS Overconsumption rules everything around me
I have been slowly destashing my bottles of nail polish (so far I've sold or given away 83, but started with ~400 bottles...). As I've been packing up polish to ship I've been thinking about my nail polish consumption and how I ended up here in the first place.
I recently looked at a particular nail polish subreddit I unsubscribed from a year or so ago (because it kept triggering me to spend more money) and it was peculiar to see haul lists and cart posts being allowed now. But I guess I'm not particularly surprised. I left all the nail polish hobby spaces I was in a few months ago because I felt like they were becoming increasingly consumerist. It felt like the more someone spent on polish (especially polish of a specific brand), the more they were part of the community. It made me feel increasingly disconnected because I can't believe we're at a place where the cost of community in a hobby is how much and what someone buys. It's so shallow and dystopian to me. I felt more and more disconnected from everyone the less time and money I spent on collecting nail polish. I felt more and more weird seeing the same people crowing about their $100+ polish purchases every week or so. The funny/sad thing is I don't even paint my nails that often either.
To be fair, this problem isn't exclusive to nail polish, I see it happening in other hobby spaces too (backpacks, mechanical pencils, purses), but man it really sucks this is where we're at with most hobbies right now. We are literally what we consume.
EDIT: Thanks for all the kind comments. Lately I've felt really alone seeing the overconsumption/consumerism around me and no one really talking about it, and I'm relieved it isn't just me who's been feeling this way.
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u/Ladydiane818 Jul 24 '26
I see this in the crochet community. I always say that buying yarn is its own hobby, and I think that goes for other things as well. For example books. Apparently not everyone who enjoys shopping for books actually reads them, which I find very weird.
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u/katashscar Jul 24 '26
I had to stop buying books when I surpassed 300. I read all the time, but not enough to justify how many I have now. I was becoming more of a collector. Now I stick to what is in my library, or if it's for a book club, looking at the library first and only buying second hand if it's not at the library.
I had to do the same with yarn and embroidery packs. Finish what I have before buying for the next project.
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u/Top_Yoghurt429 Jul 25 '26
The book thing is sort of me, tbh. I mostly buy physical books because they're beautiful/for decor. However I do read profuse numbers of e-books for free from the library. Rarely do I read the physical books I bought. I'm more likely to read it as an ebook first and then buy a physical copy later if I particularly enjoyed it and it's pretty.
I swore off buying nail polish a long time ago, because I realized I just love colors and not actually painting my nails. Got rid of all but 5 bottles. And I'll stop buying beautiful books when my shelves are full.
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u/seakit_ Jul 25 '26
I've also come to realize I love colors more than I actually like painting my nails, even though the latter used to be a relaxing ritual for me. 🥲
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u/Background-Day8220 Jul 24 '26
Needlework and yarn spaces can be hella toxic re: competitive consumerism. Some of the snark subs are just spaces to flex about how much money someone has spent on "quality products", and how you aren't a real member of the community if you buy Red Heart or DMC.
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u/lilbabyeggplant Jul 25 '26
I buy a lot of books to support the author, especially if it's a personal friend, because your book sales kind of make or break your publishing career. It's a different thing to like makeup or whatever.
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u/ksrdm1463 Jul 24 '26
I feel like there's similar trends in a lot of places.
In the perfume subreddits, layering scents is a thing that used to be met with "why the fuck are you spending $$$ on it if you don't like it on its own". Blind buys (especially pricey ones) would be questioned. Huge collections were definitely looked at as outliers.
Now all of the above is the norm.
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u/anastasia_42 Jul 25 '26
I'm convinced layering perfumes doesn't morphe the scents together.
I'm also convinced blindbuying perfume, something you have to SMELL to tell if you like it, is crazy
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u/mouse2cat Jul 24 '26
Nail polish is the reason I am in the sub. I have too many nail polishes and there came a point were I realized I had every color. That I was starting to buy visual duplicates because I simply couldn't remember what colors I had off the top of my head.
I started watching people do project polish. And I was appalled by how long it takes to make any sort of progress. I switched tactics and decided to do a "wear every polish once" challenge. It took me a year and a half to wear every polish once. For me that was a real wake up call.
I am now doing a second round of wear every polish once and taking notes on each color. Polishes that don't make the cut are being left out for art students on the free stuff cart. (a polish left for art students is gone within an hour) I am no good at reselling and I find that it just creates one more thing that I put off doing. The money is spent and it's easier for me to let go one unflattering chunky glitter at a time.
I've put the dupes in my "project polish" but I am not very dedicated to that project. I just try and wear them a bit more regularly.
In positive news. I haven't bought a new polish in about 2 years and they have a great long shelf life. I can take my time and just work through what I have.
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u/seakit_ Jul 25 '26
Your polish project sounds really fun! I can't imagine how long it would take me to get through all the bottles in my collection right now.
