How Obianuju Organizes Her Beauty Collection

I’m both a beauty maven and organizational freak. When these worlds collide, acrylic drawers are born! Read on to discover the 5 key products I use to organize my beauty collection. Read to the end for a special bonus tip about making sure you get use out of all of your beauty products.

1. Muji Acrylic Drawers

The vast majority of my makeup is contained in two Muji 5-drawer acrylic boxes. I absolutely LOVE these drawers for makeup storage because their transparency allows you to find your makeup without sifting through several drawers.

2. Acrylic Palette Holder

Of all the makeup products there are, eyeshadow is my true vice. As such, I’ve 1) run out of space in my acrylic drawers for all of my palettes and 2) have palettes that are too large to fit even in an empty drawer. As such, a number of my larger eyeshadow palettes are stored in my acrylic palette holder. This holder lets you store the palettes upright and on display, so pick the palette with the prettiest packaging and place it front and center (for me, that’s Urban Decay Born To Run).

3. Lipstick Holder

My second most abundant makeup product is lipstick. As such, when I ran out of room for more lipstick in my drawers, I bought a 5-tier lipstick holder. Plus, if you have a lot of lipsticks from the same brand, it’s super aesthetically pleasing to line them all up in the holder (note my Maybelline Super Stay Collection filling up most of my lipstick holder).

4. Mug & Shot Glass for Makeup Brushes

Like many people, I keep my makeup brushes in a mug. However, the organization overachiever in me has a system even within this mug. For starters, there is a double shot glass in the center of the mug which holds my glitter applicator brushes and any shorter brushes that sometimes get lost if mixed with the normal brushes in my mug. Then, on the perimeters of the mug (outside of the shot glass) I keep all of my other eye makeup brushes organized roughly by function—fluffy blending brushes, then dense blending brushes, then precise detail brushes, then shader brushes. When I am doing my eye makeup, I use another double shot glass as a repository for used brushes I will clean afterwards.

5. Ikea 3-Tier Rolling Cart for Skincare

On the skincare front, I’m in love with Ikea’s Råskog utility cart, a 3-tier rolling cart. On the top tier I put all the skincare I use most frequently. On the second tier lie my body scrub collection, any skincare tools (like extra cotton pads), and duplicates of products (I always have a backup toner and sunscreen for when I run out). The third tier contains miscellaneous skincare and body care items.

6. Bonus tip: Keep a document on your computer with images of your beauty products.

Because I am an eyeshadow hoarder, at one point I found myself neglecting many of my palettes because I honestly forgot I had them. As such, I decided to crease a document in the notes app on my computer with images of all of my eye products. I highly recommend doing something like this for a number of reasons. A) It helps me be more creative to think of the ways I might use different products together for one look. B) It allows me to see which products I’ve been neglecting lately without having to sift through my whole collection. C) It prevents me from buying eyeshadow shades I already own, because I can quickly look through the images to see if I really need another matte orange eyeshadow (spoiler: I don’t).

If you want some insight into what products are in my notes, keep an eye out for an upcoming post about which eyeshadow products are in my current rotation.

—Obianuju Enworom

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