Are you familiar with the term ‘hitting pan’? It means you have used a lot or all of a beauty product and can see the container that the product is housed in. The silver containers that the majority powder and cream products sit in are called godets. They are made from tinplate (steel or iron coated in tin). They separate the product from the outer packaging be it a palette or a compact.
There is immense pleasure and pride on hitting pan in a makeup product. Especially if like me you own far too much make up. Hitting pan in a product means that you have been committed to the product. Equally hitting pan means that the product has been loyal to you, providing colour, sheen and shine consistently, day after day. This just the beginning. As you still have a lot of product left to use. Once you hit pan however, your journey to a replacement product is a hop skip and jump away.
Hitting pan in a makeup product sends you on an emotional rollecoaster. You get a new product. You are filled with excitement and a little bit of trepidation to make your first mark in the flawless surface of the product. The relationship between you and the product begins. Depending on the product it can be weeks or even months of use. You are happy with the product but the initial excitement fades to a general level of happiness.
Then, all of a sudden you notice a dip in the surface of the product. Happiness levels are on the up again. When that happens you start to put your brush in exactly the same spot. Carefully going into that spot in till, huzzah, you hit the jackpot. You see a little of the silver peak through. You have been rewarded for all your hard work and loyalty. Excitement overload… for about a day.
So you have seen the pan for a few weeks now, and to be honest the excitement is fading again. Now the hard work begins, getting to the point where you can justify putting the product in the bin and getting a new product.
If the product is in a square godet you have the experience of focussing your brush in the corner to see if you can get every last bit. In a circle godet you move the brush round and round and round until it stops being fun and you are ready to make your next purchase. I am aware that I am slightly bizarre. I like to use a corner or an area awat from the centrr to focus my brush on. Sometimes as in the case of my tom ford blush because I did not want to go over the embossing. Usually just because I can.
If you are a devotee of project pan, you will no doubt want to use every single particle of your product so that you can share an completely empty godet on your blog / social media channels. For me however, there comes a point of no return. Usually where the amount of product in the godet cannot be picked up by the brush that I would normally use in the product. Digging a blusher brush into three mm depth of product is torturous. If the amount of product is significantly narrower than the brush that I would normally use in that product, it is time to start on the next one and the cycle begins again.
Have you hit pan on a product recently? Let me know in the comments below