The Beauty Spring Clean

Today's going to be pretty rambly, if you aren't in the mood for makeup musings of the non-specific kind, you may want to check back tomorrow!

So it's March! That is terrifying to me since March brings around my twentieth birthday. That's too old for me to cope with right now, that's the sort of age where you have to make decisions and things. Not sure I'm ready for that. But March also brings the beginning of Spring, quite welcome after the miserable Winter England has had. I like Spring, I feel like it's always so full of hope, after the darkness of Winter. There's baby animals and blossom on the trees, and I feel like I'm looking at the world through rose tinted glasses. 

So the beginning of Spring signals to my brain that it's time for a Spring Clean. I can practically hear my mum laugh if she ever were to read this - I am not the tidiest person to say the least, and I'd usually rather pluck my own eyeballs out than clean, but hey, it's gotta be done sometimes. 

I have to admit, as part of a big flat spring clean, I was pretty excited to sort out my makeup collection. Unfortunately, because of the awkward shape of our bedroom in the flat, there's no room for me to have a dressing table (sad face) so my makeup lives in a set of Ikea Helmer Drawers, and then some Muji Acrylic storage that sits on top of my chest of drawers. There's not much room and so everything is stacked pretty high now, probably at the maximum! I dream of the day when I can have a big old dressing table and spread everything out!

So anyway! Life ramblings aside, lets talk about sorting out the beauty stash. I started off by taking everything out of all the acrylic storage. This made me feel quite disgusted at my makeup hoarding habits. I split everything into three piles, stuff to keep, stuff I don't ever use and stuff that needs to be chucked. I went through all my products collection, and threw out anything that had been open longer than the recommended times. Mascaras are the worst culprit, they really need to be chucked after a maximum of four months. Liquid eyeliner is the same but I don't really use that anymore, so I've chucked the two I had left, just keeping my new Soap and Glory Supercat Liner. Foundations can stay good for about a year, so most of mine are okay, but there are a few that will need to be chucked in a couple of months, so I've popped these in one of my top Acrylic drawers, to be used up! Powders were mostly find, blushes, bronzers, eyeshadows and the like are all good for about two years, so most of them were okay, I did chuck a few palettes though! Just cheapy ones from my college days. The products I kept I gave all the packaging a good clean with baby wipes and some antibacterial spray too, especially things like NARS packaging and foundation lids, which just attract mess! 

I gave all the acrylic storage a good clean with antibacterial wipes, I love how they look but they really are dust and fingerprint traps! They look much better now but I bet they'll need doing again in a few weeks time! I also deep cleaned all my brushes, even the ones I haven't used, since they tend to get a little dusty!

I had picked up a few bits in Home Sense a few days before that I wanted to try and incorporate them into my stash. I got two of these cute little mason jars, I like the script on the front, I think they look so cute, and they were only £1.99 each! I've put all my NARS Lip Pencils in one, since I was struggling to find a good way to store those, and the other is on my bedside table, holding my eye cream, spot cream, a mini Lush Cuticle Butter, my This Works Sleep balm and Rollerball, and a few skincare samples. These things before were just sat on my bedside table loose, so it's nice to have them all tidied away, hopefully it means I'll knock them on the floor less! The little gingham dish was part of a tea set, but was reduced to £1, I was going to put some of my samples in there to remind me to use them, but it actually is perfect for holding my rings! I also got my mitts on a little lipstick holder, they had bigger ones but this one sits perfectly on top of my drawers. It's got six slots for lipsticks, so I've put in my six current favourites, and then at the back a new primer to try out, and the two Tanya Burr lipglosses I have. Then in the little side section, I've put three of my favourite high-end face powders, the Chanel Les Beiges, MAC Mineralize Skinfinish in Lightscapade and the MAC Archie's Girls Pearlmatte Face Powder, to remind me to reach for them more often!

I rearranged all my drawers after that, and whilst I still have Muji drawers dedicated for my most used products, a base drawer, two eyeshadow palette drawers, two lip drawers and a cheek product drawers, I've shaken up my some of the smaller drawers. Now I have two with some spring products in (check back tomorrow to see these), a drawer for products I want to use more, and a drawer for products to use up. I hope that if I keep shaking these up with this theme, I might use a few different products more often!

So tomorrows plan is to do the same with the makeup in my helmer unit! Think that'll take a little longer. Would you guys be interested in a blog sale with the products I don't use? Most of them have been used once or twice but just don't suit me! Let me know in the comments.

Do you have a makeup shakeup every now and then?