While browsing some Youtube videos about recovering from shopping and makeup addiction, I was recommended a video about "updates on project pan". I found it interesting, especially to reinforce a "no buy" period, so I decided to give it a go.
WHAT IS PROJECT PAN?
It’s a challenge to finish up your beauty products, so you hit ‘the pan’.
The main goal of this project is to shift the focus on what we already own instead of constantly purchasing and trying out new things. That being said, is there difference between simply finishing a product or doing the project pan? Not really, but the main difference is that you consciously decide to first, finish a particular product and second, not to buy anything similar while you’re using it up. That way you’ll increase your awareness around beauty products which will change how you perceive them forever.
WHAT CAN YOU LEARN?
The biggest problem with beauty products is that it takes us five seconds to buy them, but it can take us anywhere from 3 months to 3 years to use them up.It’s crazy if you think about it. And it’s even crazier we’re not conscious of it.
The project pan opens up your eyes about how much use we get from one product. We may think a small blush will not last long, but in reality, it’s quite the opposite.
I’m even seeing the trend of making blushes and bronzers bigger, so we feel we get more for our money, but honestly, who is using this stuff up? Maybe makeup artists and beauty influencers, but I don’t know anyone close to me who uses an insane amount of makeup.
So ask yourself: when was the last time you finished a nail polish? Or an eyeshadow palette? Or even a lipstick? And if you do finish something up – how frequently does that happen?
When we bring in awareness and we consciously start focusing on using what we own, we start shopping differently – we think at least twice if not more, before buying it.
And because we know long it will take us to use something up, we also have to make sure we really love it in order to justify buying it.
OTHER BENEFITS OF DOING A PROJECT PAN:
- You’ll save money: when you start focusing on products you want to finish and at the same time you stop buying new products until you need to replace them, it will save you some money, if not a lot!
- Less decision making: if you’re one of those people that have to decide each day, which cream, perfume, blush or lipstick to use and you find it a bit stressful, then this is good news for you. Now you don’t have to think about which product to use, because you already decided in advance.
- Sense of accomplishment: this might seem weird to some people, but there comes this amazing feeling when you use something up or hit the pan. And the more you do it, the more you want to feel like finishing your products because it gives you a sense of achievement.
- Less waste: buying beauty products that we don’t use up and we keep replacing with new shinier things, is very wasteful. Imagine how much less waste there would be if we only bought things once we would completely use them up.
- You’ll learn a few new tricks: beauty products can be more versatile than we think – an eyeshadow can be used as a highlighter or a contour powder, and even as an eyeliner. Lipstick can be used as a cream blush, and so on. Once we make a commitment to use something up, we suddenly start experimenting with that product more and that leads us to learn a few new things.
HOW TO PAN SUCCESSFULLY?
If you’re interested in trying it out for yourself, here are some tips that will help you be more successful, and also make sure you’ll enjoy it more:
- Pick only items you love: there is no need to force yourself to use something you hate. Instead, you can repurpose that product or give it to someone who will appreciate it.
- Pick one item in each category only: if you decided to hit pan on a blush, pick only one blush! You may be eager to use a lot of your things but trust me; this works best if you focus on one particular product at the time. If you want to use up multiple items that serve the same purpose, it will take you much longer and you’ll enjoy it less.
- Be mindful about purchasing a new version of the product you’re trying to use up: I used to get really excited when I was close to finishing a product, so I went out and bought a new version of it. That resulted in me being disappointed that I had to continue using the old one, so I was rushing through it. On the other hand, having a replacement can be a great source of motivation, but we have to do it mentally only. That means that you can browse and find your new thing, but without purchasing it. And then, once you finish the product you buy it! This will feel like a reward and you’ll enjoy the panning more.
- Decide if you want to use up the item entirely or do you want to hit the pan: when using up skincare, body products, creams, foundations and perfumes I always use every drop. But with powdered makeup, that can be a bit tricky. It can take us years, yes you heard me right, years to finish a certain product and in that case, I decide hitting the pan is enough for me to replace it, especially if I had it for a while.
