For awhile, I was obsessed with monthly subscription boxes, so I amassed an insane amount of beauty products. I would open things, use it twice and then forgot about it. Then, after seeing this on another blog I put a box in our bathroom and starting collecting the empty containers of all beauty products we used up each month (I wish I could remember which blog I found this on so I could offer the proper credit).
We went for quite awhile of not doing this, but I decided to bring it back a few months ago. These are our empties from June-July-August-September 2016.
We have 3 bathrooms in our house (completely necessary for two people haha), so we have 2 different scents of soap on the go in each one at any given time – one foaming and one deep cleansing. I only shop at Bath & Body Works during one of their sales, and we have no problem with using Christmas scents in August, as you can see haha. My personal favourites of the ones shown above would be the Vanilla Bean Noel (always a classic!) and Coastal Water Lily.
We brush our teeth everyday! Hurray for us! I also love the plain, boring old Colgate you see above, and we ALWAYS have a tube of that on the go.
With two different showers in our house, there are at least 4 or 5 bottles of shampoo/conditioner on the go at any moment. At some point over the summer, we finished off a bottle of Herbal Essences Naked Conditioner. It’s not the greatest stuff in the world, but it does the trick.
The little bottles are Bath & Body Works White Citrus Shampoo and Conditioner. I have no idea how old these are, but they came from a hotel stay at some point over the past few years.
We also have multiple bottles of shower gels/body wash on the go at any moment. I’m not a huge fan of Bath & Body Works shower gel, but there always seems to be a bottle in each shower. This Forever Sunshine one did smell pretty good. The other bottle is Satsuma Body Polish from The Body Shop. This is by far my favourite scent from this store, and I liked this stuff. It was a nice gentle exfoliating cleanser that a bit of grittiness to it.
Pure Smile Strawberry Milk Essence Mask is the actual name of this product. It’s a Korean product that looks ridiculous on (it’s like a weird white slimy sheet with holes cut out for your eyes, nose and mouth that you leave on your face for 20+ minutes) but it made my face feel so nice and smooth afterwards.
I’ve always loved Lush products, and their shower jellies have a permanent place in our home. Whoosh is an amazing smelling, bright blue squishy soap that we’ve had many times in the past, and I have no doubt we will buy it again in the future.
Obviously these products both belonged to Luke. I had to ask him what he thought of these things – “the Sensitive Skin line from Nivea is better than their normal line in my opinion. The moisturizer is great, I’ve used it before and I’ll use it again. The aftershave is a really great product, but it’s a little pricer than other brands (Gillette aftershave is only like $3, this stuff is closer to $10). The glass bottle is also a little unnecessary.”
This is definitely my favourite eye makeup remover. I’m not technically out of this, since I pour it into a travel sized bottle and there is a little bit left in that. This is gentle on my eyes, and easily removes eyeliner/mascara without the need to scrub. I’ve already purchased a brand new bottle of this, it’s worth every penny.
Luke also used up both of these. Growing up, there were always products from The Body Shop in my house and I swear by their stuff. I do not have blemished skin or oily skin, so I don’t use the Tea Tree line myself, but I do know it works. Luke says he will own both of these products again (Body Wash and Skin Clearing Foaming Cleanser), but he is trying to get through some of our pre-existing collection of things first.
This is part of the 3-step Clinique program, but it’s the only one I ever purchased. You are supposed to cleanse your face (Step One), and then use this lotion (Step Two) before applying moisturizer (Step Three). I liked this, it was very gentle and made my face feel even cleaner. I would consider purchasing this again in the future.
Syn-ake Venom Lifting Cream is another Korean product in my collection. During my subscription box addiction period, I purchased a lot of Memeboxes, a Korean-based beauty product box. This was just moisturizer. It wasn’t the best I’ve ever used, but far from the worst. It did what it was supposed to do.
This hairspray took a long time to finish off, and yes, that is only a 63g bottle. I rarely do anything to my hair, a lot of days I’m doing good if I remember to brush it before throwing it into a messy bun on top of my head. For what I know about hairspray, this stuff was really good.
I’m not a huge makeup person at all, I might wear it once a week. Even when I do put makeup on, it’s fairly simple and straight forward – concealer under my eyes, a sweep of blush and mascara. If I’m really feeling adventurous, then I go for eyeliner as well. I am very particular about my mascara though, and once I open one it is only in use for a maximum of 6 months. I prefer small, sample sized ones like these three since I don’t feel like I am wasting as much. I ended up LOVING all three of these: Clarins Be Long Mascara, Benefit Roller Lash Mascara and Tarte Lights Camera Lashes Mascara. If I ever get to a point where I needed to purchase a full size tube, I would consider any of these. (I’d say in order would be Tarte, then Benefit and then Clarins).
These two fragrance samples belonged to Luke. I bought him one of the sample packs from Shoppers Drug Mart, where you receive 10 of these little samples for $75-$80, and then a coupon which lets you trade in for a full-size version of your favourite one. The Paco Rabanne 1 Million is actually the scent Luke traded in his coupon for, so he now owns a 100mL bottle of it – it was a hit (and from my point of view, it does smell amazing!). The other one, Arrogant by English Laundry, is also a really nice smelling scent. According to Luke, it was his 3rd or 4th favourite from the sample pack.
These are also from sample packs from Shoppers Drug Mart. I absolutely love these things, it lets you try out scents before committing to spending a ton of money on them. I have a huge perfume addiction, and I actually have 50mL bottles of both of these scents – Hot Couture by Givenchy and MyNY by DKNY. They both smell amazing!
If anyone is interested, here are links to previous Empties posts from my old blog: