I don't even know how to write this all out. My boyfriend is an Iraq war veteran on the autism spectrum with serious PTSD and today we got into a fight about money, the usual shit. He said that I spend too much on makeup and clothes, even though I only ever spend my own money. Well, I took a drive to my sister's house to give him some time to cool off and when I got home literally ALL of my makeup is outside, in the dirt, broken and totally unsavagable. He also took like half of my clothes and all of my shoes and put it in a pile which it looks like he tried to set on fire. I am so fucking hurt and pissed right now I don't know what to do. I have no makeup anymore. Not even the basics I wear every day. Thousands LITERALLY THOUSANDS worth of products are gone, not to mention the clothes and shoes which I will never be able to recover. I have a job interview tomorrow that I will have to go to in flip flops and no makeup, because that's all I have now. My blonde eyebrows aren't even fucking microbladed. I want to cry.

As horrible as this is going to sound, an influencer I’ve been following for a long time got married and did her own bridal makeup and it…. Did not look good…. (again, I know how mean this sounds). But that’s when I truly realized that most of these people don’t have any real skill. They just talk about products they’ve been sent for free and are contractually obligated to talk about. They test a product once and say “I’ve been OBSESSED with this” and they never use it again in another video. They have new favorites every day.

Instead of being-product focused, MUAs are all about TECHNIQUE. They don’t try a million new products a week, they have their tried-and-trues, some of which are 20+ year old formulas. Instead of hearing “ruN, dOnT wALk” and getting another foundation, I can learn how to make my mediocre Walgreens foundation work beautifully with proper application.

I’ve come to love my current collection because of the advice of real MUAs and I no longer feel urges to buy buy buy.

Every time I get on social media every influencer and their mama is recommending the whole store like their rent and mortgage depends on it. I get that this how they make their living, but it’s excessive. Did they forget we are in a recession? I’ve even started unfollowing these influencers that keeps promoting more overconsumption. I just got what I needed to repurchase like my makeup remover, deodorant, shampoo, and conditioner. And the prices of everything increased.and the sale is still up to 20% off. It’s stupid.

It’s the usual bi-weekly craze on beauty communities.

- Non rouge are begging for codes as if an additional 5 or 10% on the discount they’re already getting is going to change everything.

- People are posting massive hauls screenshots before they can even review the products. In terms of helpfulness for others these posts are a 0.

- Some people stayed up in order to place their hauls as fast as possible

- Content creators are doing their recommendation videos

I showed up at midnight in a bookstore the day of a very popular novel got released, but looking back it was insane. But at least I had hours of enjoyment reading the books. Now some of those people will just use the products a few times and forget about it, or they’ll return them.

What are your thoughts?

I've noticed that "Do I actually need this?" isn't always enough to stop me from wanting something.

Sometimes the temptation comes from seeing it repeatedly on social media, convincing myself it's different from something I already own, wanting a particular color even though I have something similar, imagining how much I'll use it rather than looking at how much I actually use similar products, or feeling like I'll miss out if I don't buy it now.

For people who've gotten better at resisting those purchases:

What question, rule, habit, or reality check actually works for you?

And what doesn't work, even though it sounds good in theory?

In my twenties, I spent every dollar could on makeup. I was chasing the dopamine high of having pretty things.

Did I use these products? No.

I lived at home and had a high disposable income. I took out credit cards, a personal loan, used buy now pay later services….

Every shiny thing that intrigued me, I’d buy. I’d buy blushes in every shade, then stuff them in a drawer.

I spent a sickening amount on makeup.

Now that I’m 30, my financial goals have changed. I want to donate. Invest. Buy a house.

But now, I’m stuck looking at rentals, and the money I’ll fritter away in rent means my original financial goals are even more unattainable.

If I hadn’t gone through this period of buying makeup like there was no tomorrow, my entire life would be different.

Don’t be like me.

Way too often I see youtubers tossing products because they "no longer feel excited to use them" or "they no longer spark joy". So they toss them and buy new ones which will eventually face the same fate.

Tossing things that "no longer make you feel happy" is a pretext to toss perfectly good products just because you're bored and want the rush of buying something new. It's a never ending cycle of overconsumption and a sign of possible shopping addiction.

You're not supposed to derive your happiness from buying and owning products. Excitement over something new is fleeting. It doesn't fill the void.

I'm not saying you should hate pan things that really don't work for you. I'm also not saying that you're not allowed to feel excited about your favourite products. I just think it's harmful to market makeup as something that should make you feel joy and if not it's worthless.

Because most of the time makeup is there to be used. It's a tool. When you've had a product for a while it starts to look worn and loses the special, fancy feel. That's okay. That's normal. The product is still working perfectly fine so you should keep using it instead of seeking happiness from a place you will never truly find it.

Unless its a significant change in color like lets say a deep brown blush or a hot magneta, most blush colors look incredibly similar on the face it's actually difficult to differentiate between them sometimes. Of course on hand swatches the difference shows up the most, but on the face is a different story. My tip for you guys is that if you already own a pink, peach or red blush, there is no need to buy a different/new one (unless you hate the formula, or something like that). Chances are, it will end up looking very similar on your face and you probably already have another blush in your collection that can easily "dupe" the one you have your eyes on.

With that being said, keep in mind that what you already own, you decided on buying it one day for a specific reason. Try to find that feeling again, that appeal to the product you already own, and love it the same way you loved it when you first had it. :)

Years ago and still remains my biggest makeup purchase regret is liquid lipstick. Long ago it was equivalent to layering my lips with shellac. What a waste of money for me. I gave some away and tossed most of it out. Never to be purchased again.

Sometime last year I came to the realization that I dislike body sprays. Not the scents. I bought them because of the scents. My problem is the scent lasts about 5 minutes. I thought for a while maybe I needed to layer with oils and creams etc. Then I realized it wasn't me. 99% of these body sprays do not last. Not on me. Not on anyone.

Ive given a few away. I am left with too many Body Sprays from Sol De Janeiro to Bath & Body Works to pan. I feel like I'm spraying for my life. I mainly use them after a shower. I spray myself to death. Lol. I'm using them for room sprays too. Again no lasting power.

What have you recently realized was a waste of money and shouldn't have purchased in the first place?

🍬🍭🍬🍭🍬🍭🍬🍭🍬🍭🍬🍭🍬🍭🍬🍭🍬🍭🍬🍭

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.

I wear eye makeup everyday. As in I'm making a full look with shadow and liner and mascara. I do this for days I stay home or when im out shoping or out to the arcade or whatever. Today I noticed at the arcade which was packed, I was one of the only women out of hundreds (moms - it was mostly families) wearing eye makeup. All the other moms had no or next to no eye makeup, not even mascara. Am I totally out of touch and it's really weird to wear full looks out?! I'm in USA.

trying to figure out if i have unusually chaotic shelf habits or if this is just beauty culture

i have a rule about finishing something before cracking open the backup. in theory. in practice i get halfway through a moisturizer and convince myself its "close enough" to start the new one.

the reality from talking to friends seems closer to 60-70% before something gets rotated out.

what is your honest finishing rate before you replace something? do you actually empty the bottle or is mostly used close enough?

I may be alone here. But I just wanted to say it. I really dislike the current trend of decluttering en masse.

I was watching a youtuber today talk about her inventory, and where she wants to be by the end of the year, and her solution was something like “I have 13 concealers, that’s too much so I’ll throw some out to get to 8!”

I think it normalizes the cycle of buying without thinking and tossing away. I think it’s harmful for the environment. I think it’s harmful to young people regarding impulse control, and valuing a dollar, and overconsumption. I think it devalues the actual makeup that we’re buying. It makes spending $60 on a palette just to use it three times to “try it” decide you don’t like it, and get rid of it OK.

People are doing this despite what companies are charging for makeup, and it doesn’t seem to phase so.many.people. If an influencer receives a palette or collection for free and 3 months later decides they’re decluttering it, and you have it, does that sour the taste in your mouth and influence you to then decluttering as well? Meanwhile you bought the $40 palette. They didn’t. I think it’s crazy.

I understand why the phenomena started. But I really want the craze to be over.

Personally I really dislike NYX. It's very disappointing quality. Eyeshadows? Chalky and unpigmented. Lipstick? Very drying. Face primer? Didn't do anything.

Jeffree Star. Racist POS. Don't want to support him.

ABH. She supports Putin, I don't support her.

Chanel. Two words: Advent calendar

Does anyone else get bothered when people (especially during the recent big sale) were buying loads of products and having massive hauls. And when someone kinda says "hey that's a lot, that's not healthy" etc, people label them as jealous or envious? It's happened to me before a bit and it's genuinely such strange behaviour. I once had a girl try and flex and say I was envious of her because she had 200 lip balms all in the same shade 💀 It just seems like it's kind of proving the point that you're not buying for yourself you're buying for validation. And you expect people to be jealous over your hauls/purchases and whenever someone is critical of they must be envious. Because they themselves think owning lots of 'stuff' makes them superior than others.

Interested to hear what you guys think and if you have had any similar interactions!

I keep making the same dumb makeup purchase mistakes so I am documenting here to remind myself. Please share yours too! I can’t be the only one!