- Look at the dates: some people don’t know that cosmetics come with an expiration date. So if you want to pan successfully, look at the dates to help you decide which products to focus on first. You can also use dates as your finish line: if you see that a particular item will expire soon, but there is still a lot of it left, commit to using it as much as you can before it expires. Indeed, sometimes the product is still good even after the date, so you can extend that line for a few months, but if something is off, smells bad or the consistency isn’t right, then just trash it.
- Put similar products out of sight: if you’re trying to use up your face cream completely, but you have a few in your cabinet, I recommend that you put others into the storage, so you don’t have to worry about them. And then when you finish your intended product, you can bring them back.
- You can name your project pans and set up a deadline: this is not necessary in order to pan successfully, but it can be a lot of fun for some people. You can do seasonal challenges or even travelling challenges, when I’m going somewhere I take products I want to use up with me in hopes of not bringing them back because there would be none left.
- You can share it online: there are a lot of different communities out there that love sharing their progress of panning.
- Include nail polishes as well: when was the last time you finished a nail polish? It probably takes us years and usually, we get tired of that colour and we buy something new. So try committing to one colour (or maybe two colours) and see how you like it.
- Think about other non-beauty products you can use up: my friend decluttered a bunch of pencils, and because I use them daily I took them and I’m now using them us up as I go. It’s very gratifying for me. Other non-beauty product you can use up: food, paper, notebooks and journals, stationery, books, cleaning products, and so on.
WHAT I’M PANNING IN 2023
Below are some things that I plan to use up in 2023:
- Samples, I have tons of samples from several brands and these tend to go bad really quickly if not used within their timeframe, due to little product present. Samples have expiration dates too, and once opened it shouldn't take you much from a couple of days to a week to finish that particular sample up. Last year I decided to get a mini advent calendar of stuff from a kbeauty store and guess what? I ended up with even more samples!! I gifted some to friends according to their needs, but I still have a lot left....
- I'm still deciding which bronzer I'm gonna try to pan this year, I have 3 atm (WHY? I guess I'll blame being gyaru for that one haha)
- A Fenty beauty foundation that's wayyyyy too many shades lighter for me, that I got for Halloween to use as 'white makeup' or closest to it for my Gerard Way cosplay. I have a different Fenty foundation in a darker color and I plan to mix them both accordingly to summer/autumn/winter 2024...
- Lipstick and lip products I got in 2021/2022 and I haven't got much use of them (i.e weird colors, not "every day" colors, etc)
- My highlighter palette from BH, which I love, and I tried to replace it to no avail, and is still looking and feeling fine on my skin.
- Zara and Juicy Couture perfumes... I have too many.
- Lush gel shower products in general. I've had the Snow fairy shower gel since forever, same as the jelly soapies that I forgot the name, or the Lord of Misrule gel, among other. I also have a shower gel from The Body Shop that is not getting enough use.
- Face masks! I have a lot of them since forever, some might actually be expired, and also, the ones I didn't use it yet might be endangered too. Plus they also clutter the planet as they are a 1 use only thing, so it's better to stick to other products containing same active principles as those (as seen in kbeauty mostly!)
- Brow products in general. Since I got mine microbladed I kinda stopped using them on a daily basis. Maybe I can gift them to my sister or a friend, but since they are opened and used, I don't feel so comfy on sharing them to others due to hygiene reasons.
- Ultra Facial Cream & Toner from Kiehl's. I've had them for a while and I love them, but other products got me distracted of using them. I'm afraid they're gonna go bad if I don't.
- And lastly, I have a daily reviving concentrate from Kiehl's that I'm afraid it got past its expiration date, and I'm gonna repurpose it into hair oil, which is something I have consulted with Kiehl's salespeople before and they did give me the heads up (as in it's okay to use is for colored hair, and it's not gonna be damaging or whatever).
I'm planning on using all of them and so far I am getting great progress done here, but I know that I probably won't pan most of them (with the exception of samples and minis, that is).
