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What are your top three tips for organizing your makeup?
What are your top three tips for organizing your makeup? Share!
1.) Separate out your daily/frequently used essentials (foundation, mascara, etc.) so they are easily accessible and then things you sometimes use but not frequently can be stored elsewhere. 2.) Think about how you use your makeup – do you think “I want to wear NARS today” or are you more like “I need a coral blush” so you can decide how to organize your products. 3.) Donate, pass on, or recycle products you never use.
Thanks to Astrild for today’s questions! Do you have a question idea? Submit yours here.
I like to organize by color. 1) For shadows, I have 5 drawers, each with blues, greens, purples, grays, and neutrals. In the morning, if I feel like purple shadow, I only need to open 1 drawer. And by having all purple shadows in 1 drawer, I can easily see/swatch them, so I don’t accidentally buy 5 more purples that are too similar in color. 2) For eyeliners, I use cups to organize by color 3) When I buy makeup, I try to look for colors that I don’t already have
I can’t say I’m very organized, but here are tips:
– do not store any powder product in your bathroom, ever. The humidity can damage them very quickly.
– keep the products you use daily, like mascara, concealer, foundation, etc, in a tray or box on your vanity, on top of your dresser, or anywhere they’re easily accessible (but not a place that’s in direct sunlight).
– if you have a big stash, get a piece of furniture specifically to house it. Ikea has different options (some more affordable than others) and you’d be surprised by how much stuff they can contain. Even a rather large stash could fit into one of those chests of drawers, clearing up a ton of space in your bathroom/makeup room.
1.) Have a place for everything, and keep everything in its place, or stuff goes mysteriously missing! Ie; one bin is blushes & other cheek products that I’m using pretty regularly at that time. All my pencil liners are together with a hair elastic, lip liners in one, eye liners in another, etc.
2.) I try to keep all my everyday stuff, ie; brushes, brow powder, eyeliners, mascara, foundation, primers all in that first drawer of my tall, skinny, wheeled Sterlite container, because if any of THOSE go missing, so does my overall look!
3.) Keeping a mental list of what’s in my stash to avoid buying dupes or even worse yet; dupes of dupes! (Believe me, I already have actually done this before!)
P.S.: How would one go about donating products? Are there any rules or guidelines? TY!
1) I agree with Christine, keep your frequently used items most accessible. Mine are front and center on my vanity top in an acrylic organizer. 2) Regular weed through your collection, and throw out anything that’s gone bad. Evaluate what you use. If you never use something: Throw it out, give it away, donate it or sell it. 3) Seriously consider depotting anything in packaging you don’t care about. I don’t depot most palettes, and nothing with limited edition or really cute packaging. I find it’s so much more compact and easier to just grab my Zpalette full of purple eyeshadows than go to sift through a box/drawer of singles, looking for the right one. Don’t forget to label the pan bottoms for reference (I have a few things I missed labeling, and it’s annoying as heck).
1. Keep your everyday essentials together and at hand
2. Keep your back-ups and stash organized per product type
3. Regularly clean out your collection and throw out or give away whatever you don’t use (anymore)
Probably not responding by “top three” but, this works for me: My brushes, primers and foundations are kept in my cabinet by shade. All makeup is rotated as “in use” by dual seasons; meaning for example, now my Spring/Summer shades are out and my Fall/Winter shades are packed away in totes marked by makeup type. Makeup in use is stored in a train case sorted by shade/tone; meaning for example, eyeshadows are grouped together and sorted by intensity by warm vs. cool (as are blushes, eyeliners, contours/highlighters). Lipsticks and lipglosses are kept in lipstick caddies with one for cool and one for warm and arranged lipsticks first then glosses all arranged in order of intensity. I reassess my collection at the end of each season and donate items that I don’t use or don’t get enough use out of to justify keeping. This organization makes it very easy for me to see what I have at any given time (so I don’t buy dupes) and makes makeup application simple because it’s easy to grab what I want even super early in the morning. It takes a bit to start the “system” but once done, at least for me, it really makes everything so much simpler.
I keep my every day essentials out on my dresser (foundation, mascara, brow product, brown eyeliner, the things I use with every look) and the rest is in a 6 drawer rubbermaid organizer to the side, sorted by product type (foundations and primers, blush and highlighters, eyeshadow, eyeliner and mascara, lip products, and extra brushes). I keep my most used brushes in a mason jar with glass pebbles on my dresser.
My best advice: only make room to store what you need, then instead of accumulating a massive collection of things you never use, force yourself to clean out what you have and pass on things you aren’t using and clean out things that are used up or expired to make room for new things.