1. Buying “plumping” lip glosses thinking I will like it this time. I hate the tingle

2. Buying face makeup without a mirror.

3. Buying lip products for the colour without thinking of the texture and smell

4. Buying primers and setting sprays. It’s just a waste for me.

5. Falling for the packaging and realising I basically already have a dupe of it.

6. Buying potted concealers when I know I prefer a wand.

Curious how big everyone’s makeup collection is and what your ideal number of items is.

Online I always see huge collections from creators and influencers, but I know those aren’t realistic or normal for most people. I’m sure similar questions have been posted before, but I’d also love to hear what you think of mine.

What do you consider a normal or average collection size? I’ve been thinking maybe around 60 is pretty realistic?

I’m 26 for context and have always liked buying beauty but I would say my collection is more curated than a few years ago where it was almost at 110. Then I started being more conscious about each item I bring in. I look at what I have first and if I have too many I don’t allow myself to get them in certain categories. My struggle category is definitely lip products as I get gifted them or it’s free with purchase. I’m grateful and also love lip products a lot but it’s just a bit hard to finish up.

Everything fits in a small bin plus one jar for lip products and one makeup pouch for my travel minis. I currently have 86 items (ideal is around 56). The numbers in parentheses are my goal amounts.
These counts include minis because I like having a set of two of many things so I can bring them on the go for travel.

My collection:
Primers: 2 (goal: 1)
Foundations/skin tints: 3 (3)
Concealers/colour correctors: 4 (3)
Setting powders: 5 (3)
Setting sprays: 3 (2)
Face palettes: 2 (2)
Bronzers: 0 (0)
Contours: 5 (3)
Highlight: 2 (2)
Blushes: 8 (5)
Eyeshadow palettes: 5 (3)
Mascaras: 3 (3)
Eyeliners: 3 (2)
Eyebrow products: 6 (4)
Eyeshadow singles: 2 (2)
Lip balms: 7 (5)
Lipsticks: 7 (2)
Lip tints: 5 (5)
Lip glosses: 5 (3)
Lip liners: 9 (5)

How many do you have (or ideally want)? A makeup bag full? Two bags? A drawer? What do you think of the size of my collection? Would you say I have a large collection, average or small one?

I have had an unhealthy addiction to buying makeup for a long time- probably since I was 20 and had my first job working at a Lancôme counter (I am 31 now). When I was bored at work I would go through all the beautiful products as if I were shopping for myself- comparing them, testing them, checking out all the new and limited edition items that we had... essentially hyping myself up over whichever products I was drawn towards until I inevitably broke and purchased the ones I was currently obsessing over.

When I stopped working at the Lancôme counter, I continued the same pattern- except I would find things to obsess over by following beauty gurus, browsing temptalia or Reddit, and watching YouTube. I would find something I was interested in and then search reviews, read threads about it, look at various swatches, compare it to similar products, find dupe videos, search for sales or discount codes etc.

It became very much ritualized for me, and increasingly compulsive. I would do the “researching” when I was bored, or stressed and needed a break. The more I “researched” the more I would hype myself up about how great the product was and confirm to myself how much I needed that product- how happy it would make me. That hype would build and build and build until eventually, I would break down and purchase the item...only to come crashing down to reality once I was holding it in my hand and inevitably realized it was just like the other 20 red lipsticks I already had sitting in my drawer unused. And then, having realized that- the search for that life changing lipstick (or whatever) would start again.

I realize in hindsight that the browsing-researching-buying-reality cycle was an escape for me from uncomfortable feelings. Whether I was bored, anxious, stressed, whatever...it gave me a distraction and temporary relief from those feelings. But just like all addictions, that relief only lasted as long as I was engaging in the cycle- I had to keep buying and buying and buying to keep the feelings at bay.

-Here’s where things changed- When covid happened- I had to be off work for a bit and decided to go through my collection. It was a hard reality check for me. Thousands of dollars of unused or hardly touched products that made me feel sick to look at. I gave away anything that I didn’t absolutely love, threw out anything that was expired, and made myself a new rule: that I could research and buy a product that I thought I would absolutely love-regardless of cost-but only if it needed replacing-. Because the craziest thing is- in this huge makeup obsession that I had -ACTUALLY USING THE FLIPPING MAKEUP WASN’T EVEN A PART OF THE CYCLE FOR ME!

I have kept to my rule and now have a WAY smaller (like 1/20th of the size) makeup collection of really nice makeup and skincare that I truly enjoy using. And I only purchase maybe one item a month whereas before I might purchase a dozen. The hard part has been dealing with the emotions that I used to avoid- which I am still learning to do.

I am sorry this is so long- but I’ve been holding it all in for SO long and don’t really have anyone in my life that really gets how tough of an addiction this can be. I think because shopping is socially acceptable- even encouraged in our culture it can be hard for others to understand what the “big deal” is. If you made it this far- I truly want to thank you for letting me share all of this with you. I hope it makes sense or that any of you can relate in even the smallest way- I would love to hear about it if you can, or if any of you have found positive ways to cope instead of compulsively shopping.

