Beauty Empties and Purge for January 2018

Such a satisfying feeling to have a lot of beauty empties to toss into the recycling bin. And even more so when they’re full size products.

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Because making room for new things is so rewarding, I’m finally starting to purge old, expired beauty products that are sitting around taking up space. I’m going to try to do that every month and include those products in with the empties posts.

So let’s start with what I used up.

Bath & Body

I think it’s easiest to use up bath and body products because I use them everyday and I use so much of them.

• Nature Island Botanicals Citrus Sunrise Body Lotion: I’ve mentioned this before, but oddly enough, Daphne’s thick, rich cream made from natural and organic ingredients that comes in a pump bottle is called “body lotion”. It feels more like a body butter, and it’s perfect for winter. The Citrus Sunrise scent is heaven. Repurchase? I reordered during the holidays, and I bought a Citrus Sunrise Body Butter (which is a lighter weight cream) in a jar, and Caribbean Escape, her other divine scent, in the Body Lotion pump jar. I like to mix it up. But I cannot be without these two products!

• Nature Island Botanicals Lemongrass Bar Soap: I liked this sunshine yellow soap made from organic calendula flowers infused into organic sunflower and extra virgin olive oils and organic cream. Cleaned well and left my skin moisturized. Repurchase? I have two different bars of soap from NIB waiting in the wings.

• Got Your Goat! Pure Goat Milk Lotion, scent Pumpkin Spice: I bought this thick, rich artisan made bottle of lotion a while back when Jeff and I went for our annual maple syrup brunch at a maple sugar shake and restaurant not too far away in Brookline NH. They sold  the lotion in the gift shop. I loved the Pumpkin Spice scent initially, but over time, I came to feel that the scent was too strong and too cloying though the lotion itself was very nice. Repurchase? No. I’ll stick with my Nature Island Botanicals lotion and body butters.

• L’Occitane Whipped Hand Cream: I love the look of these old school-style aluminum tubes (though the tube is really made of plastic that looks and acts like aluminum). And what about the cream itself? It was nice, but I disliked the too strong floral scent. Repurchase? No. I’m off of L’Occitane hand creams because I seldom like the scents and I like other brands better.

Facial Skincare

• StriVectin Advanced Acid Rehydrate + Replump NIA114 + Hyaluronic Dual Response Serum: I really liked this dual chamber gel serum with HA and collagen. Repurchase? Right now, I have three other hyaluronic acid serums, and though I like this one from StriVectin a lot, it’s pricey and I am trying to make a dent in the HA serums/essences that I already own.

• Shiseido Ultimune Eye Power Infusing Eye Concentrate: I truly love this eye gel-cream “booster” that I sometimes use as a pre-treatment and sometimes as the main event. One thing though that bugs me about it. This huge bottle contains only about 0.5 oz. of eye concentrate, but because of the size of the bottle, you think there’s going to be a ton of it. The bottle lasted me about two months for about $67 (thankfully, I bought it during a sale). Repurchase? Can you believe it, I did during another sale. But right now I’m using Algenist Firming + Lifting Eye Gel that I had purchased a while ago that I want to use before it goes bad.

The following two products are not empties, but they are old and I need to toss them.

• Estee Lauder Resilience Lift Eye Cream: I used most of this pretty pale pink soothing eye cream that I bought a couple of years ago. But other eye creams and gels captured my attention, and I more or less forgot about this more mainstream eye cream. As time passed, the cream hardened, and it’s time to go. Repurchase? No. I like other eye treatments better (see Shiseido Ultimune Eye Concentrate reviewed here and PCA Skin Revitalizing Eye Gel reviewed here).

• StriVectin Repair & Protect Moisturizer SPF 30: I like the airless pump container that this daytime moisturizer comes in. I also really liked the fact that this moisturizer with sunscreen contains great anti-aging ingredients. However, it contains chemical sunscreen ingredients that led me to believe, along with the advertising and product materials, that this would be a lightweight moisturizer. In my experience, it was more like a moisturizer with physical sunscreen ingredients that often can be heavy and leave a whitish cast on my face. I found myself seldom reaching for it, so unfortunately, it’s time to go. Repurchase? No.

Nails

• 4 sided emory board and buffer/polisher: The portion of the emory board that does the “heavy lifting” (filing and smoothing ridges) the nails always wears out long before the rest of the file that does the polishing. Also, I don’t use it as often as I used to because I strongly prefer my glass nail file. Repurchase? I think I have another one that I bought some time ago. I’ll use it to smooth the ridges and buff my nails after I file and shape them with my beloved glass nail file from Mont Bleu.

• Nail Butter Nail and Cuticle Butter: I have a very bad habit of saving things that I like a lot instead of using them. I don’t know where that bad habit came from, but I have to get over it pronto. As a result of not using this, (my third jar of Nail Butter), often enough, I have to throw it away unfinished because, being preservative-free, it turned. Repurchase? I just did, and I’m using it rather than admiring at it! And I love the lemongrass scent.

Hair

• It Haircare 12-in-One Amazing Leave-In Treatment: I liked this multi-benefit leave-in hair treatment. It has a lotion consistency that comes in a pump bottle. Over time, it got a little difficult to pump out, similar to a body lotion pump towards the end of the bottle – but that’s not a big deal. Repurchase? No. Although I liked this leave-in, I decided to go back to my ultimate favorite It’s A 10 Leave-In Treatment that is a liqui-gel that’s much easier to spray and leaves my hair truly feeling like silk.

Makeup

• Jordana Twist & Shine Moisturizing Balm Stain, shade Fresh Fig: This is the lip product that I wear most often because it is moisturizing yet it stains so my lips always have color on them throughout the day or night. I carry this in my makeup bag, and both the product name and shade have long since worn away. I had to look up what color it is. Fresh Fig is a kind of a pink/purple/mauve – it doesn’t really look like Fig to me, but I don’t care. I love the shade. I have another one that’s red (called Rock ‘N Rouge) that I like as well, but I don’t wear it nearly as much as Fresh Fig. I have to go to Walgreen’s to track down another tube. For $3.29, this lip balm stain is a steal. Repurchase? Yes, as soon as I can get to a Walgreen’s.

• Bioderma Hydrabio Micellar Water: I received this travel size (100 ml) Hydrabio MW when I purchased the large 500 ml size last year. I should have saved this to bring on our trip, but I think I started it a while ago before we made our plans. Now I’ll take the Derma E Hydrating Facial Wipes instead. When it comes to micellar water, Bioderma – especially their Hydrabio for dry skin – is my fave. Repurchase? I already repurchased the big size, but this year unfortunately it didn’t come with the travel size bonus bottle.

Fragrance

• Scent Trunk Custom Fragrance: I had this perfume custom made for me in the fall by Scent Trunk (explained and reviewed here). They crafted a perfect scent from based on my online survey results and my preferences among 5 key perfume notes that were sent to me to sniff and choose. Scent Trunk claims they will make perfumes for you till they create one that you love. Either they are fantastic at what they do or I was lucky, because Scent Trunk nailed it for me the first time. Repurchase? I intend to. They offer different plans where they send you a new spray atomizer of your custom scent every month or so. It is quite affordable, and I think it would make a fantastic Valentine’s Day gift for a scent lover.

So those are my empties and tosses for January. Truthfully, I have 3 or 4 more full size products that are just about empty, but I’ll save them for next month. And I look forward to finding some more old beauty products that have got to go even though they’re not finished. What did you finish up in January? Or what are you tossing unfinished?

Today's Author

Allison Cohen

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