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

Urban Decay Smoked Tutorial!

 It's HERE!!! The NEW Urban Decay Smoked Palette! I got so excited, I had to do a quick "tutorial" for you guys. I took this really quick on my camera phone just to show you guys a quick look.
Step 1: Take Perversion eye pencil (included in kit) and draw a smudgy line across top & bottom lash line.  I used an UD brush designed to smudge the 24/7 pencils (not included), to smudge it all over eyelid, focusing on outer corner. This created the base for the look.  Step 2: Take the color Mushroom and focus it on the inner half of the eyelid.

 Step 3: Layer Asphalt on the center of the lid (NEW COLOR), then put Blackout in the "outer V" and blend into the crease.  Blend the rest of the shades lightly together using a fluffy brush.  Step 4: Apply Kinky to the brow bone as a highlight & a little Freestyle between the crease & brow bone to warm it up.  Step 5: Line waterline and tight line using included Perversion eye pencil. Smudge a little on top & bottom lash line as well if desired.

 Step 6: Apply Urban Decay's SuperCurl Mascara (no lash curler here!) to curl, lengthen and define lashes(not included). And here it is the finished look! Yes I was running around my house with only 1 eye done, but it was super fun to try this out. I recommend this palette. Such a good value. It comes with a mini primer potion too!

For a video tutorial of this look, click here (or copy and paste to your browser):
http://youtu.be/hOcnXha6GpY



Shortly after I posted this Urban Decay posted a contest for a smokey eye look. I did not win, but here is the look I submitted. I basically followed the same steps above, but added some Rockstar to the lid for a more modern look. Here are the pics:

Thank you Urban Decay!

This is not my usual post, but I must post it!  I am super excited about an email I received from Urban Decay today, and just had to share the good news. As some of you may know, UD was contemplating selling their products in China. However, due to China's current laws, some tests on animals may have been conducted using UD products (though the tests would not have been conducted BY UD).  Nevertheless, this sparked some heated debate, and was upsetting for many UD long time loyal customers like myself. I am happy to share with you, that UD has once again listened to their customers. This brand is famous for reading emails from their customers, and actually listening to what their customers want. Although historically this has been primarily in the form of what shadow colors to add to their permanent line, what color eyeliners that were only available in sets, do we want to see sold separately etc, they have now decided to listen to us on a much bigger issue. We all write letters and get angry when a company does something "wrong."  I think we also need to say thank you, when they do something right. So thank you Urban Decay, for deciding not to sell in China.  I appreciate your change of heart, and went online to purchase some items today as a token of my gratitude!  I will be writing a blog post on those items once they arrive!

Here is the email I received from UD today (and a side note I wrote at the bottom!):

Dear Liza Chung,

Thank you for your interest in the web chat.  As you may have heard, Urban Decay has decided NOT to begin selling products in China.  Our full statement and additional information can be found at www.urbandecay.com/animaltestingpolicy.

Because of this decision, we will not be holding the web chat, but encourage you to email us at info@urbandecay.com i

f you have any additional questions.

Thanks again for your patience as we worked through this difficult issue.

Team UDUrban Decay Cosmetics
833 W. 16th St. Newport Beach, CA 92663

*Side Note: If you have never tried Urban Decay, I suggest you do so. They are a solid brand, with some truly amazing products. In my opinion, their eyeshadow is the best in the business (YES BETTER THAN M.A.C!).  Some of my favorites from the brand include: 24/7 glide-on eye pencil in Yeyo (really brightens up the inner corners of the eye & works great on the waterline), UD eyeshadow in Cobra (makes an awesome smokey eye), 24/7 concealer pencil (they have recently expanded their shade selection so you should be able to find one to match  you, my color is CIA), and new for summer: their showboat nail kit (bright bright bright amazingly fun summer colors).  One of the things I just ordered from them is a pair of UD lashes , which I have never tried but hear are awesome. I shall try them on and let you know! 

