Project Pan: The TikTok trend encouraging us to buy less

Irish Examiner

17-05-2025

When Shannen Healy decided to do an inventory of all her beauty products, she was shocked.
The Cork "de-influencer", who goes by @_greengal on TikTok and Instagram, is all about sharing her "imperfect sustainable journey" to inspire others. But she had no idea just how "imperfect" that journey was until she decided to participate in one of this year's most viral trends, Project Pan.
"I would have thought I had barely anything compared to other influencers,' the Carrigaline native says. 'But when I sat down and did up my list, I had 75 different products across hair, tan, makeup and skincare.'
The Project Pan challenge, which gets its name from using a powder product to the point where you can see the metal 'pan' come through, is all about using up every beauty item you own before you purchase a replacement. For some of you, that sentence might have you scratching your head — what's revolutionary about that? Unfortunately, for many of us, it actually is.
Haul culture
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I was a teenager in the early 2010s. TikTok didn't yet exist, Instagram had just launched, and I still had to explain the term 'YouTuber' to everyone over the age of 20.
Teen magazines, like KISS and Stellar, were on the way out, and a new cohort of people were curating what was cool — the influencer. And the most popular type of content? The haul.
The haul, for those uninitiated, was where the creator would showcase a range of new products they had purchased (or later, received in PR).
At the time, influencers didn't have mansions or go on press trips to the Maldives. They looked like us. They talked like us. They lived like us.
It tracks, therefore, that my generation internalised the idea that being surrounded by stuff, multiples of stuff, was normal. Placing a 30-item ASOS order before your summer holiday? Completely normal. Buying another lip gloss despite the fact you already have a full drawer? Standard.
Content creator Fionnuala Jones, who uses her platform to encourage conscious consumption, agrees that 'haul culture' has played a role in our culture's normalisation of over-consumption and obsession with newness. But, she believes, we have moved into an even more worrying space.
"Social media today has made it easier than ever for anyone with any kind of small audience to sell directly to someone," she says.
"It's touted as a side hustle. Every second person I'm seeing in my feed is selling something. It's becoming very QVC in an industry that's already dominated and thrives on consumerism."
"You're constantly being shown stuff and made to believe that everyone has it, everyone's talking about it, you need it."
With the rise of things like TikTok shop, next-day delivery, and buy now pay later schemes like Klarna, it's easier than ever to purchase in a matter of seconds, sometimes without even seeing a euro leave your bank account, and have them arrive at your door within hours.
Fionnuala Jones. Picture: Bríd O'Donovan
"I've seen a few people do the flat lay of everything they have for Project Pan, and nine times out of 10, they're appalled," Jones says.
"They cannot believe the breadth of stuff they own."
"I think during the covid pandemic, we were so bored, we had nothing to do, we had excess cash to spend, and because it was such a miserable time with people being sick, people dying, not being able to go outside, we were all shopping. Shopping to get any kind of dopamine hit, because we had no connection to other people, no connections to the outside world.
"Now we're seeing the reverse of that, where people are feeling overloaded with stuff, be that clothes or makeup. People are reacting to the excessiveness they're seeing online, and are coping on to the fact they don't necessarily need any of these products."
Project Pan
I decided to give Project Pan a go after coming across the trend on TikTok and YouTube. Many of the videos I watched showed hundreds of products splayed out on beds, bursting out of vanities, and cluttering whole bathrooms. Unfortunately, I knew my own contribution was going to be just as bad.
I started by going through all of my make-up, skincare and haircare. I opened up a Google Doc, and started typing up every single product, listed by category. When I got to 150, I decided to call it a day.
I confide in Healy I felt a sense of shame, and also, incredulity. How did I get here?
"When I sat down and looked at everything I had.. It was definitely a shock," she says.
"But I think by doing it, you're taking ownership of what you actually have. You're saying, okay, this is what I have, I need to use everything up here before I buy more.
"That does seem fairly straightforward. Of course, you would use up a product before you buy another one. But that's not the way a lot of people consume."
Staring at the seven different blushers in my vanity kit, I can only concur.
Of course, the counting of products is just part one, the real Project Pan challenge is committing to buying no new items unless something needs to be replaced.
So, five months down, how am I getting on?
So far, so good.
