Thoughts and tips about Project Pan

I just finished my first round of project pan and I wanted to write about what I’ve thought during this long process of trying to use up my makeup.

If you’d like to first read about my reasons for doing a project pan, you can first read about it in my project pan questionnaire post I did awhile back.

One thing I’m often pondering about project pan is how crazy this concept is. Don’t get me wrong, it is a great idea and cuddos for the girl who invented it but still, we shouldn’t need an incentive to use our makeup ’till it’s finished. I know many people have talked about it before but a regular person will only have a small bag of makeup, with maybe 5 – 10 products max and they will go through an entire blush, concealer, eyeshadow, etc. But it’s kind of crazy how we love to buy and get new things and accumulate. Each person has a reason to do it, be it conscious or subconscious but I do think it’s too much. I would love to be less materialistic and more minimalistic but I know I’m still not in that place in my life. With that said, I love doing project pan because even though it’s crazy that we need it, it’s awesome that it exists for people like us that do tend to collect a lot of makeup.

Other than that, I have thought of some ways to be successful on a project pan. Here are my tips:

• Don’t choose (only) products you hate: Many girls on project pan choose products they absolutely hate and want gone from their collection and they end up resenting these products because makeup application starts to become a chore. The one thing I believe you need to do on your project pan is to pick at least a couple products you actually enjoy using, but the thing is: there were days I hated the products I loved and there were days I loved the products I hated. So if you’re not comfortable about giving your products away to somebody that would enjoy it, make sure you at least are using some stuff you do love.
• Be creative with how you use your products (but always keep in mind health risks): Sometimes you need to think of different ways to use your products. Maybe you don’t feel comfortable in using that old pink eyeshadow as eyeshadow so you might consider using it as blush, but don’t forget to check if the product can be used in other places of your face so it doesn’t become a health risk Also think about different ways to pair your product with something else to try and make it work (like putting eyelash primer before that mascara you hate or pairing that lipstick that makes you look like a tired zombie with a lip liner that makes it look good).
• Choose at least a couple of products you know won’t take you forever to use up: Trust me, finishing up products makes you more excited to keep going, so if you know for the first couple of weeks you’ll finish a product, you’re more likely to stick to your project pan, even if you were about to finish that product quickly anyways.
• Don’t try to figure out how long it will take you to finish up some of the products: I did it all the time and I was almost always wrong. You just get anxious and excited about nothing, and when you don’t finish that product in the time frame you predicted you just get disencouraged to keep going.
• Always keep track of your products: in a notebook, post it, on your blog. That way you can look back and see how far you’ve come. A makeup inventory is a good thing to do when you’re project panning. I will post mine soon!
• Take picture of your products every week or couple of weeks: It feels really good being able to see your progress and makes you want to keep going until you see that pan showing or getting bigger.
• Leave your project pan products somewhere you can see them: that will make you more likely to use them when you do your makeup. If you have to search for them you probably will forget about them and use something else.

These are the tips I was able to come up with for the time being, maybe I’ll think of something else and then do a part 2 for this post. Hopefully this post wasn’t too long or too boring and hopefully it helped you in some way.

If you weren’t following my project pan round 1 from the beggining or if you want to re-read the updates, I’ll link each update on this post so you can read them chronologically:

 

List of products 

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

Week 10

Week 11

Week 12

Weeks 13 and 14

Week 15

Week 16

Week 17

Weeks 18 and 19

Week 20

Week 21

Week 22

Week 23

Week 24

Week 25

Week 26

Week 27

Week 28

Week 29

Week 30

Weeks 31, 32 and 33

Week 34

Finale (week 41ish)

Don’t forget to let me know if you’re doing a project pan and also your thoughts and tips for it!

Luiza

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