I've come to realize that it's just a fact of life that when you test out a lot of products, some of them aren't going to work for you. Obviously I don't want to keep using products that just don't do it for me, but at the same time, I hate wasting them or throwing away anything I've spent good money on. I'm also not a fan of the clutter of having tons of products that I'm not using just hanging around. With that in mind, if something doesn't work for its intended purpose, I always try to repurpose it for another use.
Here are three recent examples of that:
Organic Sunflower Oil
I've used sunflower oil in cooking on and off throughout my life. Without going into a lot of specifics, it's a healthy vegetable oil and not overly expensive. However, at some point, I seem to have developed a very strong dislike of the taste. I swear, in the last while, even if there's just the smallest amount of sunflower oil in something I make, it's all I can taste. Of course, I came to this realization right after I bought a huge bottle of the stuff!
After sitting in my fridge unused for a while, I decided to try it as an eye makeup remover one night. It's fantastic! Before this, I'd been using either olive or coconut oil, but I genuinely prefer the sunflower oil to either of those. Although it melts with body heat, coconut oil is solid at room temperature, which can be inconvenient, and I had problems with olive oil really stinging my eyes if I happened to get any in them. With sunflower oil, I don't have either of these issues. It's also noncomedogenic, so it won't clog your pores, and high in vitamin E.
When I originally purchased this, I was expecting an opaque, matte white pencil that I could use to line my waterline. As you can see in my initial swatch here, what I got was a somewhat sheer, sparkly white pencil. I was a little disappointed, but decided it would still work to highlight the inner corners of my eyes. That said, I tend to use an eyeshadow for that purpose and I was never reaching for this product.
Since LUVU's eye pencils are basically identical to their lip pencils, I decided to try it to highlight above my upper lip, around my cupid's bow. The sheerness works really well for this, and the pencil form is great, since you can get the product right where you want it (and not anywhere else!) I'll usually line around my cupid's bow and then dab it slightly with a finger to soften the line.
This is a new-to-me product I've been testing out recently. As a face cream, I unfortunately don't love it. It's not heavy, but it does take a long time to sink in to my skin. Even applying just a small amount, I can still feel it on my skin two or three hours later. Since I wear mineral foundation most days, I just don't have time in the mornings to wait for this to be absorbed.
That said, I've had dry hands recently and this cream works great on them. Interestingly enough, I find it sinks into my hands pretty quickly and doesn't leave them greasy at all. I'm not sure I would repurchase this for my hands, just because there are plenty of other, less expensive options for that, but I do like it for this purpose and will continue to use it as long as I have it.
I get excited when I find new ways to use things up, instead of just letting them collect dust and go to waste. I'm thinking of doing semi-regular posts like this, since repurposing products is something I find myself doing pretty frequently. How about you? Do you find new uses for products that don't work as you'd originally intended?
I love virgin coconut oil.It's different with coconut oil for cooking purpose.That VCO one isn't solid at room temperature unlike the regular coconut oil one.But still,that's what happens here in hot weather of Indonesia.Have you tried the virgin coconut oil one?
ReplyDeleteAs for the repurpose product,I had my burt's bees moisturizer which was too sticky to be applied on my face.It's ended up as my body cream:D
It's great that you managed to find other uses for things that hadn't worked to their purpose for you :) I'm the same, I love products to be multi-functional and even if they aren't I usually make sure they are! Liking the sunflower oil for makeup remover, I tend to use oils too so might consider this one in the future :)
ReplyDeleteI love when products are multi-purpose too :) And I'd highly recommend the sunflower oil...it's definitely my favorite of the oils I've tried for makeup remover.
DeleteLove this post! I'm trying to use up so many unwanted products!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I've been trying to get a few things used up too:)
DeleteNice post ! Totally agree with you in regards to sunflower oil...and it is so easy to use too :-).
ReplyDeleteHave a great day.x
It is...it gets everything off a lot easier than any actual makeup remover I've tried!
DeleteI do this with my everyday minerals lipstick,it's the worst lipstick I've ever tried!So now I use it as..my blush on:D..
ReplyDeleteOh,here we have higher temperature so that's why coconut oil never become solid.I like coconut oil,the virgin coconut oil one I mean:)
That's a good idea...it's basically the same as cream blush anyways!
DeleteI was wondering why yours wouldn't harden! Haha, that makes sense. Mine is solid a lot of the time in the fall/winter, but in the summer, it'll stay liquid here too.