Category Archives: Stash / Organization

Updated Stash Pictures and a Personal Update

Hi all – you may have noticed it’s been a little quiet on the Project Swatch front lately, and I wanted to let you know what was going on. In addition to being quite busy studying for the upcoming bar exam, my wonderful, sweet dog was just diagnosed with a -->mast cell tumor --> on Monday. It’s a form of cancer, and she’ll be having surgery this Sunday to remove it. We will find out after they biopsy it what stage it’s at and what her future prognosis is; I’m very worried about her. She’s a real sweetheart and I love her so much.

My dog, Zoe

I have a bunch of things I want to review, and I think I’ll be able to get back to reviews in the next couple of days. In the meantime, I took some stash pictures for you! I recently (last week or so) cleaned out my vanity, organized my makeup, and boxed up about a quarter of it – I put aside the things I don’t use very often so that the things I do use and love would be more accessible. I’ll see if I miss the things I set aside, and if I don’t, I’ll eventually sell/swap/give away those items. Note that you can see previous stash photos under the stash tag to the right.

In the top photo (top of the post) you can see my vanity; on top of my vanity, I have some daily-use items, like my Guerlain Compact Meteorites, Anastasia Brow Powder Duo, brush cleanser, moisturizer, and a couple other assorted items. I also have my brushes (face in one container; eye in the other). On the left side, I have a lipstick holder (from the Container Store) with my favorite low-end lipsticks; the right side has a lipstick holder with my favorite high-end lipsticks.

In the top center drawer, I have eyeshadows (including eyeshadow primer). Here they are in the drawer:

And here they are out of the drawer, so you can see what I have – as you can see, I have become a big fan of depotting; it really helps me see what I have an use it more frequently! Edit: I just realized that this photo is missing two of my favorite palettes; the Illamasqua Neutral Palette and the UD Naked Palette, both of which were in the other room when I took the photographs. Oops!

eyeshadow!

The top drawer on the left side has jewelry and some perfume samples, so I haven’t photographed it. The next drawer down has lip items. This contains lip items that either don’t fit into the acrylic lipstick holders (like NARS lip pencils or Revlon Balm Stains, both of which I adore), or that I simply don’t use as often.

lips

In the next drawer down, I have all the eye products that are not eyeshadow: which ends up meaning different types of eyeliner (pencil, gel, pen, cake), a couple mascaras, and tools (eyelash curler, sharpener, and the odd looking thing is an eyelash guard – it’s awesome, and I have been planning to do a post on it).

eye makeup things

The next drawer contains my cheek products: blush, highlighter, contour powder, and bronzer. This is the most disorganized drawer, mostly because I simply have too much to fit neatly into the drawer, even after putting aside many products that I actually do really like – but have near dupes of.

blush, highlighter, contour, and bronzer

And finally, my “face product” drawer – foundation, concealer, and mineral powder, along with a couple samples. I don’t use face primer, and I love the Guerlain powder so much (not pictured, as I keep it on top of my vanity) so much that I have set aside all of my other translucent/ finishing powders.

Foundations, concealers, mineral powders

The bottom drawer is a mess, so I didn’t photograph it – it has makeup wipes, false eyelashes, and a couple other miscellaneous items along those lines.

I hope to be back to regular posting soon!

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Stash Photos

Hi all – Sorry that it’s been relatively quiet around here lately. I was quite busy with finals, then graduated (yay!), then was out of town for a couple days. But I am back now, and I’m planning to get back to posting more regularly – ever day if possible! I’m hoping to have a more substantial post up by the end of the day, but in the meantime here are some stash photos to entertain you 🙂 If there’s anything you want reviewed, or have a question about, just leave me a comment.

This isn’t everything – it’s missing my foundations, eyeliners, etc. but I thought the pictures would be fun to see anyway!

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Makeup Organization / Stash Video!

I made a video showing my vanity & my makeup organization system. Let me know what you think!

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TKB Trading Order and Z-Palette Dupe

I was super excited to find thi package from -->tbktrading.com --> outside my front door yesterday. Inside, were the three palettes I ordered; a Z-palette dupe (only $6!) and two small compacts, which were around $1 each, and I bought for a depotted blush I have hanging around. I wasn’t sure which would fit better, and they were so cheap I just went for both!

Many thanks to to Jane at lifes-entropy for -->posting about --> the Z-palette dupes and alerting me to their existence!

