little white truths

I've been dealing with panning fatigue lately (as well as life fatigue in general, because we've been so busy), so I thought I'd write a short post on that because I know I'm not the only one who occasionally faces it.

Do note that I've written a post in this area before (see here), which talks about when panning becomes part of the problem - to the point that it's interfering with making sure that your entire collection gets used. This post will be a little different.

My aim here is to air a few thoughts and look at why I'm sick of focusing on particular items, why I'm sick of the whole process in general. Hopefully it will strike a chord with some of you, so you know you're not the only ones.

As you may know, I've been a panner at heart ever since I fell in love with makeup and skincare - even before I started doing projects like Project Pan and Pan that Palette. Reason being, I hate waste and can't bear to think of things sitting around and not getting used - so I've always made sure that whatever I buy gets plenty of use.

Nevertheless, there came a time a couple of years ago when I realised that my collection really couldn't hold any more products. That's when I started writing makeup and skincare inventories to keep track of things, and while I can always get through skincare, makeup is another story. In some categories, my numbers can be hard to shift.

I think part of the issue with the makeup industry is that some products are just too big (blushes in particular), so no matter how often you use them, you're never going to get through them before the powder starts to decay. What this means in practice is that you can be plugging away at eg a blush for a year and barely have anything to show for it afterwards. This has happened to me on both occasions that I've attempted to pan a blush, and I've had enough. It's so discouraging.

What I'm also finding at the moment is that I keep working away at products and find myself with not much to show for it afterwards - eyeshadow palettes being a good example here. So I'll work hard at something, maybe hit pan here and there, only to find that hitting pan is just the beginning of the story. I'll then discover that I have months or even years left of working on something, which of course is also very discouraging. If it's going to take me that long to finish things with only small results, why keep doing it? It's a question that's been bugging me a lot lately, and I have no answer for it.

I also do miss the days when I was still panning a few items but would pick out eg a different blush and eyeshadow every day: it felt more exciting to go into my room and choose what I wanted to use that day. So in theory I could go back to just doing that, but of course there were issues with that approach too. For example, I would often just reach for whatever eyeshadow palette was the easiest and quickest to use, and I would keep using the same two blush colours and leave the rest of my collection to gather dust. So in theory panning is the better approach for me because it forces me to use everything, even though in practice it can sometimes feel boring and something of a hassle.

I think it's also worth pointing out now that my panning fatigue mirrors how I'm feeling generally at the moment. That is, tired. We've been so busy lately that it's been hard to catch my breath, and I think even the kids are tiring of all the birthday parties they've been attending (October really is a popular month to be born; September too).

So in many ways it's not panning that's the big problem: it's how I'm feeling overall, and panning is just one area in which I've lost the energy. It could well be that once I feel more motivated, my panning efforts will motivate themselves too - and while that may seem like an obvious thing to say, I still think it's an important point to make because I can't be the only person who wants to blame fatigue on panning when there may be bigger factors involved.

So what am I going to do about my panning fatigue? Probably not much. I can say that I  know I need to go easy on myself for the moment. We've been busy and we're going to continue to be busy for the foreseeable future. I didn't have time to do a Project Pan update post for September and I'll just have to forget about that and attempt to do one for October. If my computer issues sort themselves out by then, that is (for some reason I can't upload photos at the moment. Hmph).

I've also been all over the shop for Project Dent, and while I do have a couple of items in circulation at the moment, I've been reaching for other things because we've had so many events on and I prefer to just use what I want for events, rather than be tied to any particular products. That's ok, I'll just extend those Project Dent rounds for the moment and tie them up when I need to. One day at a time.

I think that's all there is to say for the moment. I guess I just wanted to get a few thoughts down on paper in an attempt to navigate where I am on the panning map. It's ok to experience some panning fatigue, it's normal, and in my experience it usually lifts just as quickly as it descends. So I guess the point is to hang in there because this, too, shall pass.

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

* All images courtesy of unsplash.com