Day 112. Make Up Addict Problem a.k.a. How I Choose my Make Up Daily [tip]

As many make up addicts I own a lot of cosmetics, especially eye products. At one point, I noticed that even though I had the choice between a lot of products, I always ended up using pretty much the same things, as I think many of you do. This also made me feel guilty, as I was buying stuff I was using. So I decided to find a solution that would (sort of) force me into using all my eye products. What I figured was that I needed to randomly select a product or two everyday to use. I wanted something like a make up lottery.

Picture by gabetarian

I use a Mac and Mac offers something called AppleScript Editor, that allows you to write and run simple scripts. I think there may be something similar for pc but I don't know. Since I am no computer expert I googled "random extraction" code or something similar and this is what I found...

On one website I found the script I was looking for and this is what it's like:


set listaNomi to {"xxx", "xx2", "xx3"}

repeat (count of listaNomi) times
set nomeEstratto to some item of listaNomi
display dialog nomeEstratto
set listaNomi to removeFromList(nomeEstratto, listaNomi)
end repeat


on removeFromList(theItem, aList)
set newList to {}
repeat with x in aList
if x as string is not equal to theItem as string then
set newList to newList & x
end if
end repeat
return newList
end removeFromList


If you have a Mac, you can copy the code above and substitute the "xxx" with the name of the palette, or eyeshadow, or products in general (keep the "" though). Then when you run the script it will randomly select one item from the list.
If you close the script, the next time you run it you will start all over with all the products having the same probability to be drawn from the list. What I like to do is to run the script, write down the product, and then keep going till I draw the last item of the list. At the end of the script I'll have a list like the one below.

Each day I use the product on the list and cross it off. I know it's quite a system but I want to use all my products and I have found that this system helps me go though all the products I own.

Right now I want to find a way to combine this code with another random extraction code for colors: this way I'd have to use a specific product (generally a palette) and a specific color. Wouldn't it be neat??

I know it's a bit constraining but I tend to skip to the next few items if the product extracted for the day does not fit my needs: for example, if the next item on the list is the Sleek MakeUp Bad Girl palette and I have a important meeting on the job, I skip to the next most fitting product. After that though, I tend to go back to the item I skipped and start following the list again.

It takes discipline but I feel happy all the products I purchased are getting used equally!