declutter with me: makeup and accessories

Welcome to my new series I am calling Declutter With Me.

Each month I am going to take you through a different area of your home/life and declutter it. I will be sharing my tips and tricks and how to make sure that each area stays minimal and doesn’t get overwhelming.

When you are starting down a road to minimalism, or just wanting to get rid of a few things, looking at your home as a whole can be super overwhelming, so I find it best to divide things up and only tackle one small area at a time. Your gaps between these areas can be a few days or it can be longer, but know that it doesn’t all have to be done at once.

For each section that we go through I am also going to be going through it with you. I last did a major declutter during January of 2018 where I did the 30 Days to Minimalism challenge from the blogger Pick Up Limes. You can read all about my experience with that HERE. We have moved across the country again since that time and given lots more things away, but as we are now in the smallest place we have lived as a couple and are even further along in our minimalism journey so we keep finding things that we no longer need.

Today we are going to be tackling my makeup collection and my accessories (jewelry, sunglasses, hair things I keep by my vanity, etc).

Now I love my vanity for many reasons, but in part because it has built in drawers that both keep a lot of my makeup hidden away, but also creates levels and makes my set up more interesting. I like my things that are out to look nice so that is always one of my goals when looking at a space.

First I take out all of the items of a specific type, whether that is lip products, necklaces, or anything else and lay them all out in front of me. Depending on the item I find it is usually the easiest to start with the things that I really love and use all the time. These can go back on the shelf, the drawer, or the container.

Next I can usually pick out a few things that really aren’t working for me anymore. This doesn’t mean that I never loved it, many of these things really had their time, but I don’t find myself reaching for it anymore. These can go in a pile to either donate or throw out (depending on their condition and if it is a used makeup product, etc).

What is usually left is the maybes, the things that you like, but you don’t really use. I feel like it is good to give these items one last chance. I do this by creating a space on my vanity to put them in, I use an old candle jar and I have to try them. If in 4-6 weeks I haven’t touched a product or item, it immediately gets removed from my collection and if I have used it I can usually decide if I like it enough to keep or if I don’t want it any more. This helps so that I don’t have to decide on as many products in one go, but I have a deadline on the maybe products to checkup on them so they don’t just go back to being unused or “maybe someday”.

Altogether I am getting rid of 4 makeup items: 1 as it has dried out, 1 brush that I never use, and two products that don’t work for me so I never reach for them. I also put 5 makeup products into a jar to try and use in the next few months. My makeup collection is already decently minimal so this I thought was good for those items.

In terms of jewelry I am getting rid of quite a bit. I am not a huge jewelry person so I own a lot more than I ever wear. Some of these items I will offer to friends and family if they would like them and the others I will donate. Total I am getting rid of 13 pieces (and one pair of cheap sunglasses from my university graduation) and I still have quite a big jewelry collection that I am going to try and get more use out of.

So there it is, month 1 of my declutter series. Are there any specific areas you would like me to go through next? What are your favourite and least favourite areas to declutter in your house?