Waste Not, Want Not

How often do you collect those make up and perfume samples from make up counters, request by mail? How many bottles of shampoo, lotion and bars of soap do you have from hotels? Looking through any home you'll find tucked away in some dark corner a basket of small bottles and packets of samples received from all sorts of places.

This is the significantly reduced hoard!

Most of the time these items are not utilized in our normal routine and they wait patiently on our bathroom, hopefully one day we'll remember to try them out. In the meantime, the hoard keeps growing. Nothing is thrown away because it can still be used! You can use those hotel shampoo when you travel! You know when you collect a new shampoo and soap collection from when you stay at a hotel in your next travel.

This was from when I traveled to Taiwan in .... 2012?

Why not use it now? The lotion smells funny. The shampoo/conditioner isn't meant for my hair. I'm worried this skincare cream will make me break out.

How many leave in conditioners do I have?

For me being frugal means not throwing things that can me used. So even though I have products that I prefer that work better for me, I can't let go of these samples. I tell myself I'll use them when I take a trip. In the end, I force myself to go through shampoo, bodywash, bars of soap that don't bring me joy and keep the things that I do enjoy in the back shelves until I force myself to finish my hoard. 

In the past few months I've worked hard to work my way through my hoard. I've actually sampled the samples and noted down the ones that I liked and thrown away the ones that just weren't working. It's hard to throw away half a bottle of shampoo or the remaining packets of lotion but why live forcing yourself to accept things that just don't work? Toss it.

This CC cream is too dark for my complexion, but all I need is one good summer and a tan!