Shannen Healy: "When I had loads of different products, I did kind of go into choice paralysis. Clearing things out has been freeing. If I only have one product, and I know that it works really well, that just makes things a bit easier." Picture: Moya Nolan
Since January, I've managed to only repurchase a tinted moisturiser and retinol, both of which I didn't have replacements for. I've used up my favourite foundation and I am coming to the end of my favourite cleanser, but I am determined not to replace them until I get through the others in my collection.
The most difficult aspect?
In a world obsessed with optimisation and results, there is always a new product or hero ingredient to try, and it's hard not to get taken in, especially when it plays on my insecurities.
But Healy has some words of wisdom.
"Something I've realised over the years is that just because someone else is saying this is a really good product, doesn't mean it's gonna work on me. It's about looking at [what I already have] and seeing what really suits me."
In that vein, we have both given away products that we were holding on to that didn't work for us. For me, that looked like eyeshadow palettes I was gifted and never used, scented products that trigger eczema, or anything with Vitamin C (my skin's greatest foe). Friends and family were delighted to take them off my hands.
"I had 12 bottles of tan," Healy admits. "I gave them away to people who follow me. I just asked, is anyone interested in these, I don't use them or they don't work for me," she says. "I posted them off this week... it was a great feeling!"
Healy has found another benefit, too, of slowly paring back her collection.
"When I had loads of different products, I did kind of go into choice paralysis. Clearing things out has been freeing. If I only have one product, and I know that it works really well, that just makes things a bit easier."
The challenge has also made Healy more conscious of the products she buys in future.
'Once I've used up [all my makeup and skincare], I will be switching to Sculpted by Aimee because she has a scheme where she takes back used products, and for every five that you give back, you get €20 worth of points to buy your replacements."
The brand is one of many Irish beauty companies now offering more environmentally friendly (and wallet-friendly) refills, too - others include Jennifer Rock's Skingridients and Kinvara.
Confronting our behaviour
When it comes to trends like Project Pan, Jones and Healy both worry that it could be a case of here today, gone tomorrow, but they are hopeful that engaging in it could be an entry point for people to examine their behaviour on a wider scale.
'I think it's kind of like everything in sustainability," Healy says. "You try one area, it opens up another door, and it builds into something that just changes the way you think about life in general and how you consume.
"I think we live a hyper-convenient life, and if you started something like project pan, it would really open your eyes."
For the next step, Jones advises people to see how long they can go "without shopping or opening an app".
"If it's something you're doing every day, delete the apps, unsubscribe from the emails."
When you genuinely need an item — whether it be a suitable dress for a summer wedding, or a drill for some essential DIY — Jones urges people to embrace the art of asking your community before you look to buy new.
Shannen Healy. with a selection of her cosmetics including empty containers on the right. Picture: Moya Nolan.
"This is what I go back to whenever I talk about sustainability. What's wrong with asking if someone is selling a particular dress secondhand? Or going to your neighbour to borrow something?"
Jones regularly uses her own Instagram to do just that, and says she's aware some people might think she's "a cheapskate" (I argue she's setting a good example).
"We would rather do anything than ask for help, or look for something within our own communities [first]. There's a reluctance there. I suppose it is to do with the convenience and the immediacy, everything is available now at the click of a finger."
Jones also feels her fellow influencers need to take some responsibility for their own part in our consumerist culture.
"There's a lot of anti-influencer rhetoric online and I think a lot of it is valid. Influencing has become very democratised, because we all have phones. Education is more freely shared in terms of how to edit and put together a video, we've more platforms to post on, and there seems to be no end in sight to people doing it.
"But, you have to take responsibility and recognise what you are actually influencing. Because it's gotten easier and because the perks are still really, really good and it's a career in which you can make quite a lot of money, people get lost in the money and don't ask the question, 'why am I promoting this?'
"People don't want to acknowledge that part of it, that conversation isn't happening."
Jones is quick to point out that she is not the perfect influencer.
'The sustainable influencer thing is a bit of an oxymoron at the end of the day. But there's no perfection in activism. There is just doing what you can."
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