New Year's Resolutions

I usually don't make any beauty related resolutions.

I see makeup as a really fun hobby, so if I'm a little overenthusiastic and have way more than the average person could ever really need, I cut myself some slack since my other "hobbies" (i.e. obsessively following baseball and hockey (sometimes football when the Jets aren't making total asses of themselves) and reading, mainly) don't eat up a whole lot of money.

And I usually stick to my monthly beauty budget so I can't really work up the motivation to make a resolution to go on a no-buy or try Project 10 again (I've failed at it on about 5 separate occasions, for the record) or any of those kinds of things.

That said, I really want to resolve to get the most out of my makeup in 2013 and because I have such a large collection, I think that does necessitate a few changes.

1) While I'm not officially going on a no-buy, I'm really going to try to curtail my eyeshadow buying this year.

Since powder products last longer than cream or liquid, eyeshadows tend to stick around longer than a foundation or a lip gloss. I have so many palettes at this point that I must have every single eyeshadow shade that I could ever need in my lifetime.

Seriously.

That's because I'm such a sucker for pretty packaging and the convenience of having a collection of shadows all in one spot. 

It's a serious weakness.

While I anticipate that I'll probably buy a palette or two, as well as a few single eyeshadows here and there, this year, I'm going to not to buy every new one that comes out just because they look so pretty.

I've already talked myself out of buying the upcoming Meet Matt(e) Nude Palette from the Balm, which, if you know my obsession with the Balm, is nothing short of miraculous.  (I suspect that I will buy it at some point in the future, but at least I'll wait until it shows up at HauteLook at a remarkable discount or something.)

But MAC does have an Archie Comics inspired collection coming out in the next month or so, I believe, and I'd be pretty surprised if I don't wind up buying one of the palettes from that line.

What can I say?

The nostaglia for Archie and the gang will totally suck me in.

2) I've got to find some way to maximize my makeup storage space so certain products don't keep falling to the back of a drawer where I inevitably forget about them.

For the past five years, I have had the same exact Rubbermaid plastic drawer carts to hold my makeup.

I have two of them, with five drawers each.  Now, they certainly hold plenty of makeup but even with my pretty frequent purchases, I haven't outgrown them (I'm pretty good about purging products I don't use by either throwing away items that have gone bad or giving them to good homes that will appreciate them far more than I can).

There's plenty of room in these drawers, but they could definitely be better organized.

I don't plan to outgrow my carts this year either - though I probably should think about upgrading them at some point; they're starting to look a little ragged - but I have to find a better way to organize them so I have better access to my collection and remember to use more of it.

Last summer, I bought a few Z Palettes with the intention of depotting my single eyeshadows and maybe some palettes to consolidate my collection.

Got to put these Z palettes to good use in 2013

I never did.

So in 2013, I resolve to finally tackle this project.

However, I do need some advice if anyone out there is an expert depotter.

I have only depotted MAC shadows and that was years ago.  It went relatively well - I didn't lose any - but I'm not very confident in my skills.

The other day, I decided to depot some of my elf single shadows - I decided those were good ones to start with since they're pretty cheap and I wouldn't be too upset if I damaged them.

I broke 3 out of 8 during the process, which has me even more unsure about the whole thing.

If you've done some serious depotting, what is your favorite method?  Do you have any tips or tricks that you can share?

I'm totally clueless so any and all help is appreciated.

3) I've got to find a better way to store my collection of loose pigments and eye shadows.

I've mentioned before that I've been a big Bare Escentuals fan going back to my college days, and while I'm totally in love with their Ready pressed products these days, I have plenty of their traditional loose shadows in my collection, along with some MAC pigments and other loose products.

Right now, they're all stacked on top of one another in a single drawer, which means that some of them are hard to access and I forget about certain colors that I have.

I hate it because I know that there are a bunch of gorgeous colors in there.

Pressing the pigments seems like it might allow for better storage. I know that it lessens the versatility of loose shadows but I only use them on my eyes so it really wouldn't impact me.

I'm hesitant to do only because I'm worried that pressing them might affect their quality, color and consistency (and it reminds me a little too much of high school chemistry, which was never my favorite subject)

I know next to nothing about pressing pigments so if you have experience doing it or know of some good tutorials online, particularly for pressing Bare Escentuals shadows, please point me in the right direction.


So there they are - my makeup resolutions for 2013.  Nothing earth-shattering, I know, but if I manage to follow through on them, I think that I'd really be able to put my collection to better use. 

That's all I want.

Have you made any makeup or beauty resolutions for 2013?  What about other resolutions?  (Mine are totally predictable - eat healthier and exercise more. Boring, I know.)