I can also save up all the pots/containers from stuff from Lush, Kiehl's and a bunch more to get discount coupons in the future when/if I decide to repurchase some of them.
As much as I love decluttering and getting rid of things that I don’t want to own, there is a beauty in using things up. It makes us appreciate them more and makes us a much better consumer.
So if you haven’t already, I would encourage you to try it – simply pick products that you want to use up and commit to using them up. It’s that easy!
xoxo,
Hello everyone and Happy New Year! Hope you're all doing okay
So I decided to start this series in English because of several reasons, the most important one being that there's not much active gyaru bloggers nowadays so I want to give something back to our AMAZING international gyaru community. I still have soooo many topics I wanna talk about and share with you, but life and stuff gets in the way...
Anyways^^ I felt really inspired by Mel's blog lately so I want to give blogging regularly a try again
Thanks cutie for your support!!
Thanks cutie for your support!!
The complete list of this "Gyaru Meme" (not actually a meme, but a 30-day challenge) can be found in this post. The original links back to Lizzie Bee's blog, although I am not sure if it is still available up there.
I know that making my entries in English makes me unavailable/unreachable for most local people who come here for the posts in Spanish (especially those about travels!), so I'll continue writing those in Spanish.
That being said, it's not easy having a blog when you speak more than one language! ;__;
Day 01 – When did you start dressing gyaru?
I started dressing gyaru-like in late 2010, after kpop boom exploded in Argentina, where I was living at the time. :D
Kpop, you say? Yeah, at the time, SNSD members were a huge part of my influence.
Also, I was HEAVY on the white eyeliner makeup. At the time I use to cosplay too, so abusing that poor white kohl was something common at the time (but soon I learnt that it was not as accurate...).
From 2008 and onwards, I used to look at gyaru magazines at a (now defunct) social media called Fotolog, that was heavily used in LatinAmerica, searching for coord inspiration more than anything, since I wasn't too keen on the makeup aspect. I wore little to NO MAKEUP at the time!
However, I kept pushing those scans & inspo away due to different reasons, the biggest one being that my partner at the time had strong opinions about gyaru. Strong opinions about a lot of "conservative" topics, while restricting my personal style and development. I'm glad to say now that the relationship didn't go further than that, so enter 2010 and the kpop boom, the excuse I just needed to get in :D
Whoa, such a walk down memory lane...!
Hope it was not to boring to read 😅
See you in the next entry!
Til then, take care,
Yo fam! What's up? 💖
I have tons of drafts written... Like years ago! Stuff I never published before because it needed further proofreading, needed more pictures... Or the opposite, only had pictures saved as draft, and I was lacking the words! Lol.
So here it is a very old and unhinged draft (probably from early 2021, it's like it's written by a different person, beware!) that I wrote about my own gyaru history, about growing up and GLOWING UP, after almost 12 years of gyaru!
Soooo how exactly did I got into gyaru?
Let's travel back in time to the year 2002, where the literal GAL BOOM exploded.
At the time I was 13 years old and completely unaware of it, as I didn't care much about fashion cuz my boom was ANIME. I mean, I loved the whole amekaji aesthetic that was trending in the 00s. I can only see it now, but that "amekaji" was truly bleeding onto local brands, and I liked the combo of sporty/cute, yeah, but there was no way to afford it.
The whole otaku life with a low budged was pretty difficult back then, I HAD TO CHOOSE between going to cons and paying for entrance ticket OR getting anime merch/manga tankoubons/anime cds and shit (IF I was able to afford anything, tbh). Sometimes fashion was definitely out of the question.
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| I looked like this, wtf was up with the tan? idk xD |
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| or like this lol |
I went to cons that were basically screenings of newest animes. I had seen a few life-changing animes that truly converted me to the genre, like Weiss Kreuz, Fushigi Yuugi, Ayashi no Ceres, Yami no Matsuei, to name a few that comes off the top of my head. This is when I stumbled upon SUPER GALS!
