Today's post is a little different. Instead of telling you about beauty products I've recently tried, I want to share my thoughts about the direction that the industry has taken in the recent past. If you already have more lipsticks than you could wear in a lifetime and are overwhelmed by the constant stream of new beauty launches, let's chat!

Anyone with an interest in beauty must have noticed that the industry has gone mad lately. If you blink, 10 new products have been launched by the time your eyes are open again. This is particularly true for makeup, with literally dozens of lipsticks, eyeshadow palettes and highlighters released every week by drugstore and high-end brands alike.

There used to be a time when a beauty enthusiast like me could keep up with new launches and pick up a few products from each seasonal collection. I used to enjoy shopping for beauty then. Today, the pace of new releases is so frantic that I had to stop trying to learn about them all, for the sake of my sanity. It started feeling like a chore rather than a welcome distraction from my daily routine. And of course, I had to stop trying to buy something from every new launch, or I would be buried in debt.

The first brand that jumped head first down the rabbit hole, as far as I can tell, is MAC. From releasing thoughtfully designed makeup collections every season, they started constantly churning out new collaborations and products a few years ago. The fact that they lost a lot of their credibility and became considerably less relevant in the beauty community in the process is apparently lost to the rest of the profession. Instead of learning from a former industry leader's mistake, most brands quickly followed suit and are drowning us in new products on a monthly, if not weekly basis.

No, shopping more doesn't make you happier

The sad part is that this considerable increase in the number of beauty products available isn't caused by a burst of creativity, in fact it's quite the contrary. One brand releases something that becomes popular, and everybody else copies it. That's how we get thousands of liquid matte lipsticks, hundreds of highlighters, and dozens of identical warm eyeshadow palettes crowding the shelves of beauty retailers. Most brands are not trying to come up with truly innovative products, they're just working at full capacity to bring us more of the same.

The competition hasn't benefited us consumers in terms of quality either. In the race to launch more new limited edition stuff faster, a lot of brands seem to have lowered their standards and keep pushing mediocre products. The idea is that they will sell anyway, given the size of the beauty market nowadays and its current state of frenzy. That's short-term thinking at its finest and a very questionable marketing strategy - ask Too Faced in a couple of years.

Following new beauty releases used to be fun and exciting. Now I find the monstrous amount of new stuff shoved down our throats daily through retailers and social media to be nauseating. I know I'm not the only one: I see more and more people being turned off by the excess, and more and more criticism being voiced. But I also see a lot of women, often very young, still desperately trying to keep up with trends by buying a ton of things, and I can't help being concerned about their financial situation. Don't get into debt to buy the new eyeshadow palette. It's just not worth it.

Now you might be wondering "why do you have a beauty blog if you feel this way?". Don't get me wrong: I love makeup, and skincare, and brushes, and body butters and all that stuff. I love using them, and I do feel joy when purchasing something new that I've been wanting for a while. I still follow my favorite brands and I like discovering their seasonal collections. What's making me dizzy is the current pace at which piles of new, crappy products are thrown at my face. I can't catch a breath and it's ruining the fun. It's just too much, too fast, too often. I wish beauty brands would find a better, more sustainable way to keep the buzz going on social media - and I think it's possible, with a little bit of creativity.