Let’s Get Organised: Handy Buys for Organising Your Beauty Bits

Yup, I have too much stuff.

The Fabulous Fee at MakeUpSavvy wrote a great post here about the Godmorgon range at Ikea, which I believe is either intended for make-up storage, or has turned out to be very good for it!  I paid a visit to Ikea to seek out the Godmorgon range, but couldn’t find it, so instead bought 2 towels and some sort of hanging storage contraption, none of which I’ve used.  What is it about that place that convinces you you’re suddenly suffering a desperate shortage of towels?  Anyway, I started having a mooch around online and found a few things that have proved very useful for storing my ridiculously large collection of make-up, skincare and tools.

More examples of my excessive collection .

It’s worth noting that you’ll probably view the images of my make-up storage and think ‘that’s her idea of organised??!’ and I’ll see your point.  However, if you’d had the opportunity to view the chaos it was previously, I’m sure you’d be rather impressed with how it looks now.  I can access everything I need or want within moments and the things I use less often are also more accessible.  So it works for me!  Stop judging me , would you?  Just stop it…..

For bigger items:

First up is the Lori Greiner Tabletop Spinning Organiser which is available at QVC here for £26.45 including P+P.  As the name suggests, it’s on a spinning plate and there are various nooks, shelves and storage areas to fit different sized things.  I know some people have complained that the shelves are not as wide as they’d need to be for certain cosmetics, but I’ve found this really useful; especially the top bit that has lots of little spaces to put things like lipsticks, foundation tubes, mascaras, etc, because I have loads of these items and I find it soooo much easier to see them all displayed in this way.  What this isn’t great for is big bottles or jars as the shelves aren’t deep enough, but to give you an idea, I use this to store all the main products and make-up items I use apart from one jar of face cream, so it definitely works really well for me and I love the fact that it revolves as that makes it much more space saving.

For smaller bits and bobs:

Large organiser.

Small organiser.

John Lewis do a couple of acrylic storage devices intended for cosmetics.  I’ve got both the large and small versions of this (£11.50 and £7.50 respectively) and whilst they’re not hugely useful if you’ve got a lot of large products, but for all your nik naks like samples, tubes of cream, shorter brushes etc, these are really handy.  They also have little shelf type bits at the front that I find useful for all my eye creams and serums.  My main aim was to get everything as organised and easily accessible as possible, so I wanted everything neatly on display, so consequently these have proved really handy.

For brushes and liners:

I keep my brush cleaner in with the brushes too so I can find it quickly.

You could use either a few different cups/glasses, or a cutlery dryer.  Cutlery dryers are a couple of quid and you can buy them with several sections, which you can then use to organise your brushes by area; powder brushes, foundation brushes, eye brushes, brow spoolies and concealer brushes.  The one I have has a smaller area in the middle which has a slightly higher base, and this is really useful for smaller brushes and eye liners and is from John Lewis here.

For things you don’t use that often but still want nearby:

Unfortunately, my DIY skills leave quite a bit to be desired, hence the gaps between the drawers.

The top of this cabinet makes a useful ‘shelf’ too.

Ikea’s Moppe mini chest of drawers is really great for organising your beauty bits and bobs as it has several drawers within the one unit, but it’s small enough to sit on a table.  The one I have in my bedroom is slightly different as it has 9 drawers, of which I’ve only installed 6 as I wanted a little shelving nook underneath to place things, but I’m quite keen on the one in this picture (read: likely to purchase very shortly)  as I like the larger drawer at the bottom; I’m thinking larger foundations and face creams would fit in there perfectly.  It’s priced at £16.99 and available here.

For other little drawer units:

Have a look around shops that contain DIY products as the drawer units that workmen use for keeping nails, screws, whatever else it is that workmen like to keep in large, organised quantities, as they have some pretty fabulous units (I’m confident that’s ‘exactly’ as they describe them too) that are ideal for make-up storage, as well as things like hairbands, hairclips and all other bits and pieces that you want to get organised.  It’s also a good idea to check out pound shops for cups, pen organisers (really good for brushes and sponges) and mini drawer units.