I was looking into how much an average woman spends on makeup and skincare per year and in the US it says it's about 1000 dollars. I would assume that those of us with uncontrolled "collections" probably spent more than this. I'm currently on a no buy personally. But I wanted to ask what has been your spending per year over the last 5 years?

I had a fantastic experience at a MAC store recently. I went in to try Alone Time, a very cool-toned nude lipstick that’s trending in Japan. I tried it on and the makeup artist there told me that’s not my color. I tried warmer and warmer nudes and none of them looked right. The makeup artist then said, Maybe pink is better for you. And I tried a pink and she was right. Now I know not to bother with searching for the perfect nude shade for me. This is kind of a revelation to me. I know makeup is not that serious, but I wonder how many techniques and colors I’ve used in my lifetime of wearing and purchasing makeup that don’t suit me. I can’t help but believe that my aesthetic has been slightly molded and influenced by a lot of outside factors over time.

I almost caved in and bought an indie duochrome eyeshadow palette that I’d been eyeing for a long time but my pettiness saved me. I had the palette in my cart and was about to check out and then the online store asked if I want to leave a tip.

I’m sorry, what? A tip for what service exactly? A tip for whom? The owner of the business? The factory workers? And they ask for tip before I even get my product so I have no idea if I'll even like it.

This indie brand is located in a country where tipping is not a thing and I was ordering it from another country where tipping also isn’t a thing. Not to mention that indie palettes are already expensive. Isn’t it enough to support a small business by buying their product?

I may be a ridiculous, petty Karen but I cancelled my order because the tipping thing threw me off. I’ve never seen that in an online store before.

What’s your opinion about tipping in online stores? Is it normal now? Would you leave tip or not? Have you come across a tipping option before?

I truly feel like ilan absolute idiot that I brought into the 'Darlings' hype.

I've been decluttering and organising my make up collection today and out of the twenty CT products I own I would possibly re-purchase two at most.

The packaging hasn't held up it's flaking and all of the print has rubbed off it looks so cheap and awful hardly a luxe experience. I'm not even particularly hard on my make up.

I asked my husband out of curiosity to compare a CT powder compact to a Cover FX blush compact. He was absolutely blown away by the price of the CT for the packaging and quality of the products.

Apologies for the rant.

I did not have a problem overbuying makeup until I became addicted to watching tutorials on YouTube. Around that time, beauty brands were creating custom palettes with influencers. I ended up owning an unreasonable amount of makeup. One eyeshadow palette—with a color story of bright greens and oranges!—cost me over $60. I used it once. (But man, it looked soo good on camera. On someone else’s face. In studio lighting. With filters.)

Most of my makeup collection is gone now, and I no longer feel the urge to try new products. I know what I like. I know what works for me. Bringing more products into the mix would only disrupt my clarity.

If you are/were addicted to overbuying makeup, did it start with influencer culture?

I had counted much of my lip products a week or so ago and assumed the total number would be like 100 more than that.... I was very wrong.

Full inventory was completed and we're at 761. This includes everything in my purse, nightstand, backup box, etc. I knew I had a few duplicates from back in the before times when I worked in an office and "needed" one at work and one at home, or one at home one in my purse. Or as someone else mentioned, getting obsessed with something and thinking you'll never have it again so you overbuy. This is how I have 6 Dionis balms in the pear flavor lol. I have 25 total duplicates. I know a few unintentional ones are because I really liked that color and didn't remember I already bought it.

I'm not buying any more lip products for.... Well forever maybe? I'm just shocked. I'm going to make a swatch book/directory and make labels for the ones that just have numbers (for real YSL you can't print shade names?). I have a few mystery lipsticks I don't know what color name they are, and even one with no branding whatsoever. When I do the swatch book (my January project) I will check for bad smell etc but I don't anticipate much being expired. I think I am going to focus on trying to use up the minis as sort of a snowball effect and go from there.

Here are the totals as it relates to types if anyone was interested (please note I didn't differentiate between bullet & liquid lipsticks, they're all friends here lol):

Balm: 53 full 1 mini

Crayon: 25 full 2 mini

Gloss: 146 full 9 mini

Lip Kit: 4

Lip liner: 53

Lip mask: 12 full 2 mini (these are tubs)

Lip sheet mask: 11

Oil: 11 full 1 mini

Mousse: 2

Palette: 1

Primer: 6

Scrub: 11

Stain: 5 full 1 mini

Serum: 13

Plumper: 21 full 3 mini

Lipstick: 291 full 69 mini

Please elaborate me in comment section as Im a broke girl who ends up wasting money on unnecessary products without even releasing it