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Justen and I have started the task of apartment hunting (YAYYYYYYY!!!!!). I’m a little overwhelmed with the thought of packing everything up and moving out, but I’m also really excited. Honestly, it will be the best thing to help me declutter. It’s one thing to see hundreds of things and decide to keep or put back or organize or something, and it’s another thing to start with an empty space and have to choose to make it cluttery. Cluttery is a new word I just made up, fyi.

Coming to Nashville, I brought a bunch of small sample products so that I could use up more of them while I’m here. I’ve been keeping them in a little drawer in the bathroom and the drawer was getting hard to open, so I figured it’s time to share what I’ve used up in the past two months. I’m trying to do these once a month for a year, so get used to seeing my garbage more often, haha.

I’ve decided to start allowing myself to just THROW THINGS AWAY if I don’t like them. I’m not sure why that’s so freaking hard for me, but it is.

Derma E Scrub
This is one of my favorites. I decided to try a new Derma E scrub after I received a sample of it in Birchbox, but I would and will always recommend this scrub as a product to always have on hand.

Trusted Health Products Amazingly Beautiful Moisturizing Body Serum
I won this from a blog giveaway awhile ago. I’d actually previously won another product from them, which I LOVED and was so excited to win and try. I really love these products. This had an orange scent to it (which Justen noticed and liked, which was a plus!) and it lasted for like… idk… EVER.

Taylor Swift Incredible Things Body Scrub + Body Wash
A few months ago I found this little Taylor Swift gift pack for $4 at Goodwill. Brand new. FOUR DOLLARS. I LOVE the Wonderstruck scent Taylor Swift makes so I assumed I’d like this but… nah. Not really that great. It had kind of a cleaning product scent to it. I’ve used it consistently (just to get rid of it, haha) and it never grew on me.

Simple Micellar Cleansing Water
I got this in a limited edition Birchbox I had ordered, and it had exploded everywhere! I was really looking forward to trying this product so I e-mailed Birchbox and they sent me an entire replacement box! Anyway that’s a random piece of info. I liked this! It was really effective and it lasted a long time. I really love this whole micellar cleansing water thing. Anybody have any tried + true micellar cleansing waters that you’d highly recommend?

Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Oil-Free Gel Cream
Okay so this could be a HUGE coincidence but when I started using this, my face got REALLY dry around my mouth. I’m not sure if it’s because of some other factor, but once I used this up and started using another cream on the dry patches, it healed up. So who even knows.

Vasanti Brighten Up Moisturizer
This was in my string of moisturizers – I liked it. Nothing great. It moisturized and did its job and there you go.

Origins Original Skin Renewal serum
Oh I liked this serum – it wasn’t greasy at all, and it was a little bit tinted which I loved because it wasn’t as obvious if I didn’t rub it in completely. I really like this.

Jurlique Soothing Moisturizing Cream
This stuff was really thick and felt really good applying it, but the smell was awful. Maybe I’ve had it for too long (QUITE POSSIBLE) but yuck. I can’t stop smelling it on my face and I need to immediately wash it off.

Ponds Rejuvenate Wrinkle Cream
I’ve never been able to commit to a moisturizer, and so I’ve supplemented breaks in getting samples from Birchbox with these travel sized Ponds tubs and then I realized that THIS IS AN ANTI WRINKLE CREAM, not just a moisturizer. And again, I’m allowing myself to just throw it away so GOODBYE WRINKLE CREAM THAT ISN’T ACTUALLY A MOISTURIZER.

Those two lipsticks on the left are ones I’m giving to someone else that can rock the bright, bold lipsticks.

Coastal Scents Revealed2 Palette Sampler Ballerina
I actually have the full palette of this! I’m definitely a light/nude/gold/rose gold eye shadow kind of girl, so I used the two colors I love the most and realize that I’ll never use up the last two colors, so I’m just going to toss it here and now. I love this palette because it’s full of really natural colors.

Root G3.5 Pearl Powder Mineral Foundation Sample
The last time I posted an empties recapping the zillions of products I’d been hoarding, I shared that I’d purchased a color of this powder but discovered it wasn’t as great of a match as I’d originally thought so I bought a sample that sealed the deal.

3 Perfume samples
This is from what I’ve written in the Notes app on my phone.

MMM… – Kind of spicy, earthy tones. Has a kick to it.
TokyoMilk – Creamyish scent that I didn’t like.
Other one (I can’t tell what it is!) smelled like cleaner.

Hard pass on all of them.