So, how do the TKB cardboard freedom palettes compare to the brand name Z-palettes? Both are cardboard freedom – style palettes with magnetic closures. Both come in small and large sizes, though the dimensions are slightly different. Jane has a comparison of the dimensions posted; here’s visual of the small ones (I didn’t buy the large TKB palette).

As you can see, the Z-Palette is a square, and the TKB palette is a rectangle. The TKB palette is also unbranded, which I prefer. I think the Z-palettes magnet might be very slightly stronger, but it’s difficult to tell.

Given that the Z-palettes are generally priced at $14 for the small and $20 for the large, while the TKB palette is $6 for the small and $8 for the large, I recommend the TKB palette, and I will never buy a Z-palette again.

Coming up soon: How to press loose eyeshadows, which is a great way to a) actually use all those loose eyeshadow samples you have sitting around and b) a great way to fill up your new TBK palette!

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Project Swatch: Meet the Eyeshadow

As it’s almost time to start swatching eyeshadow, I thought I’d introduce my eyeshadow collection. It’s both a preview of what’s coming, and a place for me to link back to when I’m swatching.

Here is all my eyeshadow:

The list:

Urban Decay 15th Anniversary Palette
Urban Decay Naked Palette
Sleek Original Palette
Small z-palette; contains 4 Inglot shadows
Large z-palette; contains 1 Ingot shadow, depotted Smashbox palette, Softbox, 2 MAC shadows, assorted Lancome GWP shadows
Wet n Wild Comfort Zone 8-Pan Palette
Wet n Wild Greed 6-Pan Palette
6 Wet n Wild Trios: Don’t Steal My Thunder, Sweet as Candy, Dancing in the Clouds, Silent Treatment, I’m Getting Sunburned, We’re Blasting Off
One Wet n Wild single shadow
2 L’oreal Color Infallible shadows
2 Maybelline Color Tattoo cream shadows
One Shiro Cosmetics single loose shadow

Because there are tons of photos online of most of these, I’m not going to post photos of all the packaging – just a few items.

Here’s a close up on my Z-palettes. I’m not going to swatch the Lancome GWP singles because they’re really old, but I will swatch every other eyeshadow I own.

And here’s a closer look at all my Wet n Wild palettes – so many!

And, because Sleek isn’t widely available in the US, here’s my Sleek Original palette, which I ordered from the Sleek website. I’ll be referring back to this photo frequently, because the shadows don’t have visible names. If I remember correctly, the have names and came with an overlay that said the names, but it’s long gone.

The eyeshadow swatching will start tomorrow!

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Interlude: Makeup organization!

I love looking at pictures of how other people store and organize their makeup, so I thought I’d put a post together on how I store and organize mine. I keep (almost) everything in this beautiful vanity, which I bought from Amazon.

As you can see, I keep several things on top of my vanity. I have some frequently used makeup items, most of my lipsticks, my brushes, an extra mirror, and a coaster.

Close up of my two lipstick cases – I really love these. They were fairly inexpensive at the Container Store.


Face brushes go on the left, eye brushes go on the right.

Inside my vanity is all the makeup I actually use. The biggest drawer holds eyeshadow, as well as eyeshadow primer.

It holds quite a lot – here’s a better look at all the eyeshadow that I own, which all fits comfortably in this drawer.

Look closely, and you can see that I have six Wet n Wild trios – not three.

In the top drawer on the left I have some jewelery – not pictured. Next down I keep my blush, bronzer, and highligher.

The next drawer contains everything for my eyes and eyebrows: mascara, eyeliner, brow powder. Actually, I keep my Anastasia brow powder on top of my vanity, since I use it so often. My Wet n Wild (which is actually quite good quality) lives in the drawer.

Then we have lip products. Glosses, miscellaneous lipsticks that don’t fit in the display cases on top of the vanity, lip liners (which I never use), and the small pots are custom-mixed shades of Sleek Pout Paint.

The second to last drawer is face makeup; primer, foundation, concealer, and powder.

And in the bottom drawer, I keep my rarely used and unopened items. I have false lashes and glue, which are for special occasions. Right now my unopened items consist of many mini mascaras, which I bought as part of a set from Sephora. So far, none are a hit.

I do have more makeup than this, however. Samples live in a drawer across the room – I rarely use them, and tend to just include them freely when I swap or sell makeup.

Not pictured is my box full of makeup to swap, sell, or give away.

And my nail polish is all totally jumbled in a drawer, and not organized at all. It’s really not picture worthy!

Please feel free to ask questions about any of the products you see in my drawers – I’m planning to swatch all of them eventually, but I’m happy to answer questions about them now.

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