Project Pan: Falling Out Of (and Back In) Love With Makeup

If beauty products were boyfriends, I’d be a serial dater with a serious attachment issue. Half used bronzer? Can’t throw it out, what if I need that exact shade of “muddy orange regret” in six months? Lipstick that makes me look like a Victorian corpse? Straight to the bottom of the drawer, never to be worn again, but god forbid I bin it. Perfume I can’t stand? Better save it for “special occasions.”

Enter Project Pan.

For the uninitiated, Project Pan is basically beauty rehab. It’s the art of committing to the products you already own until you can literally see the bottom of the pan, bottle, or bullet.

It’s finishing what you started. It’s holding a mirror up to the capitalism fuelled beauty industry and to your own shameful bathroom shelf.

And in my case? It’s more than just using things up. It’s about finally letting go of an era.

Why I’m Really Doing This

I used to run a beauty business. Years of collecting makeup and skincare left me with shelves of products that aren’t just bottles and palettes, they’re memories. Some good, some exhausting, some I’ve outgrown. And honestly? I don’t want to keep hauling those ghosts into my thirties.

Now, my collection is not huge, far from it (in my opinion for a beauty lover) - but what I want is just to fall in love with makeup again. Not as a collector, not as someone chasing the next viral launch, but as someone who genuinely enjoys the ritual of putting it on again, I feel like in the rise and fall of my beauty brand, I've lost that love. For skincare, I want products that work for my face now, not the version of me from a decade ago.

This isn’t about going full minimalist monk and owning one mascara for the rest of my life. It’s about being mindful. Choosing products with purpose instead of bragging rights.

Knowing that if I keep something, it’s because it makes me feel good, not because I feel guilty about binning it.

And, if I’m brutally honest, I’m planning to move house in the next year and I really can’t be arsed to lug a fuck tonne of palettes and six “just in case” blushes to the next place.

The Plan

Here’s how this is going to work, there are normally rules in place for project pan, but as always, I need to do things my own twisted little way, all or nothing innit?

• Go through my entire collection and be ruthless.

• Project pan the things I know I’ll actually use.

• Donate or bin what I won’t (yes, even those viral products I bought “for the hype” (I’m looking into donation schemes that accept lightly used or sanitised products). The expired - obviously straight bin fodder

• Reframe my skincare with my actual skin in mind (award winning beauty therapist and skincare specialist here, I know better than to cling to products that don’t serve me).
  

It’s not about emptying everything as fast as I can. It’s about finding out what deserves a place in my routine, what sparks joy (yes, I went there), and what’s just clutter in a shiny tube.

What This Series Will Be

Think of this as beauty confession meets survival diary. Each month (or whenever I can face it), I’ll report back on, the products I actually used up, the ones that went straight to the graveyard because life’s too short, the lessons hiding in a pan of powder (because there always are).

This won’t be a smug “look how minimal and perfect I am now” series. It’s going to be messy. Honest. Sometimes petty. Always real.

Why You Should Care

Brutal honesty. If something is shit, I’ll say it. If something is great, I’ll begrudgingly admit it - most things will go in the vault if you want to read more about them.

And because maybe you’re the same. Maybe your makeup bag is a graveyard of impulse buys. Maybe you’ve been conned into thinking you need seventeen moisturisers to be a functioning adult. Maybe you’re secretly hoping I crack and buy another highlighter.

Either way, let’s do this together. I’ll show you my mess, you show me yours.

Because life is short, skin is precious, and storage space is limited.

Before's;