Last year, before I had this blog, I made a list of products I wanted to finish in 2013. I managed to finish about half of them which isn’t too bad! This year I thought I’d put fourteen products in a bin and do my best to use them up. The intent behind these products is that I won’t actually be repurchasing them after I’ve finished them up. It’s not so much that I dislike them (if they were really that bad, I’d just pitch them in the bin) but they’re just “okay” products. I like them enough, and use them, but I have other products I love more. Also, by forcing myself to use some of these products up, I end up discovering new ways to wear them. In essence, it makes me get creative! So let’s see what I’ve dumped in that “to finish up” bin!

There’s nothing especially wrong with these products – they’re just not my top picks. On my winter skin, the CC Cream is actually too dark right now but the MUA one is just right. The packaging on the MUA one makes it very easy for travel… or so I thought. The cap on the product doesn’t actually latch on very well so it ends up overtwisting and not aligning properly. Very annoying. The CoverGirl CC Cream on the other hand is actually quite nice – it has a pleasing scent (I’m not sure everyone agrees about this) and I love that it has a pump…. but it’s just not my favourite. If I wear these regularly, I should be able to get through each in about a month or two.

I bought this because Christina @ Temptalia raves about this balm. To me, Jack Black’s lip balm feels no different than vaseline and I don’t actually feel like it has a lot of healing properties on rough, dry lips. I used to apply this product predominantly when I would go for a run. The reason behind this is I find my mouth/lip area gets very dry while running and wanted something soothing on my lips while I did my exercise. Unfortunately, this product seems to ball up/go tacky when my body warms up/starts sweating a bit so this actually became incredibly uncomfortable to wear while exercising. Instead, I’ve been wearing it as a protective layer throughout December while we’ve been experiencing freezing temperatures of -33C. I don’t feel it heals chapped lips, but the vaseline content of the product will certainly protect again snowy wind burn.

I bought this Strawberry Malt lipglass early last year when the Archie’s Girls collection launched at MAC. The colour itself is gorgeous, but I find it fades really awkwardly on my lips and bleeds outside my lipline. Not attractive and it makes it far too fiddlesome for a gloss.

If you’ve been reading any of my eyeshadow tutorials, you know that I use Brule almost every single time to highlight my brow bone. I use this product almost daily and I feel like I’m never going to finish this pan of it! The colour is nice, the blendability is fine, but I have other shades that are similar that I’d like to get through as well. The same applies to Shroom, which is essentially just a shimmery Brule.

Swish on the other hand… oh man, this colour needs to DIE. I bought this in my teens and it’s horrible – I don’t even know how I managed to hit so much pan on it! It’s a frosty pink shade that just looks, in my opinion as my older, wise self, just ridiculous. I’ve only come up with one combination this looks okay on, but I need more ideas if I’m going to make it through the rest of this pan!

The last shade is Haux – it’s a wonderful slightly rose-tinted, brown shade with a satin finish. It’s also my oldest eyeshadow – this guy right here is 18 years old. I’m not kidding. It needs to get finished up so I can move on with my life!

I think this is going to be the most challenging product to get through, but I wanted to include something that I had made almost no dent in. This bronzer is perfectly adequate – it blends nicely and the colouring is nice. I had bought it on a whim in late 2012 while I was in the US because I love Physicians Formula products, but they’re incredibly expensive in Canada (like $22 for a bronzer!). However, I have too many bronzers and I really need to put some out to pasture. I am slightly concerned that from past experiences, I have to use a single bronzer for an entire year before I finish it up – so this may become my daily bronzer. We’ll see how it goes.

I love this colour (Twilight), I just don’t wear it enough. I’m a big fan of Revlon‘s lipstains (NOT their balm stains), they can apply slightly patchy, but with enough layers it generally tends to even out. Plus they feel, to me, incredibly comfortable on the lips. In general, I prefer these to lipsticks, but for lipstains to work, they usually have to be pretty dark colours, which is why I don’t have more of them – since they all tend to blend together (colourwise) after a while. This one can get REALLY dark after several applications which is why I tend not to favour this one. Still very pretty though.

Revlon‘s Sunset Peach is an easy shade for me to wear throughout the summer and one I reach for often. I’m fairly certain I’m close to done with this shade as it’s looking quite patchy through the tube. My main reason for wanting to finish this one up is that while I think the packaging is quite pretty, the reality is that I don’t carry a purse (SHOCK, HORROR) and this tube is just too darn big for my pocket, which makes it incredibly unfriendly for carrying anywhere.

I loved these Lip Butters by Revlon, but I’m over them. Creme Brulee is my favourite and I’ll continue to repurchase it, but I don’t feel I need all of the colours like I used to. Creamsicleactually looks rather ghastly on me and Red Velvet always just seems too dark (although I’ll often see it on other people and like it, so not sure what’s up with that!). While fiddling around with these colours and swatching them, I tried swatching Creamsicle over Red Velvet and they looked gorgeous together. Cherry Tarte, however, is beautiful on its own, but I have other shades I prefer.

So that’s it! I wonder how well I’ll manage to get through these products by the end of the year.