Project Make A Dent 2015 Intro: Use It or Lose It

New year, new Project Make A Dent! I will admit that reading about other bloggers' make-up collection resolutions and watching Project Pan videos has got me pretty excited to start the second volume of my Project Make A Dent as soon as possible. After looking through my collection, this year I've decided to really focus on some of the oldest products in my stash that I want to enjoy before they expire; hence I'm calling it the 'Use It or Lose It' edition.

For convenience sake, I've chosen 10 products ranging from face make-up to eyes and lips. For my base, I will continue working on the Face Atelier Ultra Foundation in Porcelain - the heavier formula means I can only use this in the colder months, but with only 1/2 of the bottle left to go, I'm confident I can use it up completely. To set my foundation, I want to finish up this deluxe sample of Make Up For Ever HD Loose Powder; there's only 1/4 remaining in the jar. My one cheek product in this Project is the old mini of Stila Convertible Color in Lillium; hopefully you can see that little bit of pan in the middle, so that should make it easier to track my progress.

This year, I'd like to downsize my collection of cream eyeshadow pots, so I've pulled one of the oldest and most loved jars in my stash, the Maybelline Color Tattoo in Bad to the Bronze. It is definitely a lot drier and harder than when I first got it, but if it dries out too much to use, I'm hoping to revive it with some Inglot Duraline and see how that goes. Seeing as I made good progress on using up some of my pencil eyeliners last year, I chose two more pencils: the Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On in Rockstar and the Sephora Nano Eyeliner in Nuage.

I've made marks with a sharpie on the glosses and foundation bottle to be able to judge my progress more easily.

Lastly, I thought long and hard about my lip product picks for this challenge. I chose four lip products in total in a variety of shades and finishes: from bold to neutral, opaque to sheer, cream to shimmer. This way, I'll have all my bases covered with items from the challenge, so I'll hopefully reach for these products quite often. The Revlon Super Lustrous Lip Gloss in Coral Reef has about 3/5 left in the tube, while the Michael Todd Creme Glace in Natural is a bit more than half used up. The Chanel Rouge Coco Shine in Monte Carlo and the Inglot Gel Lipstick no. 58 both seem to have roughly the same amount left, as the Inglot lipstick is longer but a much skinnier bullet than the Chanel.

Now that I've listed all the denting victims, here are some changes from last year's project. I chose more products this time around, and pretty much all of them had already seen some substantial usage in the past. The aim of this is to have more variety, and also to feel less pressured to completely use up products; I know some of these items like the pencil liners and glosses should get finished easily, but if I don't completely scrape out that blush or bold lipstick, I'm cool with that too. I also mostly picked out products I like and enjoy using, so again, reaching for them shouldn't feel as forced as it sometimes did in the past year's Project MAD.

In terms of blog-friendly practices, I'm also going to keep all of the empty containers as the products are being finished and only toss them at the end of the year for the sake of photo continuity. For the same reason, I'm also NOT going to introduce new items when these products get used up - I thought that last year, the changing products were probably quite confusing to you. If I make fabulous progress quicker than anticipated (say, most products finished by June rather than December), I'll just start a separate Project Pan with new items to keep challenging myself to use my stash.

And that's about it! I'm feeling quite motivated to start this new challenge and I believe I should see a lot make-up empties by the time December 2015 rolls around (well, even if I don't, they're going in the trash anyway ;). Are you guys participating in any stash-reducing projects this year? Please let me know if you're participating in a Project Make A Dent this year too, I love seeing everyone's picks and progress!