I should explain. I started my career in beauty writing five years ago, and in that time, I’ve accumulated a LOT of products. Some were sent to me by brands, some I bought, and some I inherited from friends and colleagues. I love my job, and I LOVE makeup. But because of that, it’s been way too easy to keep bringing makeup home with me, but never getting rid of the products I already have. I was no longer a makeup collector. I was a hoarder. It had gotten so bad that I was accidentally re-buying products I already owned! So I decided to do something drastic, and purge five years’ worth of beauty freebies. These drawers ($129, IKEA) are perfect for people who have a lot of stuff to store, but limited floor space. They’re tall and narrow, so they fit easily in even the weirdest New York nooks, but they’re also deep, so they can hold A LOT of stuff. That’s also part of the problem. Because I can store so many beauty products, I do. It’s too easy for me to bring products home, file them away in drawers, then forget about them. Makeup is meant to be loved and used, not saved forever! This is weird, right? I’d keep it if I use it often, or will use it in the near future.I’d give it away if I don’t use it very often and think one of my friends would like it better.I’d throw it out if it’s expired or has gotten gross. Nothing gold ever stays. Inspired by organization masters like Oprah and Marie Kondo, I resolved to be absolutely brutal in my assessment. I would be minimalist. I would be Spartan. I would be perfect. I would be the KonMari champion of Brooklyn. But perfume is personal, and most of these just never worked on my skin. I wanted to wear them; I wanted to be that cool New York beauty girl with a wardrobe of fragrances that I’d change with my mood. But I am not. I am someone who wears the same two perfumes — Byredo Black Saffron ($150, Space NK) and Commodity Moss ($105, Sephora) — year round. Perfume is meant to be worn and loved, so most of these fragrances went into the “donate” pile. Emboldened by this early success, I moved on. It was time to organize THE DRAWERS. Let’s focus on the positive: Over the holidays, Marc Jacobs Beauty sent me a STACK of new Velvet Noir mascaras ($26, Sephora), so I threw away all the old tubes I’d been accidentally hoarding. You should never use a mascara longer than six months, btw, but sealed tubes won’t expire for about a year. Likewise, the liquid eyeliner section up on the top left is reasonably well-organized. This is the only product that I use up faster than I accumulate. Ignore the fake eyelashes. I certainly do. But ugh, down in the lower left corner is my nightmare. I have over 350 pencil eyeliners in every shade and finish you can imagine. They are stacked three inches deep in a Laduree box. I love them all. I rarely use them. But when I think about throwing them all out or even just sorting them, I get sweaty and anxious. So here’s my take: If there’s a part of your organizational routine that threatens to overwhelm you or makes you feel hideously anxious, you can skip it. Take a walk. Pet a dog. Come back to it when you have more time or emotional toughness (just make sure you come back to it). I threw out some globby-looking liquid liners, made sure no eyelash glues had spilled, then closed this drawer. My heart and brain thanked me. But there were some things I just couldn’t donate or throw away. I kept the MAC x Simpsons mini-palettes because that was the first major makeup collection a brand ever sent me to review. I kept the first fancy eye shadow I ever bought from Sephora. Sometimes it’s not all about what brings you joy in the moment, or what products you use the most. Sometimes it’s about history. Did I save it anyway? Absolutely. It’s an antique, a true relic of my beauty evolution. Any palettes I haven’t used in the last year were cleaned and put in the “give away” pile. Any palettes that I literally forgot I owned — a bigger number than you’d expect — ALSO got purged. This is what’s left. Hi, Pastel Goth. NO MORE. I threw away half-melted contour sticks. I tossed blushes so old they were practically sprouting legs and walking away. And I reorganized everything so that the things I use the most often are at the front of the drawer, while the things I’m holding on to for sentimental reasons are in the back. I tossed all the concealers that had been with me longer than my current hair color. I cleaned up all the foundations I had been keeping. I got rid of the empty primer bottles that I had been saving for some dumb reason. So while I didn’t get rid of many big things, this drawer is much, much better-organized. And in case anyone asks, I wear Fenty foundation shade 130. And I was glad that I did. Because the next section I tackled was LIPSTICK. I did this many, MANY times. Instead of organizing my lipsticks by color or by finish, I decided to sort by how often I use them. Go-to shades live near the front so I can grab them easily, shades I want to wear more often are now in the middle, and save ’em for later shades reside in the back. Once again, I’ve organized the brights drawer according to which products I use the most often, but I think there’s still work to do here. I’d like to separate out my lip liners into reds, pinks, and “wilds” (purple, blue, green), and maybe also break the red lipsticks out into their own area. My color memory is pretty good, but it’s hard to tell the difference between 50 shades of red in the tube, you know? But this is MUCH better than a random bag filled with lip gloss. But I did. Because of my noted tendencies to hoard things that are emotionally important to me, I found a lot of dark lipsticks that had LONG since gotten crusty and gross. It felt amazing to throw them away. It also felt really good that all these dark lipsticks fit so nicely in one drawer. There’s also the Ole Henriksen HydraClay mask ($32, Sephora), which is literally the ONLY mask my boyfriend has ever done with me. I kept it because I love to lure him into skin care. And you KNOW I always have a fresh bottle of my chosen moisturizer (CeraVe PM, $16, which I’ve used most of my life because it’s perfect) on hand! I rearranged this drawer so that cleansers and makeup removers are in the front, with rich creams farther in the back. There are a couple makeup bags in here, too, to stop things from sliding around. This drawer, which has the polishes I use most often in it, is pretty well-organized, but I knew it could be better. I threw away polishes that were dry and goopy. I also added blobs of color onto the black caps of the Butter London and JINsoon lacquers so it’s easy to tell them apart. At some point I’m going to have to make some tough calls about which of the MANY shades of blue polish I’m going to keep in permanent rotation, but that’s an issue for another day. Whenever a nail polish starts to get too thick, too watery, full of bubbles, hard to use, no longer true to color, or splits into its component elements — throw it out. Some of this stuff is good for me, some of it less so. But I know I can do better, and I will. But a few days later, I realized I could do better. I gave away more lipsticks. I found 15 (!) limited edition eye palettes that I couldn’t let go of during my initial Kondo-ing. I made gift bags for friends and added more expensive bronzers, blush, skin care products, and sheet masks. I made some tough calls on my nail polish hoarding. After some initial stress, I was really going for it. And as for the “organizing” process itself? Don’t let it get in your head. WHATEVER your goals are — organization, minimization, sorting it out for ease of use — it doesn’t need to happen all at once. Humans are not machines, and if it takes you some time to wade through your ~feelings,~ it is totally OK. Anyone who tells you that everything you do needs to be perfect the first time is lying. Approach organization however works best for you: Giant leaps! Tiny increments! Timed to music! Whatever you do, just get it done. Whatever works for you, do it. Because finally having this done feels INCREDIBLE.
