Makeup Collection + Storage 2019

MAKEUP COLLECTION

APRIL 2019 

In my room I have a mirror just above my Alex six drawer system that I use as a vanity! On top of the drawers I keep plastic organisers for extra storage space. Usually I keep some jewellery and other little things in bowls up here too but this post is about how I organise my makeup, not my life. When I get ready I lay out all the products I'm going to use on the vanity in the order that I'm going to use them. I do this so I don't forget about anything, and so I don't waste time going back into the drawers to grab a blush or a lipstick or whatever. I also like to plan ahead with how I'm going to do my makeup for that day so I usually put out the products I'm going to use the night before. It's sort of like a shop my stash but everyday. One thing that bothers me about using these drawers as a vanity is that they get really dirty very quickly, and on a few occasions I've dropped things and it's chipped the paint which is incredibly frustrating. I've been wanting to get a glass top to protect the wood, but I don't know if it's worth it because I won't stick with using this as a vanity forever. I've been using this for about two years now and it's worked well, but I could use more storage space now that my collection has grown. I feel like I'm at a point where I'm really happy with how everything is organised, I'm just running out of space to grow. 

On the left side of the vanity I keep my face brushes, perfumes, and an organiser that houses things I use on a near daily basis. The middle organiser has three tiers and is home to some of my skincare, facial sprays, dry shampoo, foundations, and lip products that I am yet to try. I also keep my sponges in the centre here in a small jar. To the right are some of my Jeffree Star lipsticks and where I keep my eye brushes (a lot of which are dirty at the moment hence why the container is so empty). 

Here's a closer view of my perfumes and my everyday makeup organiser. In this organiser I keep brow gels/pencils, mascara, concealer, eyeliner, and my project pan items including the blush, bronzer, highlighters, powder, and lip products I'm working on. I like to keep my project pan items up on top of the vanity so I see them and remember to use them. I'm pretty good at keeping track with everything that's in a project, but having most of it in one place, or keeping everything together makes it that little bit easier. I keep my perfumes in front of my acrylic organiser and behind it I have the container that holds my face brushes. In between that container and the middle organiser there is a little space so I keep my Versace Red Jeans perfume there because it's not one I love the scent of and rarely reach for. 

The organiser I have in the middle of the vanity has four separate compartments that I've stacked to create three levels. In the bottom I keep my large MAC Fix+, moisturiser, and the lip products that are new to my collection or that I've pulled out for my Project Lip Products. To the right of my moisturiser is the second level that houses some acne care products, foundation lightening drops, and my Pixi Makeup Fixing Mist. Behind my Fix+ bottle is another section of the second level where I keep all my foundations. I prefer to store foundation standing up and the drawers just aren't deep enough for that so I keep them up here. To the right of the foundations is the top level where I keep some of my primers, sunscreen, setting spray, and dry shampoo. Like the acrylic organiser, I keep project pan items in this organiser as well because it's right in the centre of my vanity and directly below my mirror. Having items like my Pixi spray and primers here makes it easy for me to reach for them regularly and remember to use them, and it keeps them with the other products in the project. The way I've organised the whole top of my vanity is for ease, I keep the products that I know I'm going to reach for consistently or want to use more frequently up top so they're visible. If I can't see something it's really unlikely that I'm going to use it, but I also like to have things organised in a way that makes sense so I like to group things and keep like-items together so I don't waste a whole lot of time searching for products when I get ready. Here you can also see the jar I keep my sponges in. Usually I only keep one sponge in use at a time but at the moment I have two. I keep them in this jar because when they're wet I can balance them on top of the jar so they can completely air dry, and when they're dry I can keep them inside the jar where they won't touch any makeup that might get on the vanity.  

Over here is where I normally keep my jewellery and catch-all bowls so it looks a little weird and naked without them here! But this part of my vanity is probably my favourite. This is the home of my acrylic lipstick holder. It holds 24 lipsticks and I just love it. When I bought it it was always a goal to fill it up with Jeffree Star lipsticks to display and I've finally achieved that. I have more from Jeffree Star stored in another place, but this is the bulk of my collection. I've organised them by collection and it just makes me so happy to see them all together like this! They're organised (top left to bottom right) by Summer 2018 collection, Christmas 2016 collection, Valentines 2018 collection, Manny MUA collab, Christmas 2018 collection, Family collection, standard Lip Ammunition, Christmas 2017 collection Lip Ammunition, standard Velour Liquid Lipsticks, and Equality Vault. To the right of my lipstick display, is my eye brush container, which is much more impressive when it's full, but like I said, the dirty ones are elsewhere. 

