How to Declutter Your Makeup Stash: A Step-by-Step Guide

Spring is the perfect time to clean your house, your wardrobe but what about your makeup stash? The one that has been untouched since forever!

I am guilty of hoarding makeup in the name of art and I don’t even “wear the art” often. Whenever I unzip my pouches or open my makeup drawer, I get so anxious I close them immediately. Is that something you can relate to?

Recently, I decided it’s time for me to take the step and Marie Kondo on my makeup stash. And it’s probably the best thing that I ever did.

Now I can see all my makeup in one place and have been able to get better uses out of them. I fell in love with my makeup again and saved myself from some serious infection I could’ve gotten from using some expired makeup.

Benefits of Decluttering Your Makeup Stash

• You get a chance to reflect on the money you’re investing in these products.

• You can avoid an infection by tossing out the expired products.

• Your less-loved makeup could be someone’s most loved.

• A clean space really helps in clearing your head.

• You get to fall back in love with your favourite products.

• You get more space to welcome new makeup.

Makeup Declutter Guide

From categorizing your products to how to declutter them without getting overwhelmed, below are seven helpful makeup decluttering tips to keep in mind.

1. TAKE IT ALL OUT

Take out all the makeup from your bag, drawers, bathroom shelves and other unexplored/hidden corners of your house and lay them flat on the floor or table.

This would help you to assess your entire collection at once so you can see how much you’ve been hoarding and decide what you want to keep. Don’t get anxious by the sheer amount of makeup that you have! This post has a step-by-step guide that’ll make the entire process a cakewalk.

2. ONE CATEGORY AT A TIME

Categorize all the products so you can take an easy look at each of them. Keep the foundations together, a separate pile for mascara, eyeshadow… well you know all the makeup categories! 

Take 3 baskets – one for expired products, one for the products you don’t reach out for often and the last for the ones that are unused.

3. LOSE THE EXPIRED MAKEUP

Now that everything is laid out and categorized, start with the first step of makeup – primer. Go through your primer collection and check which ones have expired. Toss them in the expired basket. Move on to foundation, concealer, powders, eyeshadow palettes, etc the same way. Remember that you only have to remove the expired products!

How to know if a product has expired?

• Check the PAO, it’s printed with a little tub sign.
• Check the printed expiration date or find it out by scanning the barcode.
• Check if the formula has separated or it smells funny

This quick guide might help:

Foundation: 2 years
Concealer: 1 year
Mascara and liquid eyeliner: 3-6 months
Eye pencil: 1 year
Eyeshadow: 2 years
Lip products: 1-2 years
Powders: 2 years

I tend to keep powder products longer than the above mentioned time period because they’re less prone to getting contaminated. Unless they smell funny or the formula has completely changed, I just spritz some rubbing alcohol and continue using them. But try to follow the date of the expiry!

4. TACKLE THE NEW & UNUSED

Once you’ve gotten rid of the expired products, it’s time to remove the unused makeup. Now, some of you might not have any makeup products that are unopened but this has been a serious problem with me. I used to buy something out of temptation and never came around using them.

Again start with the first category and move down to the last one. Keep a 6-month deadline, if you got it six months ago and still haven’t used it, you’re probably not going to do so in the future.

Keep all such products in the “unused basket”. You can donate them to women shelter, gift them to friends and family, sell them for some cash and if you’re a blogger maybe give those away to your followers. They’re all new, untouched so perfect for others to use!

You’ve done a lot of work till now. It’s not easy to separate from your beloved makeup but you’re halfway through it. Take a small break, get some coffee and then move on to the next steps.

5. THE ACTUAL MAKEUP DECLUTTER STARTS

Before you start this step, I’ll suggest you keep the lipsticks aside and focus on the rest of your collection. Tossing out the expired products isn’t that difficult but what about the products that are well within the expiration date? The ones you still use sometimes?

It’s time to go through each category again and ask yourself these questions:

1. Do I really love using it?
2. Would I be able to finish it before it expires?
3. Am I keeping it only because it’s expensive?
4. Does it serve any purpose in my collection?
5. Do I know someone who can get better use out of it?

These questions will help you decide what to hold on to and what products you need to part ways with. Put the latter in the decluttered basket.

What’s the point of keeping a foundation that you know will never match you? Or the multiple eyeshadow palettes when you barely use them?

6. ATTACK THE LIPSTICKS

Most of us makeup collectors or users have one thing in common – an insane number of lipsticks that we know we’ll never finish! Another thing we have in common is that we say they’re all different.

Split Them by Their Types

Lipsticks need extra attention so split your lip products in different categories – Lip Glosses, Liquid Lipsticks, Bullet Lipsticks, Lip Crayons, Lip Tints and Lip Liners.

Start with each category and select the ones you love and reach out for the most! Keep things like your favourite shades, favourite formula, most used or repurchased lip products in mind and separate them. Put the rest in the decluttered basket.

Now you’re left with the products that you don’t hate but aren’t necessarily going to use up. As you go through each product, you’re thinking “Uh…I actually like this one and I can start wearing it frequently now” but will you? Are you sure? What was the last time you wore it?

Pick out the shades you know you’ll probably wear twice a year. And put those products in the decluttered basket.

Take Note of The Formula

After this huge makeup declutter, you’ll see that the collection is starting to look smaller but guess what? It can be reduced further.

Go through the formula that you love and the ones that you dread. No matter how great the colour is, sometimes an uncomfortable formula can break the deal. 

Ask yourself, “Do I really reach out for this lipstick? Are the extra efforts that I need in making it work worth the pain?” If the answer is NO then you need to put them in the declutter basket.

Dupe & Declutter

Keep all the good lip products that you’re left with together irrespective of their types (gloss, bullet, etc). And split them into colour categories – reds, pinks, browns, mauves, nudes, oranges and a separate pile for all the fun colours.

Now find dupes in each colour family and decide on which one you want to keep.

For example, you have 10 shades of similar looking red but if you don’t wear reds regularly, what’s the point of keeping them all? Keep the formula of the ones you love the most and transfer the rest into the declutter basket.

And your lipstick collection is sorted. If you have a huge eyeshadow collection, you can follow the same steps as lipsticks to declutter your makeup collection.

7. MAKEUP TOOLS NEED DECLUTTERING TOO

Are you still using sponges that are a year old? The brushes with barely any bristles left? It’s time to declutter those old tools because they really aren’t serving a purpose.

Once you’ve gotten rid of the bad tools, clean the ones you are going to keep to make sure you’re not inviting bacterias and extend the lives of those brushes and blenders.

Related:

Real Techniques Makeup Brushes Review

Wet N Wild Eyemakeup Brushes Review

8. ORGANISE YOUR COLLECTION

You’ve worked really hard to declutter your makeup so don’t let it all go waste by stashing them into multiple pouches and drawers. Because that’s a black hole, honey!

If you want to get better uses out of your makeup and avoid frequent makeup declutter sessions then you should store your makeup in a way where everything is visible to you at once.

Here are some tips:

• Keep the ones you use daily on your table.

• Use makeup storage boxes/ organizers.

• Lay them flat on the drawer; don’t dump them all in a pile.

CONCLUSION

Parting ways with makeup isn’t easy, sometimes there’s a lot of memories attached too. But it’s important to realize that all those products are just sitting in the pile and collecting dust. 

Decluttering your makeup will give you a better chance of using up the makeup that you truly love and there’s always someone who could benefit from the ones that aren’t your most favourites.

In this makeup decluttering process, you’ll come across a few products that you can’t justify keeping but still want to. You can always keep them but don’t do the same with all of them. Be a little strict, trust me you’ll love the end result.

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