1. Pull out your everyday basics, put in a makeup bag or draw where they are easily accessible.
2. Separate your makeup into categories, I like storing some things in ziplock bags, others in containers (space is limited here in NY).
3. Filter through your collection and donate, pass on or recycle the things you don’t use.
I like to organize by product type, brand, and then by color. for example, I have a drawer for blush and they per brand. I just seem to mentally be able to know the shades I have that way easier. I have a massive amount of lipsticks glosses. So’ about every two weeks I go through them and pull out some that I feel haven’t been getting attention and put them in two little organizer things I found in the $3 spot at Target on top of my vanity. Right now I have a desk type vanity and store mascara and primer,lash curlers,every day things in the drawer that slides in the top under my legs and eye liners and lip pencils on top in cups and brushes are sorted in glass vases on top. I am currently having a custom built cabinet built by a family member. So, that will make it much easier for me. I have an Alex be Ikea. I find it hard to fit anything to actually divide compacts so it gets pretty messy in the drawers. When I clean out, I think when is the last time I reached for this? I fi put it out in the fornt and still don’t think I will use it- it goes to my daughter for playing with(if it is just bad) or my mom or sister (if it is nice) I will be back to read everyone’s posts so I can pick up tips on organizing for that!
Right now I have all my everyday stuff in a makeup bag by my bed (I get the best light from that window in the morning so I usually do my makeup sitting on my bed). The makeup bag has two layers and a top pocket layer, so I keep brushes in the top layer, face products in the next one, and eye products in the last one. I have my single eyeshadows and most of my blushes in Z Palettes that I keep sitting underneath the bag. Everything else is in a large hard train case. However I’m planning on making a vanity-style setup on my desk with my everyday items on the desk and in the drawer, and all my other things in the train case. I want to get an acrylic organizer (I really liked the one from Container Store that you reviewed!).
○ ORGANIZATION TIP #3: Find and invest in storage drawers, bins, empty palettes, etc. to keep you makeup well organized.
• I like to go to my local Family Dollar to purchase inexpensive Sterilite® Storage Drawers (approx. $4-$6) for my makeup. They come in all different sizes with various amount of drawers, and they’re stackable. And you can interchange the drawers to your liking (only if you buy exact storage drawers, of course).
• Stationery holders or desk supplies is a great way to store makeup brushes; especially, in those metal mesh pen/pencil holders. They are affordable and sturdy.
○ ORGANIZATION TIP #2: Break free of the “some day I’ll use it” makeup mentality.
• Letting go can be the hardest thing to do. However, if your makeup is seriously decrepit — or simply old, in general — and you keep telling yourself that you’ll use it eventually, get rid of it! At this point, you’re just hoarding. Lol. Don’t think of it as saying goodbye to something precious. It’s more like, you’re now making room for new cosmetics. Optimism!
○ ORGANIZATION TIP #1: Keep what you use often out and in front.
• It’s been mentioned over and over again, but it’s very much so true. Keep your everyday makeup within easy, accessible reach. Move limitedly-used makeup away, or into a place of storage. It will make your makeup life simple.
1. Sort by type, and then subtype–eyeliner with eyeliner (then grouped by liquid vs. pencil. vs. gel) , foundation (grouped by powder, liquid, bb/tm), blush (grouped by powder, cream) and so on.
2. Keep like brands together–like packaging fits together very well. All NARS blushes fit together. All MAC blushes fit together, and so on. This saves on space, makes things look aesthetically pleasing, and it is easier to find what you are looking for.
3. Be mindful of what order you do your makeup in. If you use drawers for storage, think about the top drawer being for the first step of your process, and the bottom drawer being for the last step of your process. Same thing if you use compartments in a vanity, boxes, bins, etc. This really streamlines the process.
1. I do the same with storing “frequent, immediate use” products away from the rest. Seems that this is fairly common for those of us who own a lot of makeup! 🙂
2. I periodically go through and change out the selection of lipsticks in my purse and “immediate access” container by my mirror. I’ll sit down with EVERYTHING and then decide what to use, trying to pay special attention to what hasn’t been in rotation recently. I generally try to keep in my purse 1 of each of the following: a striking red, a sheer warm, a sheer cool, a peach or coral, a berry or purple, an MLBB, a very bright color. I do the same for my daily use access container — but I’ll keep more there than in my purse, maybe up to 10 lip products, with a special focus on the products that masks me say, “Why don’t I ever use this? I should wear it more often.”
3. I change out the blushes and eye products from storage to daily use a lot less frequently than lip color, but at least once every three or four months, I follow the same process, trying to make sure, for example, that I have a warm orange blush, a plummy one, coral, nude, and a variety of finishes between the finalists.