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(It seems I also made sure I had no money left by spending my small allowance on cosplays lol) |
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| although this one was borrowed from a fellow otaku friend (? |
I loved the synopsis about Super GALS. I truly saw my younger self in Ran Kotobuki, always wanting to be the center of attention AND the most fashionable gal ever, always up to date with trends. The most charismatic gal ever and against all prejudice and injustice. Broooo I really felt that!
So imagine my surprise when around 2004 I found out that my local con was gonna do a screening of Super GALS?!!??!?!?! I WENT NUTS. We were even planning to make cosplays of Ran/Miyu/Aya with my squad, within our low budgets of course, but no one would ever recognize us XD Anyways... although the anime was full of filler, we loved it and I was so lucky to be able to watch it and was really content with that. I never looked past the anime, tho. The low budget thing was real and I didn't even wear makeup so once the SUPER GALS boom was over, I moved onto different animes...
So, like I told you above, I got into SUPER GALS! anime but I never thought of getting into "gyaru" myself. I thought kogyaru was cute and that GAL was just that. Kogyaru. lol. Let a gal be ignorant and weeby, okay? Remember I was 15 at most! (2004 for sure)
I told you guys I moved onto newer and more exciting animes, after all, the 00s were the golden era of anime, there was so much good shit to watch, I felt like I've never catch up with everything lol.
I completely forgot about Super Gals and kogyaru for a while... So let's fast forward to 2009.
In LatinAmerica we had a social network that was huge back then, called FOTOLOG. Fotolog was just like Instagram, it had the same social effect: you would post a cute picture with a caption (that noone would read) and compete with other people about how many comments you got under your post. Each post had a limit of 20 comments and if you had all the 20 comment slots full, you were considered POPULAR AF, thus more people would rush to comment under your pic in time. LOL what a wild ride xD
I was somewhat popular in Fotolog due to the emo/scene current at the time, so my aesthetic was super different to gyaru, but even then I was trying to move a bit from the emo shit and getting back on track and looking (somewhat?) fashionable, also started looking up some trends from haute couture, VOGUE magazine and fashion bloggers (and failing at it btw! haha). We were having a bit of a blogger boom in here also! So I was very much transitioning from emo to normie-chan, basically, ahahah.
But Fotolog had one last card under their sleeve, and that was a gyaru scan themed fotolog.
I SWEAR TO GOD everything changed when I stumbled upon that page, which provided also some download links! I became rabid for anything gyaru. I don't remember which one was the first, but I do remember it was Jelly/ViVi. The content was clearly more grownup/toned down gyaru but it was matching with the blogger aesthetic I was looking for. Hey, they even had a substyle called "blogger"/"mode"! I was in heaven! I even remember I got some NYLON Japan scans, wow.
This was my jam back then too lol
Of course this led me to dig up more and more scans until my pc storage was full af and I had to burn some data dvds lol but nothing mattered anymore cuz I GOT EGG, RANZUKI, AGEHA and all those "holy grail" magazines...
I even remember I found a forum called "Gyaru no Paradaisu" that was run by the Hysterical gals from the iconic Spanish gyarusa. I started participating in the forum, but a bit erratically.
After all, 2009 was a super insecure year for me, I was focused on uni and working full shifts at Starbucks, that was difficult enough, plus some snarky comments about ganguro/yamanba that my gf at the time made, all that made me push it to the back of my mind. But believe me, a fire was sparked in my heart, so as soon as that gf ditched me I went back to my love of Japanese magazines and started experimenting with my fashion style and also tried to be a blogger for a while. So this was what I did on 2010 (and aside from Gyaru no Paradaisu, I didn't get into online communities like Ricoche and all, cuz I didn't know they existed).
2010 vs 2015
Soooooooooo FINALLY! in 2011 I felt like I had enough "practice" and joined some gyaru facebook communities to start indulging in gal style FOR ONCE AND FOR ALLLLLLLLLL. I even created this blog to share the highly rapidly pace at what gal was evolving in my country (Argentina) and to document my style, my hauls, etc.
