The Three R’s of Using Up
Products, or How Not To Be a Dragon
I love buying and trying new products, who doesn’t?! One of the joys is
discovering a new HG product which works magic on your skin. But there is also
a terrible danger lurking there by doing this.
I’m talking about
hauls. Adoredee has written up this great post on hauling responsibly.(Read
Here)But let’s face it, we
all sometimes succumb to the temptation of the sales and end up with more
products than we know what to do with! I find this particularly with sheet
masks, I must own over 50 but I can’t stop getting excited by new
designs/brands.
We all end up like the dragons in fairytales who hoard but continue to look out
for the next thing to add to their collection.
One of the joys is
discovering a new HG product which works magic on your skin. But there’s also
the other side to all these new products, the meh.
Meh is what I use
for products which don’t break me out, but don’t seem to do much else either.
They’re boring, they’re taking up valuable routine space but I can’t really
afford to throw them down the drain. In an ideal world I’d be able to travel
back in time and shake some sense into the naïve hopeful younger me, stopping
myself from clicking that buy button. Sadly I don’t possess time travelling
powers. *fingers crossed for scientific progress*!
Until then I’m left
with my cupboard of products, both meh and untried. I end up hoarding them away
in boxes, neglecting them and building up a collection that’ll never see the
light of day.
But there are ways to get excitement out of even the most boring products. So
don’t be a beauty dragon and hoard the meh products away! Utilise the Three
R’s!
Just a snapshot of some of my waiting to be used products...
1. Re-Gift “One man’s waste is
another man’s treasure”
It’s an accepted cliché in Skincare/Beauty but YMMV. This may be
your meh product, but another’s holy grail! When I have too many of one type of
product, or tried something out and wasn’t impressed I look to my friends to
see if they want to try something new out. This is especially good for when I
treat myself to a subscription purchase and there’s something in there not for
me. I get to treat my friends as well, share the AB love.
There’s also the redditR/AsianBeautyExchange,where you can sell/swap decants or lightly used products.
I threw a spa party and gave away these sheet masks!
2.Repurpose “When one door closes
another re-opens” Sometimes a product doesn’t work for your face,
but this doesn’t mean you have to stop using it! One of my favourite products
is the Shiseido Perfect Whip Cleanser, meant for the face, but after I
discovered it’s high pH I repurposed it for my legs as a shaving cream! My legs
have never felt so smooth, and the number of ingrown hairs is significantly
less. (Full Review Here)
Below are some
other ideas for repurposing products:
Aloe is good as a hair oil! Tame the
frizz
Oil cleansers become shaving oils
Foam Cleansers become Shaving Cream
Face Stuff becomes Body Stuff, e.g.
Essences, Ampoules, Moisturisers
High pH cleansers for Brush Cleaning
Décolletages are important too! Rub
that essence there
Anything Snail for scars, bug bites
and ingrown hairs
Cleansing oil for your hands to get
rid of strong food smells, e.g. onion and garlic
Actives for the body! Tackle ingrown
hairs and bacne
These are just a few of the great ideas for repurposing your products.
3. Reuse “Waste
not, want not” Now
this is my most boring but sensible piece of advice, suck it up. If it’s not
breaking you out, you can’t repurpose or regift then you’re just going to have
to slog your way through the product. I’ve come to accept that not every
product in my routine MUST be a HG, otherwise my skin will
descend into blotchy dull limbo, that’s just not true. Sadly I don’t have a
dragon’s hoard of gold to dip into, so I have to accept mediocrity in my
skincare routine sometimes in order to ensure I have food on the table.
It’s been my new
year resolution this year to be more fiscally responsible! And these are the
top tips I came up with when it came to my skincare/beauty product spending,
which since my discovery of Asian Beauty has rocketed. It’s been great for my
skin, but not so much for my wallet.
Different angle of just some of my stash
Do you have any
tips on what to do with all the products in your stash? Any fellow dragons out
there!?