little white truths

Yeah ok, so I'm rather late to the party here. Insanely late. But I've seen a few Pan that Palette videos recently and I realised that this particular challenge had completely escaped my notice until now. I've known about Project Pan for years but for some reason Pan that Palette has flown under my radar.

And up until a couple of weeks ago, I wouldn't have considered doing the challenge because I don't own ridiculous amounts of palettes (seven, from memory - more than enough but not mountains) and most of them look barely touched, so Pan that Palette would have taken me years and I didn't want to tie myself to anything more than Project Pan and Project Dent, because let's face it, those two are rather enough on their own.

Enter my Z-palette, a new acquisition, and things start to look different. I started out by depotting eyeshadows I didn't care about (as practice) and I've now moved on to the ones I do care about and want to use. And I've discovered that I have a few dupes across the singles, duos and palettes I own, so I'd like to condense my collection and ensure that everything gets used.

There's what my Z-palette looks like (focusing on the eyeshadows):

These come from an old Mirenesse trio and the quality isn't great, which is enough reason to throw them out but I know I can get through them pretty quickly so I may as well start from a good point - just to help with motivation. I also want to finish them so I can keep the pans and fill them with loose shadows I plan on pressing, since I've already magnetised them and I'd rather use what I have, as opposed to buying empty pans.

I don't love them because they're very powdery and they look that way on the eye (not great for mature eyes or dry eyes like mine), but if I use just a little on the lids in combination with other shadows, I can get away with them. Believe it or not, I can also mix them to make a passable blush, so that's another way I can quickly get through them.

So those are the first two shadows I'm hoping to pan and remove from my collection completely.

Next up are two Stila eyeshadows, which I've taken from my Stila In the Light palette. These are much better quality and they're useful shadows that I can use as the base for any look, while still leaving myself plenty of room to play with whatever other shadows tickle my fancy each day, since they're neutral matte shades that work with anything.

Pan that Palette aims and guidelines

Now I've seen this challenge done in a few ways, but most people seem to focus on one particular palette with the aim that they'll pan the lot and learn to use shadows they wouldn't normally wear in different ways.

While I can absolutely see the value in doing this, framing my challenge that way isn't going to work for me and I'd rather do it as follows:

• I've loaded my palette with powders I'll actually wear. Every month or so, I'll pick particular shades to work on and hopefully finish.
• As I finish off any shadows, I'll replace them with something else from my collection that's waiting for a spot in my Z-palette.
• My aim is not to finish everything in here: some shadows I want to use but don't want to finish because I don't have dupes for them. I'll let you know which shadows I want to pan.
• I have a bundle of eyeshadow duos and singles from Nars and Kevyn Aucoin. The KA ones I love, the Nars ones I don't (you can see four KA shadows on the far right of the palette - two singles in the far column and a pink/grey duo in the top right corner). 
• Over time I want to move all my KA and Nars shadows into the palette, and I hope to finish the Nars ones (I don't like them enough to want to keep them) and at least get plenty of use from the KA ones, which I'm in no rush to finish because I love the formula so much.
• My first aim is to finish the shadows I have close-enough dupes for. Eg that brown Stila shade is close enough to the KA shadow on the far right (in the centre), so I'd like to move the Stila shade from my collection because I don't need two shades in this palette that operate in the same way. Once that's gone, my Nars Portobello duo will be moved in and I'll finish that off because it's in the same shade-range.
• Overall, my aim is to whittle down my collection and ensure that everything has some good use. I may end up popping shadows from other palettes over time (and not just my duos and singles), just to make sure that everything I own has some good wear. Putting things in my Z-palette is a good way to ensure this happens.