My Simplifying Home 8 Week Journey: Week 4, Day 7

Once again, I didn't come close to getting everything on this week's checklist finished but I did tackle some serious clutter and I feel great about that.  Earlier in the week I organized my vanity/sink area but since then I've been working on my cosmetics/toiletry cabinet.

Above is my "after" photo for my skin care shelf. It looked as bad as the "before" picture of my body care/overflow shelf (below) before I organized it. Although one thing that didn't change is my most frequently used items are at the front of the shelf, mostly in order of frequency of use (I keep the eye makeup remover on the far left even though I don't wear makeup every day). Also, opened products are in the pink basket and backups are in the blue bin behind the pink bin.

Here's the "before" photo of my body care/overflow shelf. All of the areas in today's post were at least this bad (the color cosmetics was much worse) before organizing and clutter clearing.

I try to keep posts to five photos or less so this one has one "before" and four "afters." It's nice that I have four freshly organized areas to share with you but I'm sorry I couldn't fit in all the "before" photos.

Here's that same shelf, after purging the clutter and organizing the keepers. The blue bag on the right is my "travel" bag. It has a little stand up mirror, a full face makeup palette, mini makeup brush set and tissues so if I need to put makeup on anywhere besides my bathroom all I have to do is add my current mascara and I'm good to go. The blue bag was behind the pink bottle in the "before" photo but there was so much clutter it was almost impossible to see (and I had to pull out two things to access it whereas now I can just reach in and grab it - much nicer).

This is my primer, foundation,powder, bronzer and blush shelf, organized in that order. Like the skin care shelf, open items are in the front bins and backups are in the back bin. I use the little bamboo bin for the primers and tinted moisturizer (which I suppose could go in skin care but I think of it as makeup so keep it here). The maroon box bottom is salvaged because I liked the color and it fits my most often used items while still letting them be easy to reach. It holds foundation, powder, blush and bronzer. Someday I'll replace the blue bins with pink, red or bamboo ones but they fit perfectly and this cabinet is usually shut so I'm in no hurry.

I think of this as my color cosmetics shelf but it's primarily eye and lip products. Before my organizing and clutter clearing, the shelf was precariously piled all the way to the top with a wide assortment of products and there wasn't an inch of free space behind the bamboo sorter (which was all the way to the front edge of the shelf. So even though it might not look like much to you, it was a huge relief to me. I didn't realize how much the pile bugged me until it was cleaned up.

I have my eye products to the left and my lip products to the right with the most often used items in the easiest to reach spots. I keep a little pair of scissors in there too to make opening up new products easier.

Behind the bamboo sorter there are four little clear plastic tubs. One each for mascara, eye liner, eye shadow and lip product backups. No, I don't need so many backups but the ones I kept are all products I either like or want to try.

Tomorrow we start week 5: bedrooms and closets. I don't really feel like I'm done in the bathroom yet (there are two more shelves in my cosmetics/toiletries cabinet plus the whole the linen closet) but I can always come back to it once this challenge is over and I did conquer the areas that I use the most often. I'm enjoying my newly organized spaces.

Thank you for joining me and thank you to Trina of Beginner Beans for making her Simplifying Home challenge a free resource. May God bless you and Trina too!

How do you organize your toiletries and/or cosmetics? Do you have a great clutter clearing story or organizing tip to share? I'd love to hear it!

Related posts:
Week 1, day 1: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2014/07/my-simplifying-home-8-week-journey-week.html
Week 2, day 7: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2014/07/my-simplifying-home-8-week-journey-week_14.html
Week 3, day 3: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2014/07/my-simplifying-home-8-week-journey-week_17.html
Week 3, day 7: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2014/07/my-simplifying-home-8-week-journey-week_21.html   
Week 4, day 3: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2014/07/my-simplifying-home-8-week-journey-week_24.html