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How do you organize your eyeshadows?


How do you organize your eyeshadows? Share!

By brand, then by formula. If I’m really good, I alphabetize them.

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CatherineM Avatar

I tried organizing them by color once, but since I have a large amount of duos and quads/quints, I got back to organizing them by brand. It also looks neater in my drawers, having all similar looking packaging together.

Ryou Avatar

Most of my eyeshadows are in loose formula and packed in small ziplock bags, since it works best with my currently semi-nomadic lifestyle. Right now, I’m using several business card organizers to sort them, but I’ve recently bought some trading card sleeves that fit in a 3-ring binder and plan to move them all in the near future. I’ve thought of sorting them by shade, but I find that it’s a lot easier for me to find specific shades when I sort them alphabetically, so that’s how I do it.

Wednesday Avatar

By Brand and then by colour. I would prefer to have everything sorted by colour alone, but it doesn’t make for easy to fit together z-palettes. It’s early and my brain goes off on weird tangents. I just pictured my bathroom ‘wallpapered’ in a rainbow of eyeshadows. How cool would that be.. ignoring the obvious problems with the thought.

Chi-Chi Avatar

LOL really poorly.
I keep them in those mini desktop sterilite shelf units and basically group them by color family and product. All my blues are together in one drawer, golds are together, lippies are together, glosses are together, primers are together, etc. It isn’t super-organized but I find that it’s the most natural way for me to go about putting together my look.

Once I finish furnishing my space, I’d love to have a huge desk where I will have a proper set up and can organize them down further by finish, and then by brand.
My other goal is to finish pressing all my loose shadows into palettes (arranged by brand and collection) so I don’t have sample bags and mini-jars taking up space in my drawers.

Veronica Avatar

By brand, then by color. That way it is easier for me to look up a specific one I might be looking for. I keep them in those little Sterlite drawer units, each drawer has a different color category.

Genevieve Avatar

I organise them by colours greens, blues, neutrals, mixed palettes. I also have my “quick” makeup bag that has the essentials: primer, eyebrow pencil, foundation, mascara, blush, powder and 3 palettes: naked 1, Estee Lauder film noir (wear a lot of silvery greys) and shiseido trio of navy, grey and cream.
Lipsticks in a different bag.

Rikki Avatar

The only ones I have organized are my MUFE and Sugarpill, lol. MUFE Aqua Creams and regular shadows in one tray, Sugarpill pans and Chromalusts in another. The other singles are just dumped in the drawer beside of the trays but my shadow palettes are organized in a little desk organizer thing.

Lotus Avatar

You had to ask that, didn’t you? (Cringing) 😉 I’m beyond anal, haha, (sorry), when it comes to organizing shadows! I want everything in order by spectrum, and I will go under light to check reflects, etc. To be certain of the color!
For my Mac: All my singles are arranged in a drawer as papers in a file cabinet, all round ones loose in that drawer, boxed ones lined up as papers in file cabinet, again. Due to my bring neurotic, I’m waiting to put all of them into their prospective palettes by MAC. Other palettes finished I have stacked in a drawer.
For my Urban Decay: All palettes are in one area of a large tall wooden cabinet, and in drawers I have 100’s of the old formulations, BNIB, as well as new ones, and because I ordered doubles, when I can get past my OCD with color, UD had given me, so kindly, Ty!, shadow boxes for which I will de-pot them for luxury storage.
Why haven’t I done this yet? I get extremely cranky if I don’t get it perfect to my liking & can’t finish what I started, so I won’t start it. Crazy, right?
Pigments: Arranged the same with duplicates BNIB by color in another drawer.
I’m also currently transferring everything from plastic to acrylic and cleaning/weening down my collection for easier grabbing at what I use now due to my skin changing and needs altered to meet this. I’m barely a dent into it, too much going on with work, child, etc., gets difficult to maintain organization! So they all rest, as are, for now. 😀

Heather Avatar

I’m constantly in the process of trying to find the best way to organize eyeshadows. Right now, I have singles and duos with the different shades of the same color divided into color. For trios, quads and smaller palettes, I have the divided into neutrals, brights and smokey. My big palettes are stashed together in a drawer just so they fit.

