Saturday, July 14, 2012

Makeup Storage Ideas - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

I thought I'd share some of my makeup storage ideas. Before creating my storage system, I watched hundreds of videos, scanned the Internet for suggestion, and asked others for tips. Here is what works for me. I hope you find it useful. No matter how you decide to store your makeup, one thing is important, you have to have your makeup readily accessible or you simply won't use it. If palettes are stacked on top of each other, you will likely never use that one stuck at the bottom of the pile. My collection is much larger than this, but this is just a few ideas that anyone can benefit from because they are in most cases very inexpensive, and in some cases free. I've taken common household items that one might discard, and found a way to recycle them and reuse them for a new purpose.

One of the best ideas I've had in terms of makeup storage is reusing my old Crystal Light containers (these are store brand, but you get the idea). Here I took the old container, removed the packaging, washed and dried the container and decorated it with a page from an old Sephora catalog. Inside, I placed lip pencils & lip glosses.

 Here I store eye pencils and eyeliners.  The container is clear, so you can easily see what you need:
 I labeled the top so I can see which container is which, if I have them in a storage cube:
My other favorite idea, is how I store my palettes. I purchased these bamboo dish racks from amazon.com for under $20 each.

 These sit on top of an old bookshelf where I store other makeup items on the other shelves.  The palettes are organized, each Urban Decay palette is organized by highlight colors, neutrals, brights etc and over to the right, I have my foundation palettes, blush palettes and other various eyeshadow palettes. My makeup books sit behind them where I can easily grab them for reference.
Sometimes, I buy eyeshadow refill pans, rather than eyeshadow that comes in a clam shell holder. I'll store these in a magnetic Z-palette (available on amazon.com) shown here:


The Z-Palette comes with magnetic stickers, so if you depot an eyeshadow from a palette, you can easily pop it into the Z-palette in the configuration that you like.

I store most of my brushes in a brush roll, but find that my double sided brushes get used a lot so I like to keep those out.  I've found a toothbrush holder that stores my liquid eyeliners in the center, and my double sided brushes:

My nail polish is stored on shelves where I can easily see my color selection, similar to the nail salon:



Brushes that I use on a daily basis, I keep out on my makeup table. This simple, yet elegant brush holder was created at a very affordable cost. The holder itself is a candle holder I got for $1 at Family Dollar. The beads were purchased at a craft shop, and I decorated the base with a pastel colored soft headband to tie the look together. I just stick my brushes in and they are readily accessible for everyday use.


All of my brushes are cruelty free and made of synthetic bristles. I try to be Eco friendly whenever possible as well as you can see by my Eco Tools brushes.

It's really important to me not to mix dirty and clean brushes. To keep things sanitary, I use the Crystal Light container pictured below, and the clear container the beads came in below to place my dirty brushes when I am done using them.  I clean my brushes daily with a daily brush cleaner, and do a deep clean once a week.

Another good tip, is to keep the packaging your brushes come with. For example, the mini kabuki brushes pictured above came with this clear packaging. I decorated it with pink laminate, and keep it to store the brushes, as they are too small to fit in a traditional brush roll. I also use the Japanese soy sauce dishes to the right of them to mix my pigments in.

 Pictured above is an old large pill bottle that my dog's eye drops came in. Again I washed the container, and decorated it with an old Sephora catalog. Inside, I store all of my brow tools that I use daily.

This is a piece of furniture I got on sale at Homegoods.  The top opens up and I store my foundations and concealers to the left and my blushes and bronzers in the bag to the right. The drawers open up, where I store my eyeshadow singles, false lashes and lipsticks.

 For larger pencils that do not fit in the Crystal Light containers, I place them in this pencil box I bought at CVS:

I hope you found this post helpful. If you are interested in seeing how I organize my Caboodles, makeup artist kit, makeup table, or any other storage ideas, please comment below and I'm happy to share more creative storage ideas with you!

I am going to start hosting corporate makeup parties for team building exercises as well where I will be doing mini makeovers, makeup lessons and sharing samples with the participants.

Email me with any inquiries or comment below: makeupmatters3@gmail.com

4 comments:

  1. Hey good job...especially loved the way u stack up ur palettes on tat wooden rack:)

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much! I got the idea from Home Goods, they were displaying some picture frames that way. The best part is that it's inexpensive. For thinner palettes such as the ones from MAC or Stila, you can fit 2 to a slot.

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  2. Hey good job...especially loved the way u stack up ur palettes on tat wooden rack:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. this was sooo helpful, love the way you store the palettes such a great idea x

    ReplyDelete

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