Okay ladies, you can do this! You can. You’ve hopefully made it through “Get Organized Challenge Week 1: Socks & Underwear” and now have the most organized sock and underwear drawer any person can have! Let’s get ready for week 2!
This week’s challenge: Organize your makeup
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This is for all my ladies who bought five different colors of LipSense from that girl you went to high school with that was selling it last year and said she was three orders away from her monthly sales goal. This is for all my gal pals who tried the 3D fiber lash when it came out. Oh gosh, this is mostly for my fellow girls who shop Clinique and have 18,000 cosmetic bags that came as the “free gift with purchase” (damn those bags! Ugh, they get me every time). This is for the ladies who have every color in the rainbow of eye shadow overflowing from a bag they’ve had since high school — even though they only wear two different shades of brown and maybe a charcoal color for big occasions.
Get ready, you’re about to change your life. Or at least your happiness every morning when you get ready!
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Things you’ll need: 2 trash bags and your phone or whatever device that will play your favorite music
Time needed: 30 minutes
Instruction: Follow these 10 simple steps!
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Step 1: Hang one trashbag on one side of your bathroom door knob with one handle so the other handle is loose and the bag is hanging partially open; hang the other trashbag in a similar fashion on the other side. One side is for trash, one side is for donations.
Step 2: Turn on your favorite music (Lady Gaga or Pink feel right) and set a timer for 30 minutes
Step 3: Get out ALL of your makeup. The makeup under your sink. The makeup in old suitcases. The makeup in the linen closet. The backup makeup in the spare bathroom. The makeup in your purse. Get it all out and dump it in a pile onto the bathroom floor. Note: make sure your husband or partner is not home when this happens or you’ll never be able to purchase more makeup in the future once he/she sees it all in a pile together. Also: do not do this step on carpet or you’ll make it dirty with makeup remnants.
Step 4: Group the make up into piles of similar items. Put all the blushes together. Put all the mascaras together. Put the 5,000 lip glosses together.
Step 5: You’re going to use Emily Ley’s mantra by asking yourself these three questions: Is it the best? Is it my favorite? Is it necessary? If it’s not the best blush, then it goes in a trashbag. If it’s not one of your favorite eye shadows, then it goes in a trashbag. If it’s not necessary like bare minerals or concealer because . . . well, priorities, then it goes in the trashbag. You DO NOT need 10 mascaras. Half of them would probably make your eye lashes fall off at this point because you’ve had them for four years. If you have blue eye shadow, c’mon, no.
Step 6: Cosmetic bags do not escape this process. If you have 8 perfectly new free Clinique or Lancôme make up bags that you’ve literally never used, pay it forward. Donate them to a charity that will allow someone who isn’t as fortunate with thousands of dollars worth of product spread across her floor right now the opportunity to enjoy those bags. Do not tuck them away and tell yourself you’ll use them for Christmas gifts in the future. Nope. Keep the one you use everyday, keep one you travel with, and maybe one that you’ll use to store your non-everyday makeup items. I repeat, you are not to keep more than three make-up bags.
Step 7: Find a piece of pottery, mason jar, or cute cup to put your makeup brushes in vs. stuffing them in a bag. Set the dish out near your sink (or wherever you do your makeup)
Step 8: Put all the makeup that made it into the “keep” pile into one single cosmetic bag or consider a makeup organizer from The Container Store.
Step 9: Walk to the trashcan and throw away the trashbag that was truly meant for trash.
Step 10: Donate your trashbag dedicated to “donations” by the end of the week. Do not hang onto it, do not drive around with it in your car forever. Donate it THIS week . . . basically, donate it today. Take this challenge over the full finish line.
You did it! See you next week for challenge #3.