LU Avatar

I have a makeup drawer system on wheels, similar to yours. I mainly do it by brand. For singles, I have the ones I use more frequently towards the front or on top of each section in each drawer. I keep palettes in a separate drawer with pigments and lipsticks. I keep telling myself to depot the rest of my standard packaging MAC eyeshadow singles into my zpalette, since I now purchase only the refills online, but I never get around to it.

fancie Avatar

I wish my stash was more organized like yours lol. I just toss my palettes and singles into a drawer and call it a day. I’m using a lingerie chest at the moment to store most of my makeup but I’m planning to get an Alex 9 soon. I need more space to thoroughly organize everything

PJ Avatar

They are usually “organized” by how much I love them. The others spend time at the bottom of the drawer– which is one step from getting handed down to my daughter. All of the eyeliner and shadow sticks are stored upright , apart from the brushes, and all of the nail polishes are “displayed” in large glass cookie jars.

Jennifer Avatar

Most of my eyeshadow is loose in little pots so it fits really well inside my acrylic drawers. I have a drawer for Greens (24!), one for Bright’s, Fancy Neutrals, Boring Neutrals/Glitter. My pressed shadows are either in my Sugarpill or Tarte palette or depotted into my Z-palette and sort of haphazardly stacked nearby.

I’m going to get a new holder for eyeliners/lip crayons in the near future so I’ll be able to spread out my eyeshadow pot collections into a few more drawers. I’d really like to break it down into like, silvers in one drawer, yellows in another etc.

anne Avatar

no organization at all, except that for some reason i can usually find what i want. i “organized” my desk at work the same way. some things went into files or manila envelopes. anything difficult to classify went into big stacks, but i could always find what i needed. i guess my mind brings order out of chaos.

Veronica Avatar

Anything that can be depotted and is inexpensive enough to be worth the risk gets put in my Z-palettes. Otherwise, it’s separated by type – palettes in their own drawer, loose shadow/pigment, and pressed singles. The pressed singles are the only ones that are broken down further by color (neutral v.s. brights).

Aeri Avatar

My vanity is pretty small, but two of its drawers are dedicated to eye related things : In one, I have about 11 old-style MAC 15 shadow palettes that I’ve popped the inserts out of, and those go by color. (Warm Browns, Cool Browns, Skintone, Highlights, Reds/Pinks, Teals, Greens, Oranges, Yellows/Golds, Blues/Fuschias, Purples, Blacks/Greys Everything that isn’t depotted is generally stacked by brand. Drawer two is where the pigments, cream shadows/stick shadows live, all grouped by type and shade, and sharing space with mascaras and non-pencil liners. Palettes are housed in the center drawer along with all my brushes and all my lashes, lip and eye liner pencils. I have two small decorative storage units on top that house samples.

Lenore Avatar

My single shadows are all depotted in z-palettes, they’re organized by color. My small palettes are organized by brand since they’re easy to store that way. My larger palettes are organized by shape, my palette drawer are not very deep, so I keep them in about three layers, laying flat. Oh, yes, I have a single drawer just for my UD-palettes 😛

kellly Avatar

I get makeup bags with the color of the eyeshadows (blue bags for my blue shadows, green for the green ones, etc) and try to keep them sorted into their major color categories. When I’m really organized this works very well for me, but sometimes I misplace something and have to spend time searching around for it.

Amara Avatar

since i can’t part with great palettes, i leave those [unless their packaging sucks or it would be easy to depot and it’s not a favorite brand] and i have z palettes by brand. mac, makeup geek, UD, drugstore, kat von d and nars =]

Jade Avatar

I will echo the puzzle piece organisation!! I have a drawer for them, in which I organise them as best I can, but I’m starting to struggle to fit everything. I’ve suddenly become obsessed with organising them better…

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