Black & White #2 : Dark eye, neutral lip

In this black and white photo, I chose to highlight the eye, and paired it with a nude lip. I brought in some black shadow into the crease to create more depth in the eye crease.  As indicated in my previous post, the color is not important here, only the tone.  Here I included both the black & white photo as well as the color version to illustrate a point. The makeup in the color photo doesn't look like anything special. In reality if I were to create this look for a color photo, I would likely use a lipstick with a little more pink to it, I would apply more blush, and probably not put as much black shadow in the crease, but would likely use some deeper browns. However, as you can see in the black and white photo below, using the black shadow in the outer corner of the eye, helped create the darker contrast, thus creating the gradation from light to dark that I was looking for. Similarly, blush would not have translated to a black and white photo.  Instead, I used a contour powder, and some highlighting technique, to create shadows, and light where I wanted it. Again, the color of lipstick did not matter here, it only mattered that I used a light tone that would translate as a light neutral in the black and white photo. There are many times, where a person may want black & white photos as well as colored ones.  An example of this is wedding photos. Some couples like both color and black and white photography for their special day.  In this instance, I would need to pay attention to both color and tone.

Brow pencil is Nuance by Salma Hayek.

Basic Black & White #1

 Here, I used a dark burgundy lipstick (Gash by Urban Decay), and neutral shadow to contour the eye

 This shade of lipstick may have been too dark in a color photo, but works in the black and white scenario

Doing makeup for black and white photography is very different, than traditional photography, because it is not color that matters, but tone only.  Therefore, when I do makeup for black and white photos, I will typically use colors that create more of a contrast on the skin. For example, if I am doing makeup on a fair skinned model, I would use darker colors where I wanted to create more of a contrast.  For example, I may use a lipstick in a shade that is darker than I normally would, because the photo will only pick up the contrast against her fair skin, and not the fact that it may not be the perfect shade of red.

Avant Garde # 2

Avant Garde Look # 2:

Darkened brows were highlighted by white shimmer powder underneath

Front View:

The eye crease was defined using black gel liner:

The inspiration for this look came from multiple sources. The colors used were traditional Geisha colors, a white face, with red lips and red shadow. However the look is reminiscent of mimes. I wanted to create something that defined the lids, and used the white face to contrast against the red & black colors. I highlighted the cheek bones and used a gold shimmer powder on the center of the bottom lip. Pink eye pencil & red eyeshadow created an exaggerated circle blush.

Before And After

Before :

After:

The above pictures are a great example how a little bit of makeup can complete your look, making you look more polished and put together. This woman has very good skin to begin with, so there wasn't really anything I wanted to cover up, instead, there were features, that I simply wanted to enhance. For example, I wanted to show off her beautiful skin, so I used a light application of BB Cream. This provided a sheer coverage, while evening out skin tone, and protecting it with a light SPF.  Her brows are nicely shaped, but I enhanced that shape using a brow pencil in Medium Blonde. I then used eyeshadow to define the contour of her eye, and add some brightness to the lid. I used a tiny amount of NYX shimmer pigment in Nude Pearl just under the brow bone. I used a cream blush, and cream highlighter, a nude lip liner and lip gloss topped with just a dot of white shimmer gloss in the center to make her lips look fuller. She did not have any dark circles to cover, but I did use a highlighting concealer just under the eye to brighten things up. This was her first time wearing false eyelashes, which I applied using lash glue. I used a mineral foundation just on the t-zone area to mattify, similar to what I did in the summer wedding look in my earlier post. This was a quick and easy look for a night out. The goal was to make her still look like herself, just a better version of herself, by enhancing her lovely features.

For more info, please leave a comment below.

Avant Garde- High Fashion Makeup

This look is one commonly seen on runways, or in high fashion magazines. This is NOT a look one would actually wear out in public, but for a makeup artist, they are by far the most fun to create.  The inspiration here, was the Pantone color of the year: Tangerine Tango.  I used orange and black (faux) feather false eyelashes here, and created a makeup look based around them. I used an orange cream blush, orange lip tar, and several different eyeshadow colors and pigments in various shades and textures.

 Lashes like these are quite heavy feeling on the lid, but oh so fun to wear!

 For those of you who don't know, lip tars are a matte lip cream product, applied with a brush, they are mixable, blendable, and work as a blush or lip color.

 I highlighted the model's cheekbones with a liquid highlighter

 Above, I used a dark color on her blonde eyelashes, and took it down the sides of the nose for an exaggerated contour using taupe cream shadow

 The eyeshadow look above, was created using orange cream eyeshadow, a red shimmer shadow, yellow shadow under the brow bone, and a mix of several loose pigments. I started with NYX white eyeshadow base, to help intensify the color, and then dragged a gel eyeliner across the lash line

 I intentionally used a makeup base, lighter than the model's skin, by mixing in some white from Illamasqua's Skin Base collection.  This created a more distinct contrast between her skin and the orange hue.