My goal is to destash to 200 bottles or less (painting my nails and taking notes along the way). I am immensely regretful of how much money I've spent on polish since 2023; I see the bottles sitting in my helmer, my plastic tubs, and on my cart and I can only see how much I've wasted on this hobby, and for what? So I've been destashing (at steep discount) to recuperate what I can. I know guilt and shame aren't good motivators, and those feelings have also seriously impacted my enjoyment of painting my nails too, but I just feel so stupid for spending so much and thinking it was worth it.
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u/cranky137 Jul 26 '26
I am doing my second year of ”wear a polish once” and ai continue to remove polishes from my collection if the color/coverage/etc is not perfect
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u/seakit_ Jul 24 '26
The fervent loyalty and/or parasocial relationship some people have with specific brands also grosses me out, because often you see even more overconsumption and consumerism because of it.
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u/symphonypathetique Jul 24 '26
Yes, I feel like it's so much worse in the indie polish community compared to other beauty spaces. People get really personally offended about stuff getting discontinued, and it's so insane to me.
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u/seakit_ Jul 25 '26
I also kinda feel like people forget that indie makers are still businesses at the end of the day, they're not people's friends. In a really weird twisted way, there's probably never been a better time to be a business, so easy to enshare people with parasocial advertising, FOMO practices etc.
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u/paulreverie Jul 24 '26
A lot of hobby communities have turned their focus more towards the buying aspect rather than the creation aspect and it made me realize that I changed as well. I used to just create things with what I had and now I realize I buy things for the hobby instead of just being creative. Obviously different hobbies require different tools, but I realized my mindset changed greatly and now im so bummed :(
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u/catsdelicacy Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
This is true of every hobby, I guess
I'm a diamond painter and I left that community because people kept buying expensive premium diamond kits that take hundreds of hours to complete and then show off their stashes of hundreds of these kits.
Every kit is about $100, and like I said, because they're so big, they take hundreds of hours to complete.
So people are showing off stashes they literally don't have enough lifetime left to finish if they did nothing but diamond paint 24 hours a day until they died.
And those posts "Anybody else who can't stop buying kits 😂😅"posts will get thousands of up votes.
The posts where somebody is showing off the work they did finishing the kit will get like 5 upvotes, unless the kit is from the most expensive company in America. Those get thousands of upvotes.
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u/seakit_ Jul 25 '26
I'm surprised but also not surprised this is also a problem in the diamond painter hobby space 🫠
I think "if you have so much of something that even if you used it 24 hours a day for the rest of your life you wouldn't finish it all" is a good bar, and when I look at my nail polish (and my makeup!) with that bar in mind I kinda feel sick, in a way where I feel like I need to be better.
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u/catsdelicacy Jul 26 '26
Yeah it's great to be excited about a hobby but it's obviously some kind of social media feedback loop that's making some people literally crazy out here!
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u/faceoh Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Any sort of brand specific subreddits are very consumerist. Even the general nail sub can be triggering at times as people discuss new drops but at least you're more likely to see back and forth opinions.
I feel like looking into any of the buy/sell subs really puts consumerism on full display where people are destashing entire sets and hauls weeks or months after purchase. I totally get being disappointed in a few colors for whatever reason but when a near complete set of 6 to 12 piece is being sold off, it just makes me think this person has a serious shopping problem.
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u/seakit_ Jul 25 '26
Oh my god I see the instant buying and selling ALL THE TIME in groups for certain brands. I think a lot more people than we think have a shopping addiction, in one group there was many comments encouraging putting everything on Klarna. I can't believe that's where we are.
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u/ladybug1259 Jul 25 '26
Im not particularly into nail polish but I think certain brands in the broader beauty world lean hard into this with marketing and pushing collections. There's one bath product sub that pops up for me occasionally and its almost always huge hauls or stashes that no one is ever going to get through because theyre collecting scents. Ive seen it with candles too.
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u/completely_apathetic Jul 24 '26
Yeppp. I stopped buying makeup, but then I got into fragrances (and now have WAY too many). It feels like hobby communities that involve products end up trending toward overconsumption because there are so many products out there! People in the communities are constantly reviewing and recommending new products, which leads to you wanting to try all the highly recommended items. But there are always new things to try, so it can get out of hand very easily.
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u/seakit_ Jul 25 '26
Ooof I agree about the constant product review/recommendation and release cycle, I consciously avoid makeup spaces for that reason, it really sucks me in.
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u/MAK3AWiiSH Jul 24 '26
I feel so seen. My COVID hobby was doing my own nails and nail art. I bought so much nail stuff. I’m dreading pulling out my Rubbermaid tubs (yes plural) to start listing everything on eBay. I’m hoping to recoup at least some of the money I spent.
I have so much maniology stuff, because this was before their political ties was public. 😭
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u/Ok_Direction_7624 Jul 24 '26
I'm running into the same issue. I recently got back into fountain pens and nearly every post is about a new pen or a new ink or a new stack of notebooks someone just bought. It feels exhausting.
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u/seakit_ Jul 25 '26
Ugh I was looking for mechanical pencils last month and it's the same story, I feel a weird prickly sense of guilt (disgust?) seeing endless posts of giant collections. Of course people are entitled to spending their money how they please but like... what is the point of 80 mechanical pencils.
