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The Beauty Wonk

April 13, 2020

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.

Decluttering Makeup Collection

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.

Makeup Declutter Guide

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.

Organizing Lipsticks Collection
My Lipstick Organizer

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.

Best drugstore lipsticks for spring

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.

Makeup tools declutter
Makeup Tools

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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How to declutter makeup

By: Rifat Yaseen · In: Makeup

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Rifat 🇮🇳 Skincare Blogger
#AD Earlier this month I got to try @thefaceshopin #AD Earlier this month I got to try @thefaceshopindia_official CHIA SEED ADVANCED range. It has 4 products, all meant for hydrating and moisturizing your skin (which they did! Continue reading)

The 🌟 ingredients here are: 𝘾𝙝𝙞𝙖 𝙎𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙀𝙭𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙨 (it's a good skin conditioning/nourishing ingredient I've seen in a bunch of other much-loved products too!) and 𝗩𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗻 𝗯𝟭𝟮 (it's an antioxidant and has skin conditioning properties too - a little difficult to find more info on this one).

Anyway here are my thoughts on this range,

𝗛𝘆𝗱𝗿𝗼 𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗿 𝗵𝘆𝗱𝗿𝗼 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘁?

Since they're both hydrators and I'm a skincare minimalist 😌 I'd pick one and it has to be the toner. super hydratant👌It matches my hydration needs much better than the mist.

𝗛𝘆𝗱𝗿𝗼 𝗹𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗿 𝗵𝘆𝗱𝗿𝗼 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺?

Both, depending on skin's needs. 

👉IMO, the lotion is value for money if you have a combination or oily skin because you get 145ml for INR 1600. That's quite affordable when you consider the quantity and knowing TFS always has some offers😌✌️

👉The moisturizer is expensive so look for offers if you want to buy, like the one I shared a couple days back. No need to thank😌✋ (No really, let me know if you got it. How are you liking it?)

𝐍𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐛𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐛 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐧𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗻'𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲?

The smell. You guys know I'm a picky doll💅 when it comes to how my skincare smells and all these remind me of greek yoghurt (which I don't like) - sweet-sour. I'd rather have them get rid of fragrance or tone the scent down.

✨Offer - Upto 15% off & Get a Free Product of your choice on orders above Rs. 999. Link is in bio✨
Not every product will remove your acne or stubbor Not every product will remove your acne or stubborn dermal PIH. But do they suck? Maybe they have ingredients that will help you in maintaining your skin?🤔

In many cases, the brands are to be blamed too. They tend to overpromise and underdeliver which sets wrong expectations in consumers.

👉 Anyway, these were just my thoughts and idk about the research behind it. Take it with a grain of🧂

✨Feel free to drop in your skincare queries.✨

‼️By no means I want to imply that skincare is as important and necessary as food. That was just an analogy.😌
I see too many "Oh it's just hydrates the skin" bu I see too many "Oh it's just hydrates the skin" but,

What if your skin is dull because it's not hydrated? What if you're breaking out because your barrier is impaired due to lack of moisturization? What if your face feels tight because it's dehydrated? What if the minor fine lines are a result of lack of hydration? Hydrate your skin... with skincare products ofc, not by drinking water😋

PS: apologies for playing with the emoji. I got carried away🥳

Feel free to comment in case you need product suggestions 😊

#skincarequotes #skincaredaily #skincaretips #skincarelove #igskincare #365skincare #skincareaddiction #skincareaddict #takecareofyourskin #dryskincare #oilyskin  #skincarecommunity #skinroutine #skinproducts #skintips #skincareadvice #skincarereview #sensitiveskin #dehydratedskin #skincaretips101 #skincarethread
I have a super low maintenance hair (not the scalp I have a super low maintenance hair (not the scalp though but that's another story). They're straight, moderately frizzy, not too dry, and not too dense. Now let's see how the @nykaabeauty Onion & Fenugreek haircare worked for me. (gifted)

TL;DR Shampoo is good.

𝗗𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗼 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹?
I don't know. I do shed a lot of hair in general but I don't sit and count them. I don't want to stress about nothing. I do have certain areas that lack density but idc atm, I'll marry rich and use the guy's money to get a transplant or something.

👉All I can say is, the shampoo cleanses the hair well, lathers really well for an SLS free shampoo, doesn't strip the hair, and didn't trigger more hairfall in my case. The texture is runny and the packaging is convenient.💙

𝙀𝙫𝙚𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙄 𝙨𝙠𝙞𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙞-𝙙𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙧𝙪𝙛𝙛 𝙨𝙝𝙖𝙢𝙥𝙤𝙤, 𝙢𝙮 𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙥 𝙙𝙞𝙙𝙣'𝙩 𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝙞𝙩𝙘𝙝𝙮.🥳

Which shampoo are you using these days? Do you like it? Hate it? Meh it?

