Spring is here, and that means it’s time for spring cleaning. If you’ve already reorganized your kitchen cabinets and dusted your office fan, move on to your beauty collection.
It’s easy for your beauty collection to become cluttered and outdated much faster than you might think. Invest some time and effort into organizing and updating your essentials to revamp your collection and make sure it’s fully up to date and relevant to your current routine.
1. Pay Attention to Expiration Dates
Expiration dates for common beauty products sneak up on you much more quickly than you might think. After you buy foundation or nail polish, you probably don’t think about when you should stop using it.
You might not be able to tell whether or not beauty products are expired just by looking at them. However, these products do have expiration dates and you need to listen to them. After beauty products expire, they have the potential to breed bacteria or lose quality and effectiveness even if you don’t realize it. Creams and moisturizers expire after six months. Liquid liner only lasts for three months before you should throw it away. Skin products and eye makeup in a powder formula can last for up to two years before expiring. Opened bottles of nail polish are also fine to store and use for two years.
2. Sort By Season
It can be difficult to determine the best way to sort your beauty essentials. A great, convenient way to organize your beauty collection is to sort it by season.
Store darker shades of makeup that you use most frequently in the cooler winter months together. Do the same for brighter, more summery shades. If you wear liquid foundation or a heavier moisturizer in the winter, keep these products together. Store your powder products with the rest of the essentials you reach for in the summertime. This organization technique helps you avoid having to root through products you won’t use for several more months in order to uncover the makeup you actually want to use today.
3. Wash Your Brushes
Did you know that you’re supposed to wash your makeup brushes at least once a week? Most beauty lovers, especially those of us who use many different brushes on a daily basis, don’t wash their brushes anywhere near that frequently. However, it’s very important to wash your makeup brushes to prevent growth of bacteria that can lead to acne and other unwanted skin problems.
At the very least, make it a point to wash the brushes you use as a part of your daily routine at the end of every week. Just take fifteen minutes to swab your brushes in warm water and clear soap and let them dry in an open place overnight. They’ll be clean and ready to use again by morning. As for the rest of the brushes in your collection that you don’t use as often, don’t forget about them completely. Try to wash these backup brushes at least every two weeks to keep them clean and bacteria and dust-free.
4. Reorganize Everything
Even if you have an existing organization system for your beauty products, it’s a good idea to reorganize your collection regularly. Reorganizing your collection helps you stay aware of what products you actually have and keeps perfectly good makeup from getting forgotten in the back of your drawer.
If you really love your current organization system and don’t want to change it, at least make it a point to go through your entire beauty collection to make sure that everything is still usable and that you don’t have any products you’ve forgotten about.
5. Update Your Must-Haves
If you don’t have the time or motivation to do anything else, take out all of the products you consider to be essentials and go through them. Make sure nothing has expired. Take note of any products that are running low or need an update. Make it a priority to replace these essentials as needed with more relevant, up-to-date products.
6. Create an ‘Every Day Box’
A great way to simplify your morning is to create a box of essential beauty products that are a vital part of your everyday routine. Invest a few dollars in a shallow clear plastic box. Load it with all of the beauty products you use every day and keep it in a convenient drawer or on the surface of your vanity so that it’s always in reach.
You’ll be surprised at how much time you can save in the morning when everything you need to use is in one accessible place.
7. Take Note of Missing Pieces
Spring cleaning your beauty collection is a great excuse to do a little shopping. As you go through your collection, take note of any essential products that are missing. You might end up with holes in your collection, especially if you throw away products that are expired or no longer usable. Make a list of products you need to buy to pad your collection.
Reorganizing and updating your entire beauty collection might seem like a bit of a daunting task, but you shouldn’t put it off any longer. Spring cleaning your beauty products ensures that you always have a relevant collection that’s up to date and ready to use.