(well, tecnically the first post was in late 2010 about random things I liked like my blinged out phone - but not really gal imo and I started being constant in 2011 soooo I take March 2011 as my gal anniversary date)
I think the rest is history! :) I'm still in love with gal, almost 12 years later so this marks a decade in gal style and how important the style is for me...
I'll continue in the next post! (GYARU MEME DAY 1)
If you read everything until here, I LOVE YOU lol
xoxo,
Inagurando esta nueva (o no) sección llamada "Reflexiones", desde hoy empezaré a hablar en mi blog de temas que me interpelan, más allá de la moda, de un modo en el que no quiero acusar con el dedo a nadie, por lo que la recopilación de experiencias acá no es más que un puñado de reflexiones, justamente, que no hablan de nadie y sobre nadie, pero que tienen que ver con mis experiencias pasadas.
El género irá cambiando durante las narraciones. My English-speaking friends can use a translator on this, if they want. There's not gonna be an English version of these, for now.
| Ohhh boiiii I think I have spammed everywhere with this topic already 🙈 If you are not into them I suggest you skip this blog entry~ |
I privated a lot of old entries so this blog ended up kinda wonky lol so I figure why not post something somewhat "recent" to spice it up 😅 until I fix all the privated entries... This one is gonna be a messy one, full of word vomit and I won't proof read it so either you take it as is, or you're free to read other blogs ahahaha.
SOOOOOO
As many of you can tell, My Chemical Romance is my favourite band ever!
The Three cheers for sweet revenge album kinda defined me as a person, back in the day in 2006 when I was going thru a hard time, gave me strength that I didn't know I had in me. Yes, lol, like every other MCR fan out there, I have sometimes claimed they saved me. (Oh so cornyyyyyyyy lol)
Anywaysssssss
On Wednesday May 25th my sis and I went to My Chem's gig in Dublin! Last time I saw them live was in Feb 2008 in Argentina and that shit was total CHAOS hahahahahahah.
We pulled this gig out of nowhere, it was totally random, unplanned and last minute (yup still recovering from that... getting a hotel was difficult and overpriced ofc but what can u do?).
I honestly never considered that MCR had a proper comeback after all and it shows on the lack of our planning for this gig 😂
Since their breakup in 2013 I never thought they'd be back together, and I had even less hope for a world tour. I became, for a lack of a better word, d i s e n c h a n t e d with them (see what I did there 👋👀). When the shrine gig happened I honestly didn't felt it, people where freaking out in a good way about it but I was so not moved by that gig, it bored me and only gave me more of the sads and shit and nostalgia of the old times. I did go onto binge-listening their old stuff and cried (yup) because I had been refraining from listening to their music since the breakup happened. It was just too hard. Anyways, I did go super hard on that deep-dive, found out about the "phantoms forever"/MYCHLRN sigil, and then, as if it was magick, I COMPLETELY ABOUT THEM 🤣 (although isn't that how sigils are supposed to work? AHAHAHAHA)
And back to European tour dates. I woke up one day to videos of Eden project and Milton Keynes and start to freakout cuz they sound NOTHING like the shrine reunion, they sound like old MCR we all love, super rawwww AF and I hated myself for slacking off on it and for having lost trust in them =(
It was Friday 20th night and we were watching the newest shows on Youtube with my sis and we both felt that itch and that fomo HAHA "what if we go see them in Dublin?" "they're not coming to Spain anyways" "even less Argentina or LatinAmerica again" lolololol so we took the plunge and I booked all the shit for Wednesdays show. I originally wanted to go to Cardiff on Sat 28th so I could do it without taking time off work in the middle of the week, but tickets were just sold out. SO DUBLIN IT WAS. Easy flight from here anyways. Cheap flights too.
