Over the past year, I have been making a conscious effort to reduce my own consumerism habits. Consumerism, or excessively buying material things that you probably don’t even need, has become a big problem in recent years, and I feel like I’m always noticing people being wasteful. As I scroll on Tiktok and see hundreds, if not thousands, of influencers buying more clothes than they will ever use, putting their coffee that they make at home into a disposable plastic cup, or showing off entire bins full of one makeup product that they could never possibly use up themselves, I was inspired. Not to copy this way of life, but to actively resist it.
What is “Project Pan?”
The concept of participating in “project pan” blew up on social media around the end of the year last year. The new year is always an easy chance to start over, and I saw a bunch of people online talking about doing almost a challenge of sorts called Project Pan.
In short, Project Pan (in the definition that the internet gave it) is simply the act of not buying another product, especially makeup, until you have completely used up the one(s) you already have; in other words, only when you’ve “hit the pan” of a powder or used up every last drop of foundation or completely run out of lip gloss do you buy another one.
I have previously not been good about using up entire products, and I often forget how long it takes. I would get impatient and end up buying a different product that fits my needs better at that time.
Chapstick was a simple but huge one for me. I always had the idea in my head that I could never have too many chapsticks because I use them so often, but only when I actually finished an entire chapstick tube in April (after having it for over a year and using it almost every night) did I start to fully understand how truly wasteful some of my habits were.
It’s such a small thing that we don’t even think about, especially for smaller products, but it had a really big impact on how I thought about wastefulness, and how easy it is to make these changes in my personal life to consume less and overall be less wasteful.
Why it helps me
While being more conscious about not buying new products until the ones I have are completely gone, I have noticed that overall I spend so much less. If I buy a new blush just because it’s cute or a new face wash just because I feel like I’ll run out of my current one soon or a new lipstick just because I think I need another one in another color, it just contributes to the huge amounts of products that I have and just don’t need. So if I’m not constantly trying to think ahead and buy new products because of what I might need or want in the future, I end up saving so much money.
The idea of Project Pan also just makes me feel a little bit better about my impact on consumerism and the environment, no matter how small. Overconsumption, especially to an excessive degree where you’re constantly just buying things for the sake of having them and not needing them, is a really big issue. It puts more waste in landfills and it puts more money in the pockets of big corporations who convince us that we always need their latest and greatest products. It feeds into microtrends as well, because if everyone is buying the same trendy thing, it looses its appeal, and once something is no longer trendy it doesn’t get used and is more than likely to just be thrown out.
By participating in Project Pan, I feel like I can fight overconsumption and create better habits for myself. Project Pan is such a low-effort way to make a difference, especially on a personal level, and it honestly is probably less effort than buying a bunch of products before you need them.
If you find yourself in a similar position of wanting to break overconsumption habits, try applying Project Pan; not just to makeup, but to everything in your life as well. Consider not buying a new purse until your current one breaks, not buying new socks until your current ones wear out, or even not buying a new chapstick until your current one is empty.
