Being a creative for most of my life, I have always been rather messy and untidy. That changed when I watched the Marie Kondo Netflix show. It inspired me to overhaul my whole house, and it took weeks, if not months! The process was long and arduous, but since then, my anxiety has been way less and it just feels so good to know what I have and where I have it, and to let go of things that are simply taking up space. It truly has been life changing!
It wasn’t until recently that I decided to apply the method to my beauty products, and while it didn’t take as long as the rest of my house, it was tedious and took some careful planning. There are a few ways to organize your beauty products, but you have to find what’s right for you. Some people like to have everything on display over a vanity, while others want to make sure their products are hidden away, but at the same time easily accessible. I am the latter, since I want my products to be free of any furbaby hairs.
With the amount of products I have due to being a makeup artist, I got 3 of the 5 drawer wood cabinets to store all my goods, though the average beauty enthusiast can probably use just one. These drawers are really popular all over Instagram, and you can find them ranging anywhere from $39 to $175. I chose the Winsome Halifax 5-Drawer Wood Cabinet in White, and got it for $82 at www.ambfurniture.com.
Once I received the cabinet, I took out all my beauty products and laid them out in piles based on category, like one for skincare, one pile of foundations, one of lipsticks, etc. When I had everything out where I could see them, I had to figure out the best way of storing them in the drawers without having the items roll all over the place, but also in a way that I could still see everything I have at a glance.
The larger categories I placed at the bottom drawers, and didn’t need any boxes for separating them. I laid them all out flattened, not upright, so I could see all that I have much easier. This is especially great for lip glosses too, since you can see all the colors without having to pull them out to see which is which.
For the smaller categories, I saved little boxes from everything you can think of: sunglass boxes, jewelry boxes, even the tops of shoe boxes. To make them look fancy in your drawers, you can gift wrap them to prevent them from looking like regular cardboard boxes, though I haven’t done that...yet! This is great for smaller categories that can’t fill up an entire drawer because you can split them up in the same drawer without having everything get mixed up...plus you’re not spending any additional money to do so AND you’re reusing things that would ordinarily go to waste(I do this with my other non-beauty drawers too, like for socks and pillowcases!).
Another great tip is to place the items you use first in the top drawers, working your way down to the products you put on last. Luckily, lip products are the last thing I put on, and my biggest category, so it works for me that they go on the bottom. Lashes are also on the bottom drawer of the second cabinet I have.
I do skincare first, but a lot of the bottles for my skincare products need to stay upright and don’t fit in the drawers that way, so I keep my skincare in my pantry closet, and never in the bathroom(the constant temperature changes in bathrooms make it a less than ideal place to store any beauty products).
The first drawer is full of my tools, so it has all my brushes. I have my brushes split up with small, flat boxes by category, so one box for eyes, one for face, and one for my ultra fancy special brushes. In addition to brushes, I also have nail clippers, tweezers, lash curlers, a small electric trimmer in case I need to take care of my ‘stash, scissors, a pencil sharpener, and any other beauty tools.
The second drawer is for eyes, since I always do my eye makeup first. This one has all my palettes, and while it is harder to arrange them in a way you can see every palette at a glance, it is absolutely doable. Whenever I have to stack my palettes on top of each other, I always do it in a way where I can still see what palette is underneath it, and I arrange them in a criss cross way. I also have all my mascaras, eye and brow pencils, as well as eye primers in this drawer.
The third drawer can be for foundations, concealers, and powders, while the fourth should be for blushes, highlighters, bronzers, and setting powders. And, as I said earlier, the last one should always be for lips and lashes, as well as setting sprays, since those are the products you would generally be putting on last anyways.
Hope these tips help! Personally, it’s a lot easier for me to do my makeup now when I know everything that I have and can see it all so easily instead of wondering where that one favorite lip gloss of mine ran off to!