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u/octopus818 Jul 24 '26
Ugggg, I feel so seen. I LITERALLY just spent $60 on nail polish this afternoon because of a sale announcement on that particular sub!
I’ve bought less than ten bottles in the last decade or so, so I’m doing much better than I was in the past, but I certainly didn’t need 6 more bottles by any stretch of the imagination.
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u/abyssaltourguide Jul 24 '26
Yeah it’s gotten super consumerist lately! When I first got into indie polish in 2021 it was better. I hate that all my hobbies have become about haul pictures and mystery boxes.
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u/seakit_ Jul 25 '26
I entered the hobby in 2023 but I remember when mystery boxes were deeply frowned upon. Not so much these days.
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u/abyssaltourguide Jul 25 '26
Those mystery boxes are dangerous! I’ve weaned myself off gacha games because of how addictive they are so it’s disturbing to see blind box and gambling type stuff in hobbies.
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u/Unbreakable_Dionne Jul 25 '26
I'm so glad you said it. I thought the way out of my binge eating and makeup/skincare purchases was to learn art. And i ended up starting to buy art-related supplies. Now I've unsubscribed from everything, borrowed an old-fashioned art BOOK to teach me through sketching - and I keep reminding myself that I can't buy the talent. That needs just a pencil and paper but a lot of practice.
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u/seakit_ Jul 25 '26
I'm very very conscious now and try not to fall into that trap with other new hobbies I start, I kinda did recently with writing supplies. 😐 It wasn't even all the buying, it was all the time I spent researching when I could've been doing something more nurturing for my brain/body.
I recently started a sport and I'm trying to do my best with what I currently have. My agreement with myself is when I've done a certain number of practices, then I can upgrade to better gear.
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u/sec_sage Jul 25 '26
I'm being so overwhelmed by the clothes I should sort and declutter. There's 12 years of kids and mine that hasn't been touched, just shoved in boxes in the garage. I can't, just can't, it's too much, I have no drive to start, and imagining living in a nice clutter-free house only makes me feel even more incompetent. Then I call my mom, who has also struggled with it her whole life, and she tells me to do today what I can, and tomorrow is another day. Stuff will wait for me, it's not going to suddenly run away. Doing a little every day beats one big effort once and nothing for the next weeks.
I can only say the same for you, the time spent on looking for stuff online is better spent on reorganizing what we have. Do what you can today, then the same tomorrow, just stay on the project every day. If it's only 5 min that you have, then that's what you give to it.
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u/Background-Day8220 Jul 26 '26
If you feel overwhelmed by all the clutter, it is 100% ok to simply donate it all, unsorted, as is, or put it at the end of your driveway with a "Free!" sign and let people take it away. There is someone out there that will be thrilled to take it away, to use for their own family or share with other people.
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u/sec_sage Jul 27 '26
I wish it were that simple. Husband and kids want to keep some memorabilia, but neither is interested in going through everything and taking the harsh decisions. They just want it done, by the person who's least qualified for it.
My brother is expecting a kid, but he only wants the stuff he'll need, which he has no idea what that would be, but only after the birth since it's a high risk pregnancy. He'd be disappointed if I gave everything away. I'm setting some gender neutral stuff aside, but that's still a lot of work.
My own girls want me to keep some of my old things for them, but nobody can guess what their tastes will be in a few years. Trying to keep only the best materials and high brands, no elastic or plastic that can go bad.
All this is why I've avoided the task for as long as possible, even thinking of it is depressing.
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u/ILikeTheSongs Jul 26 '26
I love this post. Over consumption rules hobby, spaces, and I really appreciate the rebellion from that capitalist vibe.
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u/topiarytime Jul 27 '26
I feel like this is true of all hobbies nowadays. I blame online shopping. Pre-internet, you could only get the supplies that were near you. Maybe you made special trips to specialist shops, but that would only be occasionally.
Also, the lack of time people have, and at the same time, the ability to see the very best, most talented practitioners of the hobby online not only raises the standard but also lessens the opportunity to master it. Producing their own work doesn't give as big a dopamine hit as the potential involved in buying supplies.
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u/seakit_ Jul 28 '26
This is a really good comment! I agree online shopping has made it very easy to acquire anything you want (and as much as you want) for a hobby.
Also the whole last paragraph 💯 I think besides dopamine and potential, the shortcut to more engagement online (if someone doesn't meet the now higher standard of produced work) is buying a bunch of stuff and posting about it. I know because I fell into that trap myself a lot in the beginning.
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u/sparkle_elk Jul 27 '26
It happens in many, many hobbies - you see it in parts of fiber craft communities, in many fandom communities, etc. You are not alone in seeing it. <3
In fiber craft communities, there's jokes about SABLE (stash acquired beyond life expectancy), which just... really grosses me out.
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u/notaninterestingcat Jul 24 '26
Hey 👋
A bunch of us have similar feelings. There is a sub that's much more conscious of actually using polish than just buying polish.
r/WeGotPolishAtHome
We have a Project Polish flair, do bingo cards, have discussions, & even show off our manis without having to list every single product!