Culling My Collection: 2016 Blush Declutter

I love watching makeup decluttering videos, which is what I've been doing to get me ready for the Cull the Collection series I've been wanting to do. "To cull" means to control or reduce the size of by removal. While I do periodically go through and weed out items that have gone bad, I wanted to take a more KonMari approach to downsizing and decluttering my makeup.  I started with my powder blushes, as I own an inordinate amount.  So, here we go with Part 1 of my collection cull, and be aware this is picture heavy.

Powder blush collection

These two drawers contain my powder blushes.  For those not familiar with the KonMari method, you are supposed to hold everything in your hands and ask yourself "does this spark joy?" or essentially bring happiness into your life.  If it doesn't, then it is time to thank the item for it's service and send it to a better home, even if that's the trash bin.

I started this process at about 7 am on a Saturday morning and finished at 11 am, so it took 4 hours.  I tried to arrange the blushes by color family so that I could distinguish similar colors. For some of my favorite blush brands, I also looked at all of a certain brand together.  I tried not to be sentimental or let the price of a particular item influence me, with varying levels of success. While this did take a while, I actually enjoyed the process quite a bit!

I started with the Makeup Geek pan blushes, which I recently took out of my Z palette in order to make room for depotted Le Metier de Beaute eye shadows. I put the Makeup Geek pans back into the empty kaleidoscopes, although I'd like to get another Z palette to keep them in. These are the original Makeup Geek blushes that I was able to purchase 9 of for $45 prior to the new blush formula release.  It was a great bundle deal but some of the colors were not quite right for me, either too light to show up on my skin, too cool toned, or too pink :-)

Smitten does not show up on me at all, plus it is a bit yellow toned.  Bliss is a better shade for me, although it is also a light shade that barely shows on my skin.  Head Over Heels is another barely there color on me, although it's very pretty.

Secret Admirer is a lovely lilac shade that I totally cannot pull off.  It's not  as lavender as it appears in this photo (inside natural light), but definitely leans in that direction.  Summer Fling is another that I have not reached for often, as it's intense orange shade scares me a bit.

Hanky Panky is a lovely medium pink, but I just don't wear blush colors like this. So, my original cull looked like this, plus a LMdB blush from the 2015 VIP palette.  Tally:  10 blushes, culled 6.  Not bad.

Smitten, Secret Admirer, Head Over Heels, Summer Fling, Hanky Panky, LMdB single

Next, I pulled out my peach/coral/peachy pink blushes, which I have a ridiculous amount of.  This is clearly the color family I'm most drawn to and wear the most, as I'm counting 21 blushes here..

Out of all these blushes, I decided to part with 4: bareMineral's The Natural High, Lancome's Peachy Keen, theBalm's Hot Mama, and Chantecaille's Fun.  I'm not a huge fan of blushes with a heavy gold shimmer, which characterizes both The Natural High and Hot Mama.  Fun by Chantecaille barely registers on my skin, and while I've used it quite a bit, I'm ready to part company.  I've hardly used the Lancome palette at all and it's gone bad, based on smell. So, out it goes.

I kept Estee Lauder's Peach Passion, Wild Sunset, and Bronze Goddess palette, Tarte's Achiote, Thankful and Magic, NYX's Apricot, Rose Garden and Wanderlust, Laura Geller's Dreamsicle, BECCA's Flowerchild, ColourPop's Tasty, Too Faced's Love Hangover, Clinique's Peach Pop, and MAKE Beauty's Geisha and Czarina.  Tally:  21 peach/coral peachy pink bluses, 4 culled.  Total 31 blushes, 10 culled.

Next are my pink blushes, with a total of 13 items. The cull results indicate I can be more cut throat in this category.

Culled were two Lancome GWP blushes, Rose Romantique and Shimmer Pink Pool, the Tarina Tarintino Dollskin cheek palette, an Estee Lauder GWP face palette, Tarte's Fantastic Amazonian Clay blush, stila's Lyric Countless Color Pigment, and DHC's Poppy Face Color Palette.  A recent "Loving Your Unloved" concentration on the Dollskin palette showed me I really only used the first peachy shade, and let's face it I've got plenty of those. The Estee Lauder face palette with Pink Kiss as the blush color did see some use, but the bronze pan has hardened and it's seen better days.  The DHC Poppy palette is too light for my complexion and I just don't reach for the others, so out they go.

