Makeup Inventory – Category and Cost Analysis

Did I mention that I have a slight compulsion towards spreadsheets? And while I have used one to track my wardrobe inventory last year, I finally decided to pull one together for my makeup collection. I feel like to some extent ‘makeup inventory’ is just the new makeup collection concept but it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t let some of my work analysis creep into this. Like my wardrobe inventory, I have Excel spreadsheet set up for every single makeup product I own but in no way will I be able to track cost per wear, nor do I find it necessary. For the purpose of this post, I have focused on yearly spending, category breakdown and threw in a brand diagram as a bonus.

I find this particular summary to be the most shocking because nearly half of my makeup collection (at least value wise) was purchased in 2018! Now this number won’t be the most accurate since I only logged the retail price of the product and not the actual price I purchased the product at. Admittedly, this is very much due to my focusing on building my wardrobe in 2016 and 2017 but there was definitely way too much frivolous retail therapy going on in 2018. Just a note, I’ll be back in 2020 telling you how 2019 was a year of luxury makeup brushes but hey, at least they don’t expire. As far as the earlier years go, I moved to London in 2015 and so this will only include the items I took with me when I moved and luckily there isn’t that many of them left.

A bit of summary on my collection:

I have never been one to save makeup for special occasion but there were a few instances in the past when I would stop using my favourite blush or eyeshadow because I feared using it up. Of course, once you get started on a project pan, you quickly realise how long it will actually take.

Prior to my official project pan which I started end of last year, I used to use makeup on rotation for the past two years mainly due to my current storage set up.

I wear makeup five days a week to work and occasionally on the weekend.

There are limited number of brands which I am drawn to which definitely streamlines my collection but I feel like once you have all the basics covered, you start craving some excitement.

I am also quite particular with colour undertones and slight variations can make or break the look for me so there is definitely a prominent colour palette within my collection and I own a number of colour dupes within my coloured products. For me there are alternatives – definitely guilty of buying the same product just for the excitement of having something new. Along the lines of colour palette, I am very much focused on what tones suit my colouring so alternatives is often what I shop for.

The next two diagrams focus on the category breakdown within my collection – not much surprise here. Eyeshadow is of course the most prominent category, it is my favourite part of makeup but also it takes the longest to use up so it definitely makes me conscious of buying any more. Blushers fall in within the same category especially given that all eight of them are pretty much the same colour.
I’m pretty comfortable with the amount of base and lip products but I am still not quite over the bronzer spree I had back in 2018 which definitely bumped up the cost ratio for face products.

Last but not least is the brand breakdown which tells a lot about my collection but also slightly surprised me by seeing how the Chanel number has decreased throughout the years. It used to be my favourite brand but since the new creative director took over, I have only purchased one product. I foresee Nars will eventually stop being a brand I purchase from too if the Provocateur palette is an indication of their new eyeshadow formula but still I have six of those glorious old formula duos to go through.

Now this post is probably the most analytical I let myself get about makeup but if there is any fellow obsessive analysts out there, then this might interest you. This has been a project I’ve had on my mind for a while and the visual presentation definitely puts some things into prospective. Have you ever used a makeup inventory?

The diagrams can be viewed in more detail on Tableau. For reference, all the prices quoted are in GBP.