February 12, 2009

Makeup Organisation 2: Solution to Mineral Makeup explosion

Six months ago, this was enough for all my makeup. But one of the hazards of running a beauty blog is that your makeup collection will increase. Dramatically. My mineral makeup collection in particular had grown to a point where I knew something had to be done. So when I spotted this rather attractive A4 drawer set in Popular for RM57, I snapped it up!

It has five, rather shallow transparent trays and comes with stickers to label each drawer. From top to bottom, the drawers contain: mineral eyeshadows, mineral blushes, mineral face makeup (foundations, powders, concealers - mostly samples), palettes, and pamphlets ( I collect them).

Eyeshadows
It took some thinking, but I finally figured out how best to organise my eyeshadows to make them easy to use and find.

First, I took black and silver permanent markers and wrote the names of the shadows on their bottoms. So I could both read the names and see the colours of the shadows.

Second, I made dividers out of an old shoebox and fit them into the drawer to make 6 columns.

Next I organised it as follows:

1. Smokey Eye - blacks, silvers, greys, anything that would make a great smokey eye.
2. Greens - Olive, mint, apple, lime, I have a shocking amount of green-based eyeshadows. This row has inspires me to sport a green eye look far more frequently!
3. Purples - Another very dominant colour group which I love and use regularly.
4. Neutrals - Crease and liner shades. These are my dark taupes and browns.
5. Neutrals - Midtone shades. These shades are used to blend out the darker shades, and are either gold, pink, copper or bronze shades.
6. Neutrals - Highlights.

I notice I totally lack blue eyshadows, but it's really not a look I favour right now.

Blushes
This was far easier to sort than the eyshadows. The dividers were bought at Daiso, for RM5 - they are sturdy, and easy to customise to the drawer. But they have set widths, and as you can see are rather wide for the mineral pots. But any narrower and they are too narrow.

And what of the vacated drawers?
They are put to good use housing my non mineral blushes (of which I have suprisingly few!), gel liners and shadows (so far only from Coastal Scents and Benefit), and my non mineral eyeshadow palettes.

I have even more organisational ideas I'm roadtesting right now. But some have collapsed (literally), and some I think can be improved. When I'm sure they work for me I'll post them up. ^_^

11 comments:

AskMeWhats said...

LOVE THIS!!! Great organization skill!!!!

Anonymous said...

Very orderly! I tried this once way back when I had lots of little pots around the place of various loose powders. I failed miserably hehe... For now, Ikea is my friend.

beetrice said...

LOL!!I remember the divider 'incident' at Daiso! :D mine's S-L-O-W-L-Y getting organised, and damn..I didn't realise I had that much makeup! o.O

Oooh, and echo PB - Ikea is my freennnnn....

Anonymous said...

Thanks to Bee - HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAHANI!!!! :D I know you are shopped out so enjoy your goodies and catch up soon ya?!

Syen said...

OOOH.. I haven't had the chance to see your new arrangement! =P

Will invite myself over when I'm back babe!!! =D

PS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEARIEE... =)

Connie De Alwis said...

Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday to Kahani
Happy Birthday to You

:D

Jenn said...

Happy Birthday Kahani!! :D

The organizer is really nice!!! i should really get myself something like this... my stuff is everywhere!! >.<

Anonymous said...

What a great system! I should do something like this - my bathroom looks like a makeup landmine exploded on the counter.

Kahani said...

*phew* finally caught up with all the lovely wishes. =) Now it the blog's turn.

Nikki: Thank you! I'm actually very very happy when I organise stuff. Must be some buried OCD tendencies on my side.

Beetrice: Woman you'd better show me what you've come up with when you're done! *shares a giggle for the 'divider incident'*

Paris: Thanks babe! *dives into pile of goodies and rooolllsss!*

Syen: Can't wait till you get home. We'll have our own 'celebration' then. =D

Connie: *hugs* thank youuu...!

Jenn: Thanks muchly. I love shallow drawers since it is space saving and makes everything easy to use and put back.

Beauty Bunny: Thanks for swinging by and for them kind words. What I especially appreciate about this system is how it inspires me to play even when I'm in a tearing hurry.

Anonymous said...

Wow Kahani I love it, very tidy. Whats werid is that I've done the exact same thing with mine (still in the process of labelling everything). I brought 2 draw desk tidy's from whsmiths and I've used cardboard from boxes to section everything. I've discovered that I have around 100 shades of silknaturals eyeshadows lol.

Anonymous said...

Bravo on the growing collection, and even more on the great organisational skills!

PS: I just bought the drawer shown in your last picture from IKEA too, and had the hubs set it up for me (apparently my hammering skills were not that great after all. Telling him I had an A for Home Ec didn't help). For the growing collection too :p