I will later add an entry for doing touristy shit in Dublin and stuff, it's a lot otherwise :P
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But I promise you we were there :P lol
The work part we just managed to wing it from Temple Bar / other bars found in the city centre tbh. 😂 Gotta love IT work positions tho 😂
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Dublin was awfully crazy full of emo people of ALL ages, we all were going to MCR it seemed 🤣 that shit was so freaking funny. Another funny thing was us walking down the streets and I had red eye makeup which ended up looking like Bert's.... and a girl stared at me sooooooooooo hard on the streets that I just laughed and said "MCR!" ahahahahah "are u going?" "I'm going!!!!!!" kinda thing lol so fun
My coord for the gig:
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I meant to be on tights and skirt only but man, Dublin is cold AF (well, I'm pretty spoiled by the good weather 24/7 we have in Barna, sorry HAHA) and I didn't want to risk it (I'm old and recovering from the flu takes time as a person with asthma) so I ended up using my skinnies like black tights hahahahahahaha at least they were not that noticeable!
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I also got my nails done the day before with the first technician I was able to find on my neighborhood, which was a Chinese place in which they worked super fast, they took walk-in appts (and hey, I still have them on me, so they work well too!), something simple but the request was that they were gonna be red and black and some rhinestones or sth. Check.
Some people really thought I was gonna be the absolute madman and go camp outside Royal Hospital Kilmainham to get a place in the barrier, but I'm sorry... do I look like I'm 20 or something????? I mean, I may, but I'm 33, so don't give me crap about it and leave me alone, I'll go after I finish my Guinness pint and my emo inspired rokku gyaru make...
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Probably you've seen it already, but here's my make for the gig! |
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Merch was amazing, I got the tour poster, Foundations of decay tee/reworked Revenge tee. The boyzone one was SOLD OUT! sniffffff hahaha that shit was hilarious!
The venue itself was a super park that was nice, and getting inside was easy, there were tons of foodtrucks, WC everywhere, and a hill that made watching from the standing pit REALLY EASY (gotta love first world countries, amirite?????) kek but anyways doors were opening at 5 pm and we arrived around 6:30 and we were cool... No big queues so far, we were able to get most of the merch (minus the "Boyzone" tee) and also you were able to go to the front as much as you'd like if you wanted, but we decided to stay on the hill for a bit to listen to Starcrawlers (sick cover of Pet Sematary! instant like) and Gayle (ABCDEeeeeeeeefff uuuu ❤️🔥). Then we went down the hill a bit to get closer to the stage, not too much since we didn't want to get in the mosh/pogo pit, we had enough of that in 2008 ahahhahahahaa.
I have to admit I cried with all of them TBP songs :P Disappear, Famous Last Words, Sleep, at least for me, they're the most emotional ones [FOR ME] and remind me so much of the 2008 gig that already was a dream come true...But also in 2006 when TBP was released was such a special moment for all us in the MCR Argentina forum (yuuuup, forum haha). I cannot avoid those songs to transport me to that era in time and it was just too much ahaha.
I also cried with Kids of yesterday, which by definition, I am clearly one. Not that I live in the past or shit, but I did felt the time warp in my head soooo bad haha.
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I loved the whole setlist even though I missed my personal favourites from the list. But hey you cannot have your cake and eat it too hahaha. I was also joking about that with Ariel, since whilst I was gone, he didn't take care of my plants and some have kinda died since then lol. Rip lil strawberry XD
It was also an amazing way to bond with my sis ofc, since so much water had gone under the water. =')
Here's our journey to the concert, I made it into a reels video (of course lol):
You can see my full concert (sorta) video here though, my sis and I managed to record some parts and whatnot, hope you like it!!! I am sorry for any wonky footage, I was trying to enjoy the show too hahahaha but thanks to working out like a madman this year, my arms weren't too tired after all and I could hold my phone up over my head the whole concert :D 💖
Anyways this was my recap of the My Chemical Romance concert! Hope you like it!!!!
xoxo,
PS: I am now editing this entry and wtf, I still don't know how to fix the wonky layout for post images... Guess I''ll look into that later cuz it's pissing me off a lot 😂
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