little white truths

Hello and welcome to September's Pan that Palette update!

It's been a pretty tough panning month for me: I'm getting over my palette now and I'm also at the point where some of my powders are getting so old and crumbly that it's time to stop beating a dead horse and say goodbye to some of them. 

The oldest powders I have in my palette are from 2014 and while many are from 2015, I feel that it's time to accept that I've had some really good use from many of them, and it's time to move on to other things.

For this reason, I've decided to wrap up Pan that Palette 2017 now. I've exceeded my original goals and I would rather focus on Project Pan and Project Dent for the rest of the year.

Anyhoo! Let's have a look at my September progress.

First up, my Stila Custom Contour Duo in Medium. Here's how it looked at the end of August:

Yes it's true, I've finished it! Now before you think 'there's no way you could finish a contour shade within a month' (because I'm sure most people couldn't), what I eventually did with the dark shade was mix it in with my body cream. 

For most of the year I was using it for contouring, but when that was getting me nowhere fast, I started mixing it in with my moisturiser to add a bronze glow beneath my tinted moisturiser. I loved it for that purpose, but a few days ago I had a 'bugger this' moment and I used the small amount remaining mixed in with my body cream.

I did this because the product has a 24-month shelf-life and I passed that recently, and although it hadn't changed texture and it was still safe to use, I'd had enough and it was time to speed things along. I suppose you could call that cheating a little, but I've been working on it all year and I think we can forgive me (I hope!) for pushing the palette out the door in the fastest way possible ; )

Next up, my Z-palette.

Here's how it looked at the end of August:

Here's how it's looking now:

 Let's look at each half of the palette. Left side first, end of August:

End of September (and I've enhanced this shot for clarity, hence the colour changes):

So, most of the Stila pans look the same (although I have used them all a few times), minus the matte grey and Sunset, which I've used a lot this month. Some of the grey was thrown into the Nars pan that's now been filled with a new shade I mixed from other shades in the palette.

Re the Nars pans, I've cleared out the bottom one and the one I've recharged is a mix of the aforementioned Stila grey, theBalm's Hot Mama blush (discussed below), the rest of that dirty gold GA-DE pan (centre bottom) and also some of the brown medium pan (also discussed below). I did this because the shadows were so crumbly/flaky that I kept losing product, so I decided to throw the chunks into one pan. It's a nice colour and I have used it quite a bit, but the pigment is no longer there so I need to build it.

There's also more pan showing in that middle GA-DE pan, and it's another shade that crumbles so it's easy to make progress even though I don't use it that much.

I've re-pressed the cream Becca round pan, and I'll likely throw it into Project Pan because it'll be easy to finish.

Now for the right-hand side of my palette. Here's how it looked at the end of August:

And here's how it's looking now after one month of use:

There's not much visible progress in the four pans at the bottom (the matte is Becca and the other three are Ardency Inn), although I have used them all a few times each.

The two Stila pans above those: these were the ones I mixed using Nars Charade and Stila's Night Sky, and I do love the shade but I don't use it that often. I have expanded the pan on one of them though.

As for the top row, the brown shade I mixed myself is at the point where it's ready to go. I've made good progress though, so I'm happy with how far I've taken it. 

The highlighter from theBalm that's a mix between Cindy-Lou and Mary-Lou (I re-pressed them together) is still going strong, but I do use it daily on the collarbones so there is some progress.

As for theBalm's Hot Mama, that's also ready to go. It's the oldest powder I own and it's crumbling everywhere - which is why there's so much progress - so I'm happy to send that packing too.

In sum

What I'll do over the next few days is a Pan that Palette 2017 wrap-up, and I'll also give you a photos-only post so you can see how I went month-by-month for the whole year.

What I'll also do is scrape out any powders that are too old, and I'll retain those for my daughter to use as paints. As for the remaining powders, they're still fine so I'll keep playing with them occasionally - but I'm ready to stop using them often and it's time to focus on other shadows.

That's all from me! Hope all's well with you, and speak soon x