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Do you organize your makeup by brand, product, or color?


Do you organize your makeup by brand, product, or color? Some combination thereof?

For the most part, I sort by brand, then product, and then alphabetize the products if and when I can. For brands that I only have a few items of, then I sort by product.

Thanks to Tish for today’s question!

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Jessi Avatar

I organize by product type. I wish I could further organize it from there into color, but I’m still trying to figure out the best way to do this without taking up too much room.

Carrie Avatar

My collection isn’t so big that I do a ton of organization on it. I do, however, have a bin on top of my counter for my every-day items, such as my foundation, my Brow zings, mascara etc. just to make it easy to find. I really should get another bin to sort out my shadow and eyeliners though 🙂

TygerKitty Avatar

I mostly organize by type of product… lip glosses and eye shadows are separated into bins based on shades – especially e/s… for example I have a bin of bright, colorful eye shadows, and then deeper jewel tone and smoky colors and then a bin of neutrals, etc. Primer products and finishing products are in drawers in my vanity. Mascara, brow definer and eye liner are standing up in my brush holder because it has multiple compartments. I much prefer to locate something based on what type of product it is and what color it is rather than brand – if I bought it, I’m willing to wear it so after that, the brand doesn’t matter to me.

heather Avatar

separate them by product..but only recently. before this past winter, i had a stack of hatboxes next to my vanity. it took forever to find things, needless to say. i now use tackle boxes with whiteboards drilled into the lids so i know on any day what i’m wearing. the compartments in tackle boxes are better than a caboodles, they’re larger, and i know that yellow box has eye products, grey has lip products, and blue has base and cheek products. <3

Jill Avatar

I organize by products, and then within the products I organize by brand, or wherever it fits.

I have a clear three-drawer case on my sink that has my mascaras, concealers and brow powders in the top drawer, compacts such as foundations, translucent powder, bronzers, matte powder etc in the middle drawer and the bottom drawer has a few palettes and “randoms” but that case is for my Everyday Use items. Then I have UD palettes in my Stila boombox train case.

My eyeshadow singles and lippies are in a storage tote drawer and they’re all in ice cube trays. I have the traditional ice cube trays for my eyeshadows which are then sorted by brand (but mostly UD), then I have taller “stick ice cube” trays that I put my lippies in, sorted by brand and then by color.

Jasmine Avatar

By product! I don’t have too much makeup (you have to start somewhere, right?), just one medium 3 drawer Sterilite container. On the bottom shelf I store all my eye products. I put all eyeshadows (cream, powder, palette, depotted) on one side and eyeliner/primers/bases/mascaras on the other side. In middle drawer, I store all my lip products. To be honest this drawer is a mess, no organization at all! On the top drawer I have all blushes/powders/tinted moisturizers.

Ashley Avatar

I organize it by placing the items that happen to be cosmetics in one side of my vanity drawer, and then from there I usually organize it by however I happen to toss/replace what I use once finished with it.

I’m a simple gal. I may one day get actual cubbies though for the makeup, and then a DIY brush holder. I’m just lazy and don’t feel up to buying all of that yet since I’m still not back into makeup-wearing just yet (not sure if I want to wait for my acne marks to fade and my scars to fill out a bit before wearing eye makeup again; I don’t wear foundation at all).

Emily Avatar

Seeing As I only have Mac… I organize my drawer order in the following way
Face I use
Lips I use
Eyes I use
Misc. I haven’t perfected yet then 4 drawers of new…
On YouTube there is a user called emilynoel83 and she has great tips for organization, she comments on brand order staring that it actually stops her from optimizing her collection? Very interesting!!!

MaeWest Avatar

I am using Daler Artists’ Carry Boxes, €2.99 @ Pickwick. Very helpful to keep everything clean, organized and easy to find, especially at work.
http://www.chromosart.co.uk/catalog/images/DR%20Carry%20Box.jpg

I organize my products by type and use some kind of a ‘code’ I built up with stickers. It sounds idiosyncratic but it is very helpful to spot the M.A.C. palette or the pigment I need in 5 sec.
I also depot a lot to make palettes, I really like the Muji ones.

