December 2024 Beauty Empties

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I’m still at it, trying to finish up my empties posts. December will be a short one compared to November. I am still missing my May 2024 empties. Oh well, here’s December. 

Bath & Body

• Earthly Body Hemp Seed Hand Wash w/ Orange & Eucalyptus Oils: I finished my second bottle of natural Hemp Seed Hand Wash, and I absolutely love this stuff. It’s the perfect hand wash for me to use during the spring, summer and fall when I am working in the garden. The hemp seed grains do a terrific job removing actual dirt. Plus, the liqui-gel lathers up and cleans very well without stripping oils from my skin – probably because it contains orange and eucalyptus oils. The hand wash has a pleasant herbal scent described as Eucalyptus & Tea. Recommend? Yes, I do. If you’re a gardener or just someone whose hands get really dirty from crafting, cooking, cleaning etc., check out Earthly Body Hemp Seed Hand Wash. I plan to buy another bottle for the coming gardening season.

• Ouai Rose Hair & Body Oil, travel size: Ouai is a luxury hair and body brand that I have only tried travel sizes in the past, and this is no exception. The Ouai Rose Hair & Body Oil is a 3-in-1 product: body moisturizer, hair treatment for dryness, and a lightly rose scented perfume. Recommend? If you’re a fan of rose fragrances, this is a worthwhile splurge. If I didn’t have so many hair and body oils already, I would buy this. It’s excellent for fighting frizz, creating shiny hair and an antidote to dryness. Plus, it makes you smell good too.

Hair

• KeraFactor Scalp Stimulating Solution: Speaking of hair, if you’re trying to regrow hair, KeraFactor with KFP peptide complex, is a brand to investigate. I had been using Vegamour Hair Growth Serum for a couple of years, so I was really a little wary of switching to another brand. But I am very glad that I got to try KeraFactor Scalp Stimulating Solution because it worked well for me. The two key benefits I experienced were: 1) it did regrow fine hair where my hair follicles appeared dead especially on the left temple area; 2) the consistency is that of a thick, viscous liquid that unlike the new very liquidy Vegamour GRO+ Advanced Hair Serum that I’ve been trying out since I finished the KeraFactor. The thin watery liquid runs down the sides of my face, and that’s a drag. Recommend? Yes, I absolutely do recommend KeraFactor Scalp Stimulating Solution. It’s expensive, more expensive than Vegamour, and it’s a commitment that you have to continue like Vegamour or Minoxidil. But so far, I found that it worked best for me. KeraFactor is a dermatologist-recommended and prescribed brand. 

Health & Beauty

• Radius Organic Toothpaste Clove Cardamom: Radius toothpastes don’t contain fluoride, so if you don’t need or want fluoride in your toothpaste, try this. In fact, it is made with organic ingredients, ie chamomile flower, rosemary and rice powder to effectively clean and polish teeth. I like this tooth gel because it’s low-foaming, yet it still leaves my mouth feeling clean and fresh. Plus, the rice powder does a good job naturally whitening my teeth. Recommend? Yes, I like Radius organic toothpastes, and I’m glad I made the switch. It works well for my sensitive teeth without having to buy one of the regular sensitive teeth toothpastes.

Skincare

• Kat Burki Rose Hip Intense Recovery Eye Serum: I was delighted to discover how effective this eye serum that I got in one of my Boxycharm boxes is. I like it just as well and maybe even a little better than my usual Korres Black Pine 360• Eye-Lift Super Serum. It does a good job firming the skin above my crease as well as soothing the dry skin on my eye lids. Recommend? Yes, I strongly recommend this terrific Kat Burki Eye Serum. Unfortunately, it is more expensive, so I will probably stick with my Korres 360• Eye-Lift Super Serum after I finish up the second bottle of Kat Burki that I managed to buy on Ipsy at a deep discount.

Fragrance

•  Gurunanda Plug-In Waterless Wall Diffuser: I really like having a plug-in diffuser. It was so much easier to use without having to fill up a water reservoir. The trouble is that I didn’t use it quite as often, and I disobeyed Gurunanda’s key principle: remove the essential oil bottle from the diffuser when it’s not in use to prevent oil leaks. Well, after a while, I certainly had an oil leak that ruined the diffuser. My bad. Recommend? Truthfully, if I hadn’t screwed up, I would have recommended this diffuser for the reason I mentioned: no water. But no matter because it looks like Gurunanda has stopped making diffusers right now anyway. They still do make essential oils, however.

• Juliet Has A Gun brand “Not A Perfume”, sample size: A few years ago, I got a month’s supply of French brand Juliet Has A Gun’s fragrance, “Get A Room”. I didn’t like it. When I received an advent calendar from Scentbird for the holiday season, I discovered “Not A Perfume”, and I’m not crazy about this one either. Because of the main accords: amber, musky and woody, I had expected to like it. As the fragrance website, Fragrantica explains, it truly is “not a (traditional) perfume”. Its key ingredient is Cetalox (Ambrox), a 1950s substitute for the very expensive grey amber. Actually, it may be almost the only ingredient. It is subtle, hard to detect, clean-smelling, gender neutral, and it gets 5 stars on the Juliet Has A Gun website. However, some people who have tried it think it smells like laundry detergent. Nevertheless, it’s free of allergens, so there’s that. Presently, it’s sold out on the brand’s website, but the mini size/7.5ml is available at Sephora.

Project Pan 2024 December Update

I used up 6 products during December. Although I won’t count “Not A Perfume”, I will count Ouai Rose Hair & Body Oil because, though a travel size, it lasted me a long time since a little goes a long way.

I ended November with 93 empties, and adding the 6 products for December, I am at 99 beauty empties while still missing the month of May. I am going to look in my photos for early June just before I started having months of website problems and see if I at least took a photo. If I didn’t take a photo of the May empties, I didn’t quite make my minimum yearly goal of 100 empties. Heck, I seem to be going backwards because in 2022, I used up 148 beauty products! I never finished posting Part 2 of July-September 2023 so I don’t know how I ended 2023 (though it was over 125) and I don’t even know what my goal was for 2024.

Let’s be conservative going into 2025. Let’s say my goal will be using up 100 beauty products.

How did you do last year? Better than I did?