If you feel like your beauty collection has gotten out of control and took over your whole home – it’s probably time to declutter and organize. Here’s my step-by-step guide.
Step 1: Declutter
How to start
The best way to declutter is to go all in. Put some time aside, because it shouldn’t be a half-assed job. Search your whole home, collect everything, and dump it in one place. Then group similar categories together – eyeshadows, lipsticks, nail polishes, face masks, etc.
Within these categories, I make sub-categories – and this is where things will become interesting.
Categories and how to deal with them
+ The absolute daily favorites – these are the things you love and use every day.
How to deal with them: There’s no question they will remain.
+ The special favorites – everything you love, but maybe don’t use every day, the smoky eyeshadow, the too-red-for-work lipstick, or the special pre-event mask.
How to deal with them: If you really use them, they go into the keep stack.
+ The no idea I had these – These are the things you haven’t used in a while. Some of them were just simply forgotten or were pushed unfairly into the background by newer products. Others just didn’t meet our expectations.
How to deal with them:
– Ask questions: Do I like it? Does it work for me?
– Keep it, if you actually see yourself using them up in the future. In that case, put them in a highly visible place so you’re reminded of actually using those.
– Give it away, if there’s nothing wrong with the product, but it doesn’t work for you. Clutter is really about dishonesty. Be honest about whether you actually see yourself ever using that. If the answer is no, give it away. I know sometimes we have a hard time parting with things that cost us money, but is it better to hold onto them and let them go to waste unused? I had no problem gifting quite expensive serums or never-used foundations to friends and family when I realized they weren’t a good match for me. They could totally work for someone else and that way at least you get some indirect value out of them.
– Throw it out, if the product went wrong or it’s so bad you wouldn’t even give it away.
+ The never used things – They may have been gifts, PR samples, a random store complimentary gift, or simply a bad purchase. I’m sure there are items in every collection that remained totally untouched.
How to deal with them: Follow the above rules.
+ The suspicious items – We’ve all heard the hardcore rules of when to toss away makeup. The problem is that I don’t know a single person who dutifully adheres to them, myself included. I may or may not have lipsticks or palettes that are 4 or 5 years old and I for sure not going to part ways with my nail polishes after only 1 year (as I read I should).
While I do not recommend taking these things as lightly as me, I don’t think these toss rules are much of a reality for most people. We need to find a good balance between practicality, frugality, and basic hygiene.
How to deal with them: I always do a smell/feel/swatch test with older or suspicious items. If it smells or looks funny, it definitely goes into the trash bin. If it somehow survived the last purge but it’s probably from my college days, it goes into the trash bin. If the texture changed in some way, it goes into the trash bin. Everything that passes that test, gets another chance.
But (because there are exceptions to every rule) I do throw away the mascara and beautyblender after a couple of months. I get that extending the use of those can really be risky, because they are the perfect place for bacteria. My quasi budget-friendly solution is to have only one of those in rotation, which kind of helps using them up in the 3-4 month period. And PSA: if you have an eye infection, throw away your mascara immediately – it might be contaminated.
SPF is also something that can only be used for a year/season, because it can lose from its efficiency. Best to stay safe with that one.
Step 2: The post-declutter analysis
This is a very critical step. My problem with a lot of decluttering tips is that they don’t put a lot of emphasis on the importance of analyzing why we are decluttering something. Denouncing something as useless and clutter, and throwing it away is one thing. But at one point, we paid for that. We thought we needed that. So, what changed and how can we avoid making the same mistake in the future? You can have your answer if you take a look at the keep/toss/ give away piles and draw some conclusions.
It may be that you’re prone to hoarding certain products. It may be that you’re susceptible to outside recommendations and blogger reviews, and get carried away and buy things because everyone is talking about them and you fear of missing out. (In that case, here are some tips on how to avoid expensive “bloggers made me buy it” mistakes). You may realize you don’t need fancy palettes and colors because at the end you always use neutrals.
Whatever the conclusions, do not spare this step. Try to identify the critical points and make a mental note of them in order to become a smarter, more conscious shopper.
Step 3: Organize
The tools
The key to a good organizing system is that it needs to be simple, clear, and logical. You cannot just dump everything back into a drawer. The newly decluttered collection is only useful if it is accessible. In case of beauty products, it’s also important that the boxes be easily cleanable.
For me, the best organizing solution was the simple, minimalist, clear Muji acrylic containers. They are easy to clean, I can actually see what’s inside the drawers, and everything is logical and neat.
For skincare products, I use some simple, white, open containers. I also recycle some boxes for things I wouldn’t necessarily like to display.
Everything should be easily accessible and definitely not in the bottom of a drawer. For bathroom storage, I like the single row mirrored bathroom cabinet solution.
You can also display some of your prettiest items on a beauty tray – here are some ideas.
Keep your daily essentials in one place
I keep my daily makeup items in a separate cosmetic bag. This way I don’t have to rummage through all my makeup just to find the one eyeshadow I use pretty much every day.
Keep similar things together
Every category should be kept together, this way you always see what you have and don’t lose sight of anything. I have three separate drawers: one for eye products, one for blushes/powders/bronzers, and one for highlighters/tinted moisturizers.
Pay extra attention to the sneaky tiny knickknacks
Bobby pins, elastic bands, Q-tips – the everyday necessities that clutter your space, but instantly disappear when you need them. Try to keep them together – a small jar or candle holder is very practical and kind of transforms them into a neat display
Keep track of dirty brushes
Get some old glass candle holders or pen holders and store your brushes there. I have one for clean and one for dirty brushes. Everything that has been used once, goes into the latter. This way I can keep track of what needs to be cleaned soon (no, of course, I don’t clean everything after one use).
Put everything you newly rediscovered in a visible place
As I said, if you’d like to use up something, put it somewhere that is in clear sight. Otherwise, they just find their way back to the deep end of the drawer and you forget all about them once again.
How do you organize your beauty stash?
I LOVE how you mention reflecting to figure out WHY we need to de-clutter something to begin with!! What a great principle because otherwise we’ll fall into the same habit again!!
I realized that I kept on ‘treating myself’ because I ‘deserve it’ and ‘Today was a rough day at work’ and I ended up over-shopping…and this applies to makeup and anything else!
Once I realized that this was my mentality, I started replacing that habit with something that’s more sustainable and more useful like treating myself to a pamper night at home or putting money away for ONE big splurge that I’m working towards. And also not relying on material THINGS to cheer me up but rather being grateful for what I already have and enjoy them.
Seppy | http://www.elleisforlove.com
Reflection is the most important thing here on the long run I think. Without it, we’re just going to make the same mistakes over and over again.
By the way, it also speaks volumes on how we’re trained to regard shopping as the ultimate treat, that the act of shopping itself is more highly valued than using the stuff that we bought. Like you say (and I agree) that treating ourselves to a pamper night is equally fun and a lot more sustainable. Instead of buying a new skincare product, how about spending a relaxing 30 minutes on using that mask that we bought previously as a treat?
And love your last sentence. xx