Given my beauty goal for this summer challenge to make my outside match my inside… I’ve been investing in makeup. I’ve picked up new product and shopped my existing collection to find the color and finishes that should make me sparkle. I’ve also made it a goal to be more chaseable… which to a great extent involves being beautiful and ready for my man anytime without looking like I’m trying too hard. Spending two hours getting ready isn’t very chaseable.

Even back in high school when my makeup routine was only liquid foundation, pencil liner, mascara, and a lip, I felt overwhelmed with keeping my products organized and visually pleasing. Fast forward to now, with five shadow palettes, a zillion brushes, too many lip products and a slew of foundations based on how pale/tan I am… it’s overwhelming.

The bigger problem is how having so much product to choose from slows me down in my beauty regimen. Something I see in a lot of y’all’s commentary is that getting ready efficiently is something important. Our SO’s will probably value our high maintenance beauty a lot more when it doesn’t come with the high maintenance time frame!

I long for the day when I have a full bedroom with California closets and a huge vanity with multiple outlets, great lighting, and room to systematically display my collection for both visual and practical appeal. But how can I keep my collection organized and utilitarian? How can you do the same? How do you keep your makeup organized? What do you do or wish you did that would help solve the conundrum of effectively storing fragile products that is friendly for everyday use, and even travel?

MAKEUP BAGS

• An obvious solution, especially if you travel. I bounce from my house to my boyfriend’s house. In addition to getting ready in those places, I also get ready at the gym of a morning. Tartan and Twine (sold at Ulta and elsewhere) make really pretty makeup bags with lots of variety! I love this makeup bag so much, but to be honest it’s already a little small. I love that it has four separate compartments. When you open it, each panel has a large zippered container, one fine stiff mesh (where I keep brushes/tools, lashes) and one plastic (where I keep makeup product). Between the two is a little two sided flap, one mesh (perfume, prophylactics) and one plastic (travel size skincare). Everything is organized and every week I consider if there’s stuff that needs taken out. Hopefully getting draped and determining my actual season will help me pare down my lipstick collection to a few great staple colors so I don’t have to tote around an entire pouch full of just lipstick.

MAKEUP PALETTES

• I mentioned this before in the eyshadow post, but I’ll go into more detail here. It’s pretty popular to depot your eyeshadows or any pressed powder product to organize it into your own palette. The main reason people do this is for storage, but it also helps you make better use of palettes you have if you have more than one. I’ve got Juvia’s Place Masquerade, Saharan, Magic, and hopefully soon Zulu. I’ve got an Anastasia Glow Kit and I also have a few blushes and contour pigments as well. I don’t make full use of all these products because I have to open all of them to do so and it’s cumbersome. Once I verify my season, I’ll be swatching all my shades to figure out what I should/shouldn’t keep and I’ll be doing the depotting process accordingly! It’s sad to tear up a beautiful palette, but I’m not wearing makeup to have beautiful palettes… I’m doing it to look amazing, and I’d like to do it efficiently. The scary part about depotting shadows is that you risk stabbing the product, bending the pan and cracking the product, and more. So it pays to be very careful in this process, but I’m pretty sure the biscuit is worth the risk.

• Here is a great video that demonstrates the process of depotting!

• If you don’t trust yourself with fire, here’s another method of depotting.

• I’ll say you don’t have to get a Z palette… many brands have their own empty palettes. You can of course cut out your own magnetic base, put it in a palette and go from there. Follow your heart!

• Something annoying about existing palettes is that they don’t often have mirrors, so consider putting one in your custom palette!

• If the shadows create any kickback, see the crusty bits of eyeshadow pigment that pop out of the pan and lay around all lazy and useless in the palette, especially that gold shadow in the upper left your palette ends up looking kind of dingy and gross, and you can also get darker colored pigment kicked into a lighter pigment and it’s just crappy. I think I’ll probably fold up some tissue paper to cover my shadows with, or maybe tape it into the lid of the palette, to keep any kickback from scattering around?

OTHER STORAGE

• Before you're too awful far into your makeup journey you’ll find yourself with a few brushes. While you can certainly throw them in a bag and go for it, I like using cool cups/empty candle jars to keep my brushes displayed in things I like while also keeping them organized! I’ve got a vivid blue candle jar for eye brushes, a cool Kraken coffee cup for face brushes, and a tiny pinch pot my boyfriend made to store tweezers, lash applicators, and lip brushes.

• I also have a wide mouthed jar that’s kinda cool to store all my lipstick/lipgloss/liquid lips!

• Because I’m a freaking mermaid, I got this super cute shell jewelry box which is about the size of a normal person’s palm to store my eyelashes in! Keeps them free of animal hair/dust/fuzzes. And it’s adorable!

All of this makes it a little easier for me to stay organized, travel, and access my stash efficiently. It keeps me from piling makeup everywhere and making a mess while I get ready. It’s not a perfect system, but it helps!

What are your tips for organizing, storing, and packing makeup?