My 14 1/2-year old daughter and I share a bathroom, since we use a lot of the same products. When she was younger, we were able to keep all of our makeup in a check box in our medicine cabinet. (That’s right, the box that my checks came in). However, two events have forced us to outgrow such a small box. One, my daughter became old enough to babysit, and she now has more disposable income than she used to. Two, Sephora opened a store a few blocks away. You get the picture.
When the check box became too small to hold all of our (read: her) makeup, I went in search of solutions at the Container Store. They’ve got all sorts of products for organizing makeup. Unfortunately, none of the makeup solutions worked, either because they were too deep for my 3 1/2-inch medicine cabinet, or too short. I knew that the only way we were going to be able to store all of our makeup in one place would be to go vertical. I was looking for a double-decker solution.
Poking around the Container Store website, I came across their Double Acrylic Spice Rack. Bingo! Even though it is designed to be kept in the kitchen and to hold spice bottles, there was no reason why it couldn’t hold cosmetics in a medicine cabinet.
We supplemented this with a couple of products that would hold tall items: the Tall Acrylic Box for brushes, and a Clear Amac Box for liner pencils and mascara.
This worked pretty well for a while, but my daughter continued to spend her hard-earned cash on cosmetic items, including a full set of makeup brushes. The Tall Acrylic Box was so crowded that I couldn’t even get my two brushes out! So last weekend I got her to agree to reorganize our makeup.
I’ve worked with enough clients to know that once she started reviewing each item, she found plenty to throw away. Then we identified the items that she uses every day, and put the rest somewhere else in the bathroom so that she would have easy access to it, but it wouldn’t get in the way of either of us putting on our typical day’s makeup.
I’m happy to say that are once again enjoying our out-of-the-box makeup organizing solution.
Here are some guidelines for you to organize your own cosmetics:
- Identify which items you use every day.
- Find a place in your home that has a mirror and very good light, and set up your daily cosmetics there. Look for a container that is appropriate for the space and is big enough to hold your items.
- Throw away anything which you haven’t used in more than 6 months or that doesn’t really work for you — no matter how much you paid for it!
- Keep nearby all the items you use only occasionally, so that they don’t crowd out your everyday items.
Want to know more about how long you should keep cosmetics? Google “expired cosmetics” and start reading. A product called Beauty Alert can help you keep track of when to throw your cosmetics out.