The Beauty Crop Fabulous Flocking Lashes
I wanted to love this mascara so bad. It’s pink with flamingos, it’s like everything you could ever want in a mascara… oh, except the actual mascara part itself. It was clumpy and then it literally turned into a big swab of mascara – you couldn’t even see the wand. So disappointing.

Olay Fresh Effects BB Cream
I bought this probably way too long ago when I first got into BB Creams and I was traveling and forgot my trusty Dr. Jart+ at home. At first it was too greasy and bronze-y looking, but as I started blending it with other BB creams to tone it down and then eventually started using the Root Pretty powder over it, I actually really started to enjoy this! I won’t buy it again since I LOOOVE the Root Pretty stuff, but I did eventually enjoy this!

Alright y’all, this is month 1 of 12 months of Empties posts. Let’s deplete my beauty sample stash over the next year!

Previous Empties posts here.

Shop some of these products here:

Okay y’all for the first time EVER I’m being SO INCREDIBLY DILIGENT about using up my beauty products. I mean, I seriously have been kind of amazed by how I’ve actually been able to try Birchbox samples and how I’ve decided that if I don’t like a product, I won’t force myself to use it I will just THROW IT THE HECK AWAY.

That said, I’m prepared to start my year of monthly Empties posts… BUT FIRST… lemme finish the last one, aight?! By waiting months and months and months, I end up with a long boring list of empty products and it drives me nuts. I end up doing empties posts out of necessity (i.e. I can’t shove any more into the little box I keep them in) when I really work best with the thought of “I need to have something to show for this month.” Seeing my little pile growing makes me excited to share them. But again. Let me go back to the lat one I was doing and wrap that up first.

The Body Shop Eye Shadow 
So I went to The Body Shop to buy the banana shampoo/conditioner I wrote about in the last post, and was greeted with a Buy 2 get 1 free sale. I ended up randomly picking out this eye shadow, which I ended up LOVING. It was a shimmery gold color and was so good to me down to the very last part.

Dr. Jart+ BB Cream 
This used to be the allstar of my beauty routine but has been out shadowed in the past year by Root Pretty, which I’ll write about. I discovered this through Birchbox (y’all, I suck at beauty/makeup and have LOVED learning through Birchbox) This BB Cream is smooth and not shiny and is a really great product.

NYC Cheek Glow in a color I’m not sure of anymore.
I desperately need help with blush. How do you use it? Like… so serious. I had this kind of rose colored blush for a long time, and then it ran out. This was so good to me for the price (it’s a drugstore brand, which is perfect for a person who has NO IDEA what they’re doing LOL)

Benefit The Porefessional
YEP. EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE. I use this literally EVERY day. It’s a little tinted, which I love. It does a really great job of minimizing pores without being greasy or heavy and it’s great for under makeup or even on its own. I love this stuff and cannot imagine my life without it. I randomly grabbed the smaller travel size while I was in line at Ulta one day, and it literally changed my life.

ELF Lip Balm Tint
Who even knows what shade this is. I threw it away because I’m over it. I don’t like it. Hard pass.

Root Pretty Pretty Booster
Okay that’s the little bottle AND most of those little tubes on the side. One of the things I LOVE about Root Pretty is that they allow you to buy little samples of like ALL OF THEIR PRODUCTS. When I was trying to find the right Pretty Balm, I tried a bunch of slightly different shades until I found the one that was juuust right. And I have never looked back. 😀 The little white tubs are of the powder. It’s taken me awhile to find the best shade for me in their powder… even after thinking I discovered it, I bought a full sized powder, then ordered one more sample color and realized the sample color was so much better than the full sized powder. Mixing them together for now. 🙂 {REMEMBER you can get 10% of your first purchase of $25 or more if you use my link}

Benefit Posie Balm
I wish I could remember what color this was. I got this in a Birchbox and I LOVED it. I loved the teeniest tint, because I honestly CANNOT do bold lip colors at all. Some people can rock that but I am not one of those people. which is why that bold coral Cynthia Rowley lip gloss right next to it was a HARD PASS.

True Organics Clay Mask
I’ve said it once, twice, and I’ll say it forevermore: most masks are the same to me. This is the same. Except I have this one bucket list mud mask: the GlamGlow one.  It’s like HECKA expensive but I’ve wanted to try it for like 5 years. Maybe one day I’ll splurge?

Also those 4 perfumes? The only opinion I can give you is this: I don’t care how ‘basic’ this makes me, but I FREAKING LOVE ALL THE JUICY COUTURE SCENTS, most especially the regular one. It was my signature smell like 10 years ago and I still smell it at the store and think “oh I love you, Juicy Couture.” Maybe that will be my gift to myself when I’ve finally rid myself of mountains of beauty products and smelly things.