I have a tray for my frequently used ‘basic face’ items (foundation, bronzer, mascara, liner, etc.) I have my blushes in 2 drawers and my shadows are in drawers based on color. I store all cream products (off season lipstick, foundations etc) that i am not using in a spare fridge to extend the life.
1. I keep my everyday makeup on my dresser in a basket so I can access them easily. Plus brushes that I regularly use in a cup. I separate my eye products for every day use in another cup-like brow gel, concealer. eyelash curler, brow+eye pencils and so on. And I store my lip pencils that way too.
2. I donate makeup that I don’t use + I try to make use of whatever I have for a new look/purchase only what I don’t have or need.
3. I have a special special occasion stash -like weddings/parties that is in separate storage.
Update your “current rotation” each season.
After you’ve been through a few seasons as a makeup junkie, oops I mean connoisseur,
you know there are only a few things you keep reaching for over and over,
so keep as little as necessary in your “current rotation.”
Stash everything else away by Type of makeup item, and
I further separate out sub-categories of eyeshadows by color family, and lipsticks by brand.
I use decorative storage boxes from Michaels craft store.
And for my sub-categories inside the boxes, I use ziplock baggies with a label on or inside them.
I’m afraid I’m not very organized. I have a desk type vanity with two side drawers. I use those for hair supplies. The center contains my makeup brushes. I have two plastic sets of drawers from an office supply store. They are a bit shorter than the vanity and have translucent drawers. One is on the left side of the vanity and stores extra supplies and infrequently used items. The other is on the right side and contains lipsticks, primers, brow and liners, face color race in separate drawers. The bottom two drawers are shadows, singles and palettes. I keep a mug on top for frequently used eyeliner. No organisation by brand or color. Have a lighted magnifying mirror on top also as I can’t see far enough to use the vanity mirror without glasses. It sounds organised but really isn’t.
Find a place for everything.. and keep it there. Daily use products have their own place (I keep mine on my vanity in acrylic trays). Invest in furnishing to contain product.. I got some great deals on 10 drawer units at Michaels after the holidays.. keep an eye out. Get creative.. glasses/jars, craft and office organization trays/holders are fabulous. Keep product out of direct sunlight and in as controlled moisture/temperature as possible. Visibility is huge.. if you can’t see it when you first look into an organizer or open a drawer you probably will never use it.. spread everything out or buy a labeller so you can see at a glance what you have. Consider depotting, it saves so much space and makes you more likely to use the product.. you don’t need those expensive palettes (unless you want them) I use old fashioned fat CD cases and they work wonderfully, store nice and neat, they are also easy to label and clear so you can see inside. They can be hard to find, I got mine at Office Depot.
I have a wonderful acrylic on the counter top that is long and narrow, so it sits back and is not in the way but holds absolutely everything I use on a daily basis. From primers, foundations (my 3 favorites), brow pens, pomades, brow mascara’s, mascara’s (yes I use 3 🙂 ), pro longwear paint pots, liner pens, etc… It sounds like a lot but it fits so neatly in such small space it is amazing and so convenient. I got mine at Homegoods and I love it. The only thing I do not have in there is my eye shadows, but they are on an Alex type drawer top (in an organizer) right next to the vanity. My drawers aren’t the IKEA Alex drawers, but pretty similar. They are the same style and size, but more of a natural type wound that I found @ a consignment store for about 25 bucks. I have those organized pretty well, but I would seriously recommend investing in some inexpensive acrylic drawer organizer. Has made all the difference in the world. Still looking for the perfect lip organizer, but I have 2 swivel towers, and I have them separated by colors, glosses, mattes, etc… I use Zulily a lot and I found these for 7, they are 24 on Amazon.
My tips are pretty much the same as everyone else’s:
1. Keep frequently used items handy
2. Decide how you are going to sort the rest: by colour, brand, type of product and have relevant containers/drawers etc
3. Organise your brushes and eyeliners/eye crayons into separate cups so that you can easily access them.
I am a mess with makeup and have none to share, just wanted to thank everyone for the tips! saving my life as we speak…
Write down the date the product was opened (sticky tape or sharpie), so to easily throw away old, gross things, so you become more conscious when shopping. Invest in proper storage furniture, dividers and so on.
I don’t have enough to organize, but I’d say rotate your favorites into your bag — don’t just leave them at home — and enjoy!
1- a place for everything and everything in it’s place, as they say
2- I have the Alex 5 drawers and I have the top drawer for the first layers (foundation, powder, concealer, etc), the next one for the next steps (blushes, highlight, contour, bronzer, etc) and so on.
3- Every now and then (depends on your schedule), go through and declutter (check if products have gone bad, etc)