little white truths

Hullo all and welcome to my next Pan that Palette update for the year!

It's been a pretty good month for me and I've finished off my first two shadows, plus you'll see some good progress in many of the shades in my Z-palette.

Speaking of Z-palettes, I'm aware of the recent controversy surrounding the brand and, in light of the situation as it stands, I don't plan on buying any more Z-palettes in future.

However, I will keep using the three I own while they're still in working order because it would be a complete waste to throw them out and I would just have to buy new ones from another brand if I did that. Everyone's entitled to react to the Z-palette controversy in the way that's most true to them, and that's my reaction - plus I don't have the spare dosh to buy new palettes and I also think it's a waste of resources, materials, energy etc if I throw something out while it still works and is relatively new. It wouldn't be an environmental decision and these days I'm very much guided by environmental concerns.

But let's move on.

There are my two Pan that Palette subjects above. There's plenty of pan showing through but there's still much work to be done.

If you would like to see my full February update, it's here.

Let's start with how my Z-palette looked at the end of February:

And here's how it looks now, at the end of March:

So there's been some progress and I've finished off my first two shades: the pale yellow Stila shade (top right - sorry, the peach below it fell out and jumped into the wrong pan during proceedings!); and also the Coastal Scents shade (the small round pan at the bottom).

I'm pleased that I've finished those, but even more, I'm super happy with my progress overall this month because I've made a good dent in a few other shades too.

Here's how the left side of my palette looked last month:

And here's how it looks now:

  

So I hit pan on the peach Stila shade on the left (that's the one that moved) and also on the rose beside it within a few days of last month's update. Since then, the peach shattered and I lost about a quarter of what was left on the floor, and as for the rest, I retained the bottom half but mixed in the last (shattered) quarter with a blush I was in the process of re-pressing (that's the blush from my Project Pan list).

Otherwise I've mainly been focusing on Stila's Wit (the caramel shade showing pan), which I often use as a blush and also to touch-up my eyeshadow and blush throughout the day. If I'm not using Wit for those purposes, I'll be using the rose instead.

I've ventured into the remaining shades a few times each and I'm happy with the progress on this side of the palette, although I need to start working more on the shimmers. My aim had been to make as much progress as possible on the mattes first because they're more tightly packed and are therefore harder to finish, so now that I've done this, it's time to start focusing on the shimmers.

My goal for next month is to hit pan on the purple Lancome shade (bottom row), finish the matte peach and get through as much of Wit as I can.

Here's how the rest of my palette looked at the end of February:

And here's how it looks now:

I didn't think I'd made much progress in my Bahama Mama bronzer because I wasn't using it as much this month, but I can definitely see the difference between the two photos. Throughout March I was focusing on a blush that I was using as a bronzer as part of Project Dent, which is why both Bahama Mama and the Nars shadow below it aren't looking as worn as they might otherwise have done. 

Now that I'm back to mixing them as my bronzer shade, I expect to see the Nars pan gone very soon. As for Bahama Mama, as soon as the Nars shade is gone I may well put it in a smaller eyeshadow pan since I'll only be using it to contour after that (on its own) and also mixed with the brown Stila shade (bottom right), which I've started mixing with Bahama Mama to get a good colour for my brows and also to line my lower waterline. You may remember that I was using Stila's Sandstone for this previously, but I decided to use this brown instead because it's been re-pressed and what's left is easier to finish.

The peach Nars shade is getting used as a highlight on my body because it's more frosty and not very pigmented, and I won't be surprised if that's done by the end of April. The plum Nars shade (bottom right, next to the brown Stila shade) is also showing more pan because I often use it as a base: it will still take some time to finish because these Nars duo pans are so large, but I should get there eventually.

Otherwise there's not much visible progress in this lot - although I've definitely used the peach blush (the rectangular pan) quite a bit as an eyeshadow so what's left is much lower than it was last month.

Next up, my Stila cream contour duo. Here's how it looked at the beginning of last month, when I introduced it to the challenge:

And again (I've enhanced the below shot for clarity so it looks a bit darker):

There's not a lot of progress, but there's definitely some. I can especially see the difference in the paler shade, which I've started mixing with my brand-spanking-new Becca Backlight Targeted Colour Corrector in Papaya: together the mix gives me the perfect salmon/peach shade that really does make a difference to my under-eyes.

So I'll keep using the pale shade for that purpose alone since I like that mix better than I do using Papaya on its own. 

As for the contour shade, I'm using that daily for contouring but you really don't need much so it's going to take ages to get through. So long as I can finish it by the end of the year, although I might need to start applying a bit more because at this rate it won't be finished by then!

In sum

I feel as though March was really the month when I 'broke the back' of this palette, even though there's not a lot of visible progress. This is because I can better-see which shades will be knocked out within the next month or two and it's made me realise that I may in fact achieve more than I thought I would, so I may revise my goals in the near future and aim to finish more than six shades completely. (I had aimed to finish six and hit pan on twelve.)

Also, I wanted to let you know again (if you haven't seen me say this yet) that I do plan to shuffle this palette around later on - I won't do it any more than once because I don't want to annoy you too much! ; ) - so it may be that I do this earlier than expected (I'd thought I'd probably do it in June). My aim is to bring in my other Nars shadows because they're among the oldest I own and perhaps another random pan or two (anything that will fit). I'm doing this of course because I want to knock out as many pans as I can this year and really keep the ball rolling.

Hope all's well with you guys, and speak soon x