WE DID IT.

We finished the 12th Installment of Empties. Holy Crap, this is probably the most consistent thing my blog has ever seen. I’ve been doing them off and on for over 3 years! On my 101 list is a goal to do one a month for a year, and I think I am SO READY to start that this month.

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Before I left for the summer, I decided to clear out my little tub of Empties and snap some photos so I could share them here. When I came to Nashville, I brought a few of my regular staples but I made sure to bring a TON of my samples so that I’d use those and be able to return with a crap ton less than I brought! Super excited to watch my little stash deplete 🙂

There was actually a BUNCH of stuff for this post but I decided to keep it to one picture since it was so overwhelming – I’ll do a part 2 like I had to do with my 11th round up. Too bad I couldn’t get my shhhh together to just post it like every month or something, amiright?! eye roll emoji here 🙂

Lots of great stuff to go through this time, so here we go!

• Biore Baking Soda Cleansing Scrub (I blogged about it here) – loved this stuff! I loved being able to control how scrubby it was.
• Root Pretty Face Cleanser (USE THIS LINK to get  10% off your first $25+ purchase) – tried this stuff out… I really loved the orange-y scent of this stuff, I just tend to lean towards cleansers and washes that have a scrub to them.
• Lollia Hand Cream in Wish – LOVE. I LOVE this stuff! This small tube is $8 so I definitely call this a splurge. One day I’ll buy more than just the small tube of it, but I absolutely love the scent of this and the way it’s not super greasy.
• Love + Sunshine Bath & Body Works lotion – it’s a nice, springy, happy scent! I don’t need any more lotion, though. And I’ve started figuring out that I’d rather pay full price and buy scents I like than buy whatever’s on clearance at the outlet.
• Derma E Purifying Detox Scrub – YUP! I LOVE DermaE. I’ve used their products for awhile, and I received this in a Birchbox and was SO EXCITED to try it. I absolutely loved this stuff – it’s scrubby! I’ll definitely be trying this once my current Derma-E face scrub runs out.
• Fabuloso Platinum Blonde Intensifying Conditioner – Well. I don’t think I actually have blonde hair in the slightest. I think I maybe used to dye my hair more blonde, but yeah. I think this stuff was purple, which is really cool. But… hard pass.
• Malin + Goetz clay mask – I actually really liked this stuff! I’m still of the idea that most face masks are like every other face mask, so I don’t think I’d ever purchase this on its own.
• St. Ives Fresh Skin Body Scrub – I bought this on sale or at a cheap store or something. I was like OMG ST IVES BODY SCRUB because don’t we ALL love St. Ives face scrub?! This was just like the face scrub but I felt like the scrubby bits were less intense. It was alright, but apparently while I love scrubby face scrubs, I’m not a huge fan of scrubby stuff on my body. Unless it’s a coffee scrub.
• Whish Body Butter in Coconut – IDK, coconut scents are hit or miss. I loved how thick this body butter was, and I really loved that it was in a tube unlike most of my other body butters which are in jars.
• The Healing Garden Sanctuary spray – This just had to go. I’ve had this for so long and it made me sneeze. I actually used it to spray on my shower curtain… I guess like a cheap Febreze. I was so excited for this to be empty because it was HUGE and took up SO MUCH SPACE and literally ALWAYS made me sneeze. Bye, Felicia!
• The Body Shop Banana Shampoo + Conditioner – IDK maybe I’m all about weird things but I LOVE banana scented stuff, and this shampoo/conditioner smelled BOMB DOT COM.
• Peter Lamas Pumpkin Scrub – I first reviewed this here and was so excited to stumble upon another small bottle of it. I absolutely LOVE this stuff – it smells amazing and has just the right amount of scrub.
• Neutrogena Ultra Light Cleansing Oil – I got this to try and replace the Garnier cleansing oil I love so much. This was okay, but it wasn’t great to use on my eyes like the other stuff was (have you figured out yet just how much I LOVE the Garnier stuff?!). I’ll keep trying to find something, but this wouldn’t be a terrible replacement.
• Root Pretty Organic Coconut Sugar Scrub – if you haven’t caught on, I love scrubby things. I was really excited to try this out (as I wrote here) but I wasn’t as impressed with it as I’d planned on being. I did find another Root scrub I love, though… so that will come in time!
• Batiste Wild Cherry Dry Shampoo – OK y’all, I think Batiste is literally the best dry shampoo in the world. I love that they have super fun scents. I like this one and the tropical one. What do you guys think?

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