One month in…what have I learned? A Slow Buy update.

As I’m writing this it is January 5th, 2025. I am a quarter century older. My habits are a quarter century more engrained. Until now!

December was when I began my Slow Buy. The category for December was makeup (meaning that I cannot buy makeup in December).

Well, I have an inner gremlin who wants to find any and all loop holes and take advantage of them. It did that buy finding skincare that was tinted. The brand I bought was Typology.

I was reminded of Typology from influencers. I believe it was Hannah Louise Poston* who was doing a video on going through her stash and she had a product or two that she mentioned. I had seen the brand on Instagram already and had considered buying something but just never did. Well this time I did.

To be clear, I do not regret the products. The tinted/color products I love.

I also knew that January’s category to add on would be skincare, and seeing as I used it to break December’s category made it even more important to do this in January.

As so often happens these sorts of projects tend to bring up feelings of scarcity, anxiety, fear, and panic. It even has a name: “panic buying”. The conscious mind knows that the future will be painful. The unconscious mind (and sometimes conscious mind) wants to prepare for that. The problem is when it’s used as an excuse, as a means to get your fix. When that happens then it’s not about the actual practicalities of the acts of preparation but of addiction.

Here’s an example. I love the Merit Great Skin serum and moisturizer. When the VIB sale happened I bought 3 of each as I was going to be out of the spray serum I as using and face cream. I knew I loved the products, would use the products, and this was a good time to get these staples as they were on sale. Did I need to buy 3 of each? No. This was a practical and thought-out choice and I think because of that I didn’t feel the dopamine flood of getting a fix.

What also happened in December though was there was another sale and I saw a Tatcha set. I was reminded “oh! I like this face cream. Oh wow, now it’s refillable?? I love that! And it includes the lip product that I’ve been wanting to try?! Sold.” Then, when I bought the lip oil from Typology, I dove deeper into the product offerings and saw there was a chemical lip exfoliant. Online I saw someone say that she loved this product, that it made her chronically dry and flaky lips soft. This is an issue I have and have had for years. Using the lip oil was working but it felt like this would help too, so I bought it.

Then I saw a prepackaged gift set that included the tinted serum (which was what I had really wanted) and the glow drops (which HLP had used in a video) alongside a different lip oil shade and a mascara. So if I got this set then I could do my entire face. And then a few days after that set arrived and I loved that too, I could feel January looming. December was getting closer and closer to being over. The panic was setting in. Now, it wasn't strong, but it was there.

On their website they had another skincare trial set. It was (I think) 10 mini products. So 1. I love minis because they’re able to be used 2. I can see if there are products that irritate my skin or ones that feel really good and 3. They’re small so they’ll be great when I travel later in January.

You can see where this is going.

Yes, I bought the set. Of course I did! I’m using it now. I’ve found some of these items that make my skin feel taught and unpleasant so I actually don’t think I’ll buy them. In a way I’m glad I got the set because it stopped me from buying full sizes of these only to be let down. I’m not using all of them right now as it includes 2 moisturizers and I don’t need two now (plus I’m trying to finish up the last dredges of the cream I have already).

I bring this up because this is something else I learned: I am starting to pay closer attention to the products I have and what I actually gain from them. Do I like them? Do they fit into my life and routine in a way that I want? Do they complicate things? Do they improve things? I’m analyzing products more than I’ve done in the past.

Something else I did in December was make an inventory of my products. I did this after I had ordered the tinted skincare/makeup set. In fact it had shipped and I had to try to remember what I’d ordered to account for it in my inventory. As I did that, I saw how many mascaras I already had. Foundations. I already have two tinted serums…one from Westman Atelier and one from Ciele. The Ciele one I hadn’t used in a long time because I remembered it being more full-coverage than I wanted. Well…the Typology one arrived and I used it and liked it. Then I used the Ciele one and…I don’t see much of a difference. A major difference I do see is that the Ciele one has practically the same amount of product but the packaging is massively larger. It also doesn’t include skincare ingredients like the Typology one does. I’m focusing on using the Ciele one at this time because it’s older so I want to go through it quicker, but when it comes time to repurchase, I don’t know that it will be this product. It’s a great product. The look it helps me achieve is great. It’s not the best version of what I already own. Now…the one thing I will consider is the cost, but at the moment I “know” that I will enjoy using it and yet I won’t repurchase it.

And so over the past few days, even when I went onto Sephora’s site or Ulta’s site, I now find myself thinking back over my inventory list and asking myself “do I honestly need this item now? Can it wait? Do I have something now that gets the job done, even if it’s not as good or as pleasant as it could be?” Oftentimes the answer is already “yes”.

My brain is waking up.

The thing that makes me hesitate is that I’ve felt something similar before. Will this stick? I’m not sure. But the longer I go into this, the more often I look back at my inventory list, the more attention I give to the small voice that says “wait” instead of feeding the monster that says “more”, the easier it is to heed it.

On to month 2!

*No shame to her. I love her and her content. She had a No Buy Year in 2018 that introduced me to the concept and I recommend watching it…unless you are easily triggered to buy makeup, then proceed with caution.