If you’ve been following along with my decluttering posts lately, you’ll know that so far we’ve tackled the home office desk drawers and the linen cupboard. Today it’s time to take a peek inside the bathroom cupboards.
I’m quite pleased that today I don’t have a horrifying “before” photo with which to permanently embarrass myself on the internet. These particular cupboards have never actually descended into the depths of chaos.
The reason is simple: when we first moved into this rental, our previous house was still being used as a display home, fully furnished, so we didn’t have to move everything out all at once. I just packed my “essential” bathroom supplies to take with me.
6 months later, when it was time to do a final pack-up of the previous house, it really made me think – I hadn’t missed ANY of those “extra” supplies in the intervening 6 months. I couldn’t even remember what they were.
So I got rid of them.
What a great feeling!!
Here’s the checklist of what I ditched (and you can, too!) Find the complete decluttering list for your whole home here.
- Sample bottles from hotels
- Expired makeup: anything cracked and crumbling
- Makeup you haven’t used in the past 6 months
- Mascara older than 6 months (due to risk of eye infections)
- Dried out bottles of nail polish
- Perfume you don’t wear
- Hair curling irons you never use
- Hairdryer attachments you don’t use
- Old toiletry bags
- Gifts-with-purchase – those miniature sized beauty products that you never use and just add clutter
- Duplicate grooming products (eg nail scissors, nail files, brushes and combs)
- Used-up bottles of lotion
- Novelty “gift” products such as face masks or foot scrubs that you haven’t used in the past year
- Multiple bath products such as bath salts, bubble bath and bath bombs. How often do you have a bath, anyway? Keep your favourite couple of items and replace them if / as needed.
- Crumbled bath bombs
- Hair product you haven’t used in the past 6 months
- Dusty candles
- Duplicates of everyday supplies. Keep one each of what you use daily, and replace it when it’s finished.
- Extra dental floss dispensers
- Excess scented body lotions. Keep one.
- Stretched-out hair elastics
- Shower caps with loose elastic
- Old contact-lens cases
- Old toothbrushes
- Cakes of soap if you don’t actually use them (we use body wash instead)
- Kids bath toys that are mildewed
- Squeezy bath toys with holes (they get mouldy inside and can’t be cleaned). In future either don’t buy these at all, or use a hot glue gun to fill the hole as soon as you purchase the toy.
- Broken scales
- Mouldy sponges or loofahs
Let’s take a look inside!
To start with, I DIY’ed these cute wooden caddies to hold my bottles and jars that need to be stored upright. It makes everything easy to access, but still defines the area and keeps it from looking like a cluttered mess.
In the left-hand caddy, I keep the products I use every single day for my skin-care routine: face wash, toner, moisturiser, deodorant, and body lotion. I love having my body lotion in a pump pack so I can just reach in and dispense a squirt of it without having to pull out the whole bottle. I’m not a luxury skin-products kinda gal – I use Neutrogena from the supermarket, and that does me just fine. I do love my Body Shop shea butter body lotion though.
In the right-hand caddy, I keep perfume, hand cream, foot cream, and hair product. I really hardly ever wear perfume, because I have very little sense of smell (weird fact), so I just don’t think of it. Plus all that extra grooming just takes too long. I tend to stick to the basics. But for a special occasion, it’s nice to have.
On the shelf beneath, I’ve stashed a basket for my hair supplies.
I used a Martha Stewart bookplate to label the basket, not that I really needed reminding of what was in there – it just looks pretty. 😉
I like using a basket for this type of stuff, because hair equipment is bulky and I honestly don’t usually bother with wrapping the cords nicely like that – I just dump them in, out of sight. But so you can actually see what’s in the basket, I’ve tidied up a bit for you today. 🙂
This basket holds my hairdryer, hair straightener, brush and comb, leave-in conditioner (I use it once a week after I wash my hair) and hair spray – used occasionally when I curl my hair with the GHD. That’s it! That’s all I use and therefore, all I need.
Let’s take a look at the other side of the cupboard.
I use a bamboo caddy to hold my toothbrush and toothpaste where I can easily reach in and grab them. Clear boxes hold hair ties and bobby pins. And on the right, my contact lens case and solution is always right at my fingertips when I’m feeling blindly around inside the cupboard. I have a stash of boxed contact lenses behind this.
Up the back you can glimpse some spare solution and the miniature supplies that I use when travelling. (I talk about how I keep my toiletry bag packed, and some other travel-packing tips, in this post.)
On the bottom shelf is a clear acrylic divided caddy where I store my makeup.
You’ve probably gathered already that I’m fairly low-maintenance (cough *lazy*) when it comes to self-grooming. The compartment at the front holds the products that I actually use regularly – mineral powder foundation and brush, mascara (I use the sort that washes off in water, to save time), and lipstick – I use Revlon’s Colorstay lip colour so I can apply it once in the morning and not think about it again until night time.
There’s also a couple of eyeshadow palettes and a blush that I use if I’m getting really gussied up for some event. I’ve grouped these things together so I can easily reach in and grab what I need without sliding the tray out.
Behind that is a compartment for nail scissors and files. There’s one for nail polish (which I NEVER actually use, although I totally aspire to be one of those well-groomed girls with pretty toenails). Spare hand cream that was gifted to me in a pack. A section for “extra” lip colours that are sometimes used for a special occasion, as well as eyeliner and concealer – these are not everyday supplies for this gal, but I do use them occasionally.
Up the back, eye makeup remover (for aforementioned special occasions when I actually have stuff on my eyes) and nail polish remover (in case I ever do paint my toenails…)
The left side holds liquid foundation, pore minimiser, primer serum, and some lip balms.
It’s definitely not the most glamorous make-up collection in the world, but I’m a basic kinda gal, and I like to keep things simple.
Last but not least… on the bench top, I decant my cheap liquid hand soap into a pretty glass dispenser to make it look lovely.
And a pretty carved wooden box holds cotton pads that I use to apply toner (or, occasionally, to remove eye makeup.)
There are also two deep drawers on the right; the top one is hubby’s domain and the other is for sanitary supplies. My husband is not the neatest man in the world, so it works well for him to have a drawer that he can just dump his toiletries into, out of sight. (Not that he ever actually closes the drawer, but at least I can easily hide away the mess with a flick of my wrist.) 😉
So that’s it for the tour of our bathroom cupboards!
Let’s chat: What are your bathroom cupboard essentials? What could you get rid of that you won’t even miss?
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