First drawer! In this drawer I have plastic organisers in varying sizes to help separate my collection. I keep larger products in the wider/longer organisers, and smaller/skinnier products in the smaller organisers. In the very left I keep all my Colourpop lip products, at the front are the glosses, liquid lipsticks, and lip liners. Behind them I keep all my lippie stix, and lux lipsticks on top of those. I like having my Colourpop products in their own spot, but because I have to stack them I'm not super inspired to use them. Next to my Colourpop lip products is the rest of my lip collection. This container isn't organised as well and just sort of has all my 'other' lip products thrown into it. I think it was originally organised similarly to the Colourpop container, but it didn't last. One thing I do to help keep track of my lip products is keep a book where I swatch all of them, I separate all my lipsticks into colour families - pinks, browns, pink nudes, brown nudes, purples, oranges, peaches, and misc. and swatch them within these categories. I do this so I can look at the swatches whenever I need and have an idea of what every colour looks like and how they're different to other products in my collection. I also have my Project Lip Products that I can look back on and see how each colour looks on me. Having these saves me from swatching a million lip products each time I go to do my makeup, because I already have a reference for the colours. The large organiser here holds my powders, primers (full size and samples), and foundation samples. I don't like how this container is organised but it's really tricky to fit my loose powders because they're so bulky so everything has to fit around them and it just gets messy. 

Next to my base product organiser is my highlighter organiser. I keep my Jeffree Star Skin Frosts stacked in pairs, but I do have one on it's own. They're really big and annoying to store so the only place I can put them is in my biggest organiser. I try to keep everything grouped by brand but it's difficult to do that when I have to work around the Skin Frosts. I have four Becca mini highlighters, but one stays up on top of my vanity because it's being panned (same with my NYX Love You So Mochi highlighting palette), two MAC highlighters, two Too Faced highlighters, and one from Colourpop. I really love my highlighter collection and think everything I own is unique and has it's place. While it might look excessive, I really do love everything in this organiser. 

The last two organisers in the top drawer are my blush and bronzer organiser and my eye product organiser. I keep my blushes at the front of the organiser because although I'm panning a cream blush, I always like to layer a powder blush on top so I like to reach for these regularly. The bronzers are at the back because I'm panning a bronzer and I want to focus on it until I hit pan, and then I'll start rotating. I used to used my Milk Makeup Matte Bronzer in Baked everyday, and I was also obsessed with my Physician's Formula Butter Bronzer for a while, and while I do miss them, I'm really enjoying using my Revlon Bronzer (which lives on top of my vanity with the other items I'm panning). The eye organiser holds mascaras and gel liners at the back, with liquid and pencil liners at the front. The only mascara that's open in this drawer is my NYX Coloured Mascara in Coral Reef, and the rest are all just waiting to be used once I finish my Too Faced Better Than Sex. I keep all my liners together because it just makes sense to me. I used to keep glitters in here as well but the drawer got too full. I almost forgot! I also keep a brow gel in here that is open, but I've stopped using it until I finish another. This isn't a drawer that gets a whole lot of use, but it has some of the most fun products in my collection, like my JD Glow Galaxy Liners, and Suva Beauty Hydra Liners. I wish I did use the products in this drawer more, because I do really like them all. 

Second drawer! This drawer is a bit of a mess, but I did recently organise everything so it looks a whole lot better than it used to. In the bottom left corner I have a plastic organiser that is terribly organised. In the left of the organiser I keep my cream shadows, eye shadow bases/glitter glues, and glitters. I keep my Stila Glitter and Glow Liquid Shadows here as well as my Urban Decay Heavy Metal Glitter Liner and Colourpop Jelly Much Shadow. In the right half of the organiser I keep tools like tweezers, nail tools, sharpeners, and spatulas. Behind the organiser I keep more nail tools, a bath bomb that needs to be re-homed, and lashes. I also keep some pain killers here just so I have easy access to them. In the right half of the drawer is my skincare. Here I keep hand sanitiser, skincare minis/samples (including cleansers, moisturisers, and serums), lip balm, my cleanser and toner, and isopropyl alcohol. Behind these is micellar water, nail polish remover, and cotton rounds. Although you can't see, in the very back of the drawer I keep some makeup wipes, nose strips, sunscreen, and a solid lip scrub from Lush.  I would like to get some more organisers for this drawer, or at least some partition board because it's just a mess in there.

