Spring cleaning isn’t limited to your closets packed with clothes you probably haven’t tried on since before the millennium, beauty products also seem to stack up before you know it.
Throwing things away is hard, especially when you have something you really wanted and spent too much on only to realize you didn’t need or want it once you were home. A makeup exchange is a perfect solution to gain a few new things, purge the old and not to waste anything in the process. Gather up all of the beauty products that are lightly used and under a year old that you no longer need and have a few friends do the same. Invite them over and begin trading things you don’t want for things you do. Keep a few things in mind;
– Sanitize all products ahead of time by dipping lipsticks in alcohol, washing brushes (I use baby shampoo, any liquid soap is fine), lightly spraying a cotton puff with alcohol to remove the top layer of anything powder like shadows and blushes. Just make sure things are nice and clean and the way you’d like to receive them.
– Know what you’re looking for. Are you giving away a million lipsticks you’ve purchased because you only wear one shade of gloss? Do you buy shimmery shadows because you love the look but don’t know how to wear them? The idea is to get rid of things you don’t use, take note of what doesn’t work for you, get rid of it, and don’t bring a new version of it home.
If you’d like, bring a few bags of clothing items for trade too and donate what isn’t traded to your favorite charity, women’s shelters are always looking for toiletries since their clients are often arriving in the middle of the night with only the clothes on their backs.