Teaching Tuesdays: Organizing Your Makeup
Cherry Creek North | Denver, CO
I had the great pleasure of joining Michael Moore of Moore for Life, for his Teaching Tuesdays segment to share 3 steps to getting your makeup organized.
Check out our segment below!
How to Organize Your Makeup in Three Steps
The key to a successful organizing project is to: CATEGORIZE, CONTAIN, MAINTAIN.
If you can remember these three words when tackling your organizing projects, and in this case makeup, you're guaranteed to transform your space! Here we go...
STEP 1: CATEGORIZE
The first step in organizing your makeup is to assess what you have and get your products categorized. This is important, as it will help you determine the best way to effectively organize in step two. Here's what you need to do:
Pull Everything Out
Pull all your makeup out of drawers/cabinets and lay everything on the counter. As you’re pulling items out, make piles of like-items by category (e.g. lipsticks, eye shadows, brushes). I recommend making broad categories, but if you have a lot of makeup, you can get more granular with sub categories, such as colors, occasions, etc..
A you're doing this, consider what you use daily to ensure those items are most accessible. Example, if you have makeup that you only wear during the holidays, make a separate pile for those items so they don't get in the way of your regular faves.
Distill it Down
Once you have everything categorized, this is a great opportunity to distill each category down to ensure you’re only organizing products that you use and love.
Sometimes it’s hard to get rid of makeup, so I always ask myself these three questions, which tends to make the decisions for me!
Is anything broken? If so, toss.
Is anything expired? If there isn't a date on the bottle, discard anything over 12 months old as it can lead to bacteria, especially makeup in liquid form.
Do I feel good wearing this? If it’s not flattering or you don’t like it, toss it. It’s just taking up precious space for products that make you feel great!
If you have products that are brand new, unopened, and not expired, but you don’t like them, consider donating or giving to a friend. Or, do you know a kid that loves playing with makeup? Give it to them! It will make their day.
STEP 2: CONTAIN
Now that you know how much of each category you have, it’s time to plan your space. The goal is to give each category of product a “home” or designated spot and then contain it.
This makes it easy to remember where things are, where to put things away, when you’re out of something (or avoid over-buying), and it holds you accountable to the size of your space.
Makeup Organizing Products
When determining the best products for your makeup drawer or cabinet, it's important to think about how much of each category you have, and then visually think through where your items might live before purchasing products to ensure everything will fit.
Here are some tips for choosing the right products:
Measure the space where your makeup will be stored (width, depth, height)
Find product that will maximize your space (edge to edge if you're storing in a drawer)
Find product that will house each category of makeup in separate compartments
Be consistent with color choices (ie go with all clear products or all white products)
The Container Store and Amazon have great options
Once you have your products, place your makeup in the location you've chosen!
STEP 3: MAINTAIN
The key to staying organized long term is to always return items to their designated spot. If you get busy during the week and things get crazy, choose a day each week to tidy things up. If you find that something isn’t working for you after you’ve organized, it’s ok to adjust!
At the end of the day, being organized requires effort, but once you have a great system in place to follow, it should enable long term organization.
Happy organizing!