My (humble) Makeup Collection And Storage

A couple of weekends ago I was procrastinating, as I often do, not wanting to do school assignments, telling myself “oh, I'll do that, just two more youtube videos”, followed by “just two more tabloid articles” and so forth until eventually it gets dark outside and I either do make myself do whatever it was I was putting off doing, or I shrug and say to myself “well, it's too late to do it now, I'll definitely do it tomorrow though!” and curl up in my nest of pillows and throws. Well, that afternoon, one of my excuses to not do something more important, was to relocate my makeup from the makeup bag it had previously lived in, into a drawer. Something I thought would only take 15-30 minutes, actually took all day, but I'm really pleased with the end result and thought I should share it.

First of all, I'm really not sure the volume of items I have qualifies to be called a “collection”, especially if you've seen collection videos on youtube, but I supposed technically the term does apply. Previously, all of these things had lived in my much loved Japonesque makeup bag, which was given additional structure by a perfectly fitting Sistema plastic box. Short story about that is, I was killing time at the home/kitchen area of my department store when I stumbled across this brand and thought, OMG these would be amazing for makeup, especially for travel! And the rest is history... I used this storage solution both at home and for travel – works wonderfully! Protects the goods and helps compacts stand up, plus you can remove the box for easier access, put it on your nightstand or bathroom counter, if you're staying somewhere longer, or if you just want to clean the box or wash the bag separately. Really, a stroke of genius on my part! 

However, at home I didn't really have a place to put the makeup bag so it just sat out next to the TV. I'd get up, reach for it, take the contents out to do my makeup in the morning, pack everything back up, zip it shut and put it back next to the TV. I wouldn't say it was too tedious of a routine, but it did annoy me having it in view all the time like that. Whenever I saw it, I felt the same way I do about clothes or paperwork that's been left out and slowly start accumulating into a pile, only with this, there was nowhere to put it away. Okay, I probably could have found some place, but it would have been a tight fit and an even longer process of getting it out, using it and putting it away. So, for some reason, I felt inspired to free up a drawer in my cabinet and have almost like a vanity (but not really).

I think the reason I wanted to do this, was because this cabinet, while functional, is full of stuff I almost never use. It houses some hair brushes and jewelry, old sheet music, school projects, paper, paint, rulers, glue gun, calipers, all sorts of crafting supplies, CDs, USB cords and so on, and so on... All things that do need stored, but ones that are not used as regularly as my makeup. Ironically, the only places I could think of to stick my makeup, were ones that seemed like such a chore to go into daily, that really, I should have instead been storing the things I don't use often there, and my makeup, which I use every day, somewhere with easier access, like the cabinet.

Originally I thought the hardest part would be to fit all the makeup into the drawer, but no, that was quite easy. Much harder and time consuming was figuring out where to relocate the things that were previously in that drawer and spreading them across several locations. This in turn meant a huge de-clutter of something like 5 areas, going through every folded piece of paper and deciding if it's worth keeping or not, so basically, 5 hours of reorganization. But eventually, everything found a home, or ended up in the trash if it didn't. It's now been a few weeks since I did this, and I'm really enjoying my makeup collection's new home. Because this is one of my favourite pieces of furniture I have, I'm glad it isn't just this lump of wood in the middle of the room any more, but that it's actually something I interact with daily.

As for the makeup storage itself, it's not the best drawer in the world for this, because it's quite low – it closes, but if something is out of place even a little bit, it won't. Also, it doesn't slide open a lot, half of it you have to reach into, which means 50% is dead space. It's not totally useless, I keep some things I don't use often or at all, but keep for nostalgic reasons, back there. If I want any of them, I have to get the boxes in front out of the way and reach in to get it. But other than that, the things I use frequently fit perfectly into the space at the front of the drawer. There isn't really any room for the collection to expand in these conditions, but I'm okay with that. I like using something up before re-purchasing or trying something new.

I also took a picture of what the process of my getting ready in the morning looks like. I will say it isn't 100% truthful as I usually start putting things back immediately after I'm done with them, so there's never really so many things out at once. I thought I'd take the picture at the very end, once my face was on, but by this point the mess was driving me nuts (before bronzer!) and I thought, right, take the damn picture, and put the stuff away, NOW =D!

Also, this isn't ALL of my makeup – a powder and some lip products are floating around in various purses of mine. And then there are the foundations, lipsticks or pencils that I have to dig into with a brush to use or can't sharpen anymore, respectively, that I don't quite have the heart to get rid of and save for some special occasion, or something, that live in a makeup bag in a closet. But the items I use weekly, if not daily, all live in this drawer now, and I really like the new set up and am not sorry at all I took the time to re-organize so many other areas just to have it =).