Third drawer is my palette drawer. For the most part I stack my palettes and I keep them organised by brand/size for ease. I put the largest palettes on the bottom and smallest on top so I can see everything. While there are a few palettes I can't actually see in this drawer, I know where they are because everything is sorted by brand. To the very left I keep my Jeffree Star palettes, Blood Sugar and Androgyny, next to them are my Too Faced palettes, the Sweet Peach and Razzle Dazzle Berry. Behind Too Faced is my Juvia's Place blush palettes - I have the Saharan Volume 1 and Saharan Volume 2, I keep Volume 2 on top because it's the one that suits my skin tone best, and I keep Volume 1 for clients mostly. Below them is my Kat Von D Shade & Light Eye Contour Quad, and I have the Plum variation. It sits above my Colourpop palettes, I have a 12 pan z-palette filled with Colourpop shadows and one Morphe shadow (might make a post about it because I think it's a cute palette), my Yes, Please! palette, and the Ooh La La! I really like the way my Jeffree Star, Too Faced, and Colourpop stacks are organised because the palettes are different sizes and I can see all of them. On the right side of the drawer next to my Colourpop palettes is my Lime Crime Venus palette, and underneath it is an Okalan dupe for the Venus 2. Next to these is my Juvia's Place collection, I have The Festival, The Zulu, The Tribe, and The Warrior 2. It bothers me that I can't see each individual palette, but I know that they're all together. Behind these is my NYX Avant Pop Art Throb palette which sits on top of my Suva Beauty Block Party - these two are together because they're similar in size, and fit in that spot. Next to the Juvia's Place palettes is my newest addition, the Viseart Petit Pro 5 Soleil palette, which is the perfect fit for that little end gap. Behind it is a bronzer from Mecca Max that is too big to go with the rest of my bronzers, and way in the back of this drawer is another z-palette with some Coloupop and Essence shadows. It's a palette I'm not super drawn to so I plan to get some new singles and a palette that's a better size so I actually use it. The one I have currently is just way too big and it feels really flimsy. 

The fourth drawer is where I keep my backups and some medical items. It doesn't have any organisers in it but I lay everything out flat so I can see everything clearly. I have spare powders, makeup wipes, lip balm, perfume, deodorant, and sponges in here. This is also where I keep a small bag where I put my back to MAC items. The fifth drawer is full of makeup packaging because I have a problem. I keep the boxes for items that I think are special or just have cool packaging, every few months I go through this drawer and get rid of some things but for the most part I keep a lot of boxes. I though about maybe cutting some of them up or at least unfolding them and keeping them in a folder, just so I could have an extra drawer, but I haven't decided if I'll do that or not. 

In the last drawer I have an organiser where I put all my dirty brushes, and when it's full enough I wash them. I keep my Beauty Blender Solid Cleanser here as well so I can just take out the whole organiser and take it to the sink when I need to. In the back of the drawer I keep all my makeup bags and brush rolls for when I travel. Some are just stacked on top of one another but others are kept inside of each other. At the front of the drawer is some brush and sponge cleaner from Daiso which I really need to get around to using! The right of this drawer is dedicated to back up items for my professional kit. I keep my kit foundations in the very right corner with some mascara wands, spare soap for cleaning my brushes, tissues, makeup wipes, micellar water, and baby shampoo to soften the bristles of my brushes. This merging of my personal collection with my professional collection is why I would like to expand and get a different organising system because although this is fine and it's working, it limits how much I can grow and as a working makeup artist I'm going to need more space for my professional products. 

So that's how I'm currently organising my makeup collection! It could definitely be better, but I'm happy with the way I have everything at the moment. I think it's important to see regular makeup collections not just crazy, huge influencer collections that aren't realistic. The promotion of consumerism through influencers is really disappointing and makes people feel like they have to have these ridiculous collections just to prove that they're interested in makeup, and that's just not the case. I want the focus of my collection to be on products that I love, not on the size of the collection itself. I know that the size of my collection is always going to be fluctuating, and my idea of what's a manageable collection is always going to be changing as well. Maybe I'll do some more posts in the future about how I'm organising everything and we can see how my collection has changed. If you're interested in what exactly is in my collection, I do have a post on that from earlier in the year! 

Iz 🦀