Tally:  13 pink blush items, 7 culled.  Total 44 blushes, 17 culled.

Kept: Cargo Bali, Sue Devitt Solomon Islands, Too Faced Justify My Love, Clinique Plum Pop, theBalm Toile

Next is another favorite blush color family, the beige/tan category.  Apparently I love every beige/tan blush I own, as I did not want to part with any of the 7 blushes.

Blushes kept are Estee Lauder's Sensuous Rose, True Cosmetic's Blushing Beige, Sue Devitt Tralee, Nvey Eco 957, Rouge Bunny Rouge Starina, Tarte Peaceful, NYX Chiffon.  Tally:  7 Beige/tan blush items, 0 culled.  Total 51 blushes, 17 culled.

Berrie and mauves blushes as next, and I have only 5 blushes in this color family. I ended up keeping four and culling one.  I kept Flush by Tarte, Your Love is King by Too Faced, Rapture by Urban Decay, and Houndstooth by theBalm.

I culled Nvey Eco's Blushing Bliss 958.  Tally:  5 berry/mauve blushes, 1 culled. Total 56 blushes, 18 culled.

Nvey Echo 958

Next are 3 similar items:Tarte's Park Avenue Prince Pink Bronze, Clarin's Graphic Expressions, and Covergirl's Roses Clean Glow Blusher.

Covergirl's Roses did not make the cut. It's quite nice but almost identical in color to Graphic Expressions. The Park Avenue Princess is similar in color but has a soft shimmer that kept it in my collection. Total blushes 59 blushes, 19 culled.

I love my Hourglass blushes, as they are skin flattering and wear exceptionally well on my oily skin. However, I don't reach for Radiant Magenta often at all. Mood Exposure is probably my favorite, followed by the peachy Incandescent Electra. It was painful, but I decided to cull Radiant Magenta. Or at least I thought I did. Total blushes 62 blushes, 20 culled.

Next are what I'm calling my orange blushes, although Sephora's Let's Dance and Benefit's Sugarbomb are not orange. But they do have an orange segment, so let's pretend. They are also very similar in color. Surratt's Canteloupe is a straight up light orange, and completely unique to my collection. It's a difficult color to wear on it's own for my skintone, but the formula keeps it in my collection and I use it as a color adjuster. I also think it's really pretty layered under the other two in this picture. So which one of those did I cull?

Benefit's Sugarbomb got culled. The huge Let's Dance is more versatile as I can use different strips separately if I like, and the quality is on par.

Total 65 blushes, 21 culled.

Last are some some palettes and the ColourPop Monster highlighter that is kept with my blushes, so it got included. Shown are Estee Lauder's Lover's Blush/Rebel Rose, LMdB's Cheeky Chic kaleidoscope, and the Urban Decay Gwen Stenfani blush palette.

I kept Monster, Lover's Blush/Rebel Rose, and the Gwen Stefani blush palette. I've hit pan on Lo-Fi, which has become a favorite bronzer/contour shade.

The Cheeky Chic kaleidoscope was culled, as I never reached for it and was not overly impressed with the blush formula. Also, the contour shade has hardened and you can not pick up ANY pigment. I've noticed that with a few of my LMdB shadows as well, although I fixed those,  More on that in a later post. Total 69 blush items, 22 culled.

After going through every item and collecting all the blushes culled from my collection, it was time to take another once over to see if there were any items that I wanted to reconsider.

Blushes culled from collection

There were a few that were tugging at the corners of my mind, namely Radiant Magenta by Hourglass and the Makeup Geek blushes Head Over Heels and Summer Fling.  I ended up returning them to my collection.  If they don't see some use gong forward, I'll re-evaluate.

Now my powder blushes fit into one drawer. I've reacquited myself with what I own, which reinforces that I have quite enough and can be content "shopping" my own collection.

Final tally:  69 blush items, 19 culled from collection = 50 blushes. I purged almost 28% of my collection!  My next foray will be into my cream blushes, so stay tuned for that :-)