Chester Avatar

I sort my stash by …
(1) product category mainly. Lip products are in a different drawer than face&cheek products, eye products have 2 drawers. Inside these drawers I divide into lipsticks vs. lip pencils vs. lipgloss for example.
(2) If I have more than 2 or 3 from the same brand I sub-divide by brand as well.
(3) If it’s a type of product where I can see the color without opening it (lip gloss, paint pots) I sort by color usually. Blushes are sorted alphabetically.
(4) Nail polish is sorted by brand first, then by color from lightest to darkest.

I know it looks like it is confusing but it makes total sense to me 🙂

Lulle Avatar

I “organize” by product, which just means I have a big drawer for each category (face, lips, eyes, nails…) and everything in there is just mixed up in a big mess 😀

artemis Avatar

i love the new look of the site <3 !!!!
i tried to organise them by products….like lips and cheeks and face and eyes but yeah…i just turned it into a mess again

Laura S. Avatar

I organize by product type, primarily because I don’t have a large enough collection to warrant sorting by brand. Although I think I’m amassing enough lip products to where I’m going to need to sort by brand if I want to find anything! 🙂 Happy weekend!

Liz Mc Avatar

Organize? What’s that word mean? LOL….

I’ve tried to organize it by type but it ends up with me fishing through all of it each AM looking for the exact thing I want, which is a real pain.

I’ve started to try and separate it out by “face” – where what I tend to wear together and fairly often is grouped so I can just grab it all at once (eyeshadow/eyeliner/blush/lipstick/lipgloss) but sometimes I want to change it up and the pawing through the larger pile begins again, then the by-face sort gets all messed up.

I’m still trying to figure out something that works for me.

Lisa Avatar

I actually sort mine by the size of what the makeup is, so the biggest things (such as palettes go on the bottom) & the smaller things go on top.

JulieD Avatar

I tend to organize by product type in my drawers, but then organize by brand….Speaking of… I need to pick up some more organizers for my ever-expanding collection. =D

Laurel Avatar

I sort by type of product, and then by how often I use it (i.e. the most used products are closer to the front of the drawer). The only item I sort by brand is Stila lip glazes because I have so many.

Alison Avatar

I just reorganized my vanity (with the invaluable help of my boyfriend and the container store!).

I have a desk with three side drawers. Top is eyes, middle is lips, bottom is cheeks and face. Within each drawer I have acrylic containers that stack. I keep all products of the same type together (shadows, liners, mascaras), and they usually end up by brand because the packaging fits best that way. Then by color (though I haven’t tackled that project yet…)!

I have to say that having my stuff organized more efficiently actually makes my makeup more fun to use. 🙂

Kimberly Avatar

I’m an organizational freak, so in my perfect world all of my products would be organized by type, then color, and by finish.

In reality, I still don’t have a vanity to put all this in, so my lipsticks are just hanging out in a bin by my bed. 🙂

Jenny Avatar

Within the product types I try to organize by brand, that way all similar shaped products will fit together easily and it looks neater to me. Then within that I organize by color name. Since I can’t see the colors anyways it doesn’t really make a difference to me if reds are next to pinks, so I put them in alphabetical order by shade name. If I didn’t do that I would constantly be adjusting the products because I would be changing my mind all the time about how I want the colors grouped.

Stephanie Avatar

I organize by product. I would love to go further and organize by brand, colour, etc. But I just don’t have the space! I need to buy a better organizer, my train case just isn’t cutting it anymore!

Kat Avatar

I have a little bit of everything so I sort by product. I have three of those ten-drawer organizers to help me sort everything from eye, face/cheek and lip/other products.

Natalie Avatar

I organize by product. I have a pretty big custom vanity I made, so I have a drawer for lips, eyes, powders, face, then two big miscellaneous drawers. Inside everything is then organized by brand, for the most part. Things I have less of are then grouped together. Being so organized has cut down on my getting ready time tremendously!

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