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗿?
I expect a conditioner to soften and detangle my hair. And this one failed. The softness is OK-ish, doesn't help with frizz, and my hair feel tangled. It's as good as not applying any conditioner. And as I said, my hair is easy.

👉I tried different combos and the shampoo works great with other conditioners. In my case, it's the flawsome kinky berry mask.

𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲 & 𝗣𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴
The packaging attracted me to these products the most. White and lavender 🥺 make me look forward to hairwash days. They're priced well too considering how everything costs atleast 700 these days🌚

#NykaaAffiliates #NykaaBeautyXNAP #GoodHairDayEveryday #NykaaHairCare #NykaaNaturals #NykaaBeauty
Why do you take hard balm, rub it directly on your Why do you take hard balm, rub it directly on your cheeks harshly, immediately add water, and then complain it's not working? Heinn?

PS: Yes I know some brands have really soft cleansing balms that melt as soon as you touch them. Exception. Also depends on the weather condition. But I'm mostly referring to when people take a chunk that resembles cold, hard butter on their cheeks and aggressively try to rub it. Don't do it imo.
It's a close call between the two but if you refer It's a close call between the two but if you refer to the comparison, @spektacosmetics wins... for everyone except me😭 Hear me out, okay?

For me, strategically placing oil on skin with a tool is OK. But rubbing oil between my fingers is like scratching fingernails on a chalkboard. The squeal sends shivers down my body and same is the case with oils. I know it's weird and isn't the case with most and I get it. But that's just me. So it's a very personal choice. For you, it'll be a plus point because the oils actually nourish your nails and the skin around it. Also, the packaging is cute.

➡️Talking about nailpolish removal,

They both work fine when I'm working with lighter colours but the true ability of a nailpolish remover is revealed when I test it with my OPI Big Apple Cherry.

Colorbar stains the hand I use to hold the cotton and my nail bed, Red. I kind of have to work hard to get rid of that. Don't enjoy that. It's relatively easier to remove with Spekta.

Which nailpolish remover would you choose?
❗Spekta (gifted by brand), affiliate code - RIFAT15 for 15% off.
Khadija (@beautyanomaly) tagged me to share 8 thin Khadija (@beautyanomaly) tagged me to share 8 things about myself and it really took me a while to think of all these points. I didn't know that I didn't know much about myself but here you go:

1. I've always achieved well academically just by putting in the least efforts.

2. I like to impress people (both online and offline) and make them happy so I get really nervous and tired while socialising.

3. I haven't watched Harry Potter. Ok maybe I have (a part or two) when I was a kid. But I really don't care about it. Same with DC/Marvel or whatever sci-fi comic stuff that exists. Don't unfollow me.

4. I like to overplan, decorate, and organize. I can't wait to have my own place so I can decorate it the way I want.

5. I'm very scared of October. I have lost 3 close family members in the past 3 years - each of them in October.

6. I'm camera shy and that's why I've been delaying my YouTube appearance. I just don't wanna look ugly and awkward.😭

7. I sometimes sniff my underarms on days I don't take a shower. The weird smell makes me gag but I still like it.

8. No matter how hard things get, I never actually complain about life. I'm always very grateful. Might be surprising because I don't talk much about positivity and shitting rainbows🌈. But that's because it's a part of my nature so I just think it's like, idk, brushing your teeth? You don't need to tell people to do that because you think they already do.

Tell me one RANDOM thing about yourself. Please embarrass yourself so I feel better🥰
My love letter📝 to @aveenous For more than 3 y My love letter📝 to @aveenous

For more than 3 years, I stepped out of the shower with red, itchy skin mostly on the upper body. It'd take at least half an hour to settle down no matter how much I moisturized. I changed bodywashes and soaps and even changed water as I moved  cities but nothing worked.

Initially I accepted that this is how it's going to be but the annoyance made me decide to visit a doctor and get it checked. But the pandemic happened and my appointment was postponed indefinitely.

Around the same time, I found the Aveeno Skin Relief Body Wash. It was fragrance free and had oatmeal to soothe the skin. It felt like a perfect match so I asked my followers about it. They unanimously approved it✔️ (thanks guys!) and I went ahead with the purchase.

Ever since I have started using it, there hasn't been a single case of redness. No itching either. So gentle, calming, non-foaming - truly a skin relief💙 I can't imagine trying any other body wash now 🥺 Thank you for making this!

With love❤️
Rifat

🏷️

#aveeno #bodycare #bodycareproducts #bodycareroutine #bodycaretips #takecareofyourbody #bodywash #bodywashes #sensitiveskin #sensitiveskinsolution #sensitiveskincare #sensitiveskinproducts #showergel #showergels #beautyreviews #skincarescience #skincarefavourites #igbeautyblog #skincareaddicted #kbeautylover #skincareobsessed #igskincare
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