declutter with me: bathroom

Welcome to month two of my declutter with me series where I will be tackling my bathroom.

If you missed my first post last month when I went through my makeup and accessories you can click here.

It is crazy how much stuff can accumulate in a bathroom, even in one as tiny as mine. I have only been living in this home for 6 months yet products and items that I don’t use have piled up. It was definitely time for a refresh.

My main places where items pile up in my bathroom is in a four drawer chest and under the sink where I am mainly keeping extra products (I know, even though I wrote a whole post on not keeping extra products) as well as travel sized items and containers for travelling. Under the sink holds my “medicine cabinet” and other miscellaneous items.

I started by going through each individual drawer, taking every single item out of the drawer and deciding if it is going to be worth keeping. I looked at expiry dates of certain products, whether or not I used them and if I need to make more of an effort to use it up and thus move it somewhere more prominent.

This is what the drawers looked like after:

Not only did I manage to organize and clear out these four drawers I also got a better idea of what was in their to use (and to remind my husband to use). I moved a few items out of these drawers and into an area that I remember to use them.

Fortunately I am quite sparse with what I actually keep in my shower/bath area so there wasn’t anything to clean up there, I have some products I am really trying to use up, such as a shaving cream a rarely use, but there was nothing to get rid of.

On top of the drawers I keep a basket of bath items. I had nothing to get rid of here, but there was a few travel sized bubble bath and shower gels that I moved to this basket so that I can use them when I am taking baths.

 

On top of the drawers I keep a basket of bath items. I had nothing to get rid of here, but there was a few travel sized bubble bath and shower gels that I moved to this basket so that I can use them when I am taking baths. The bag is filled with some empties that I am collecting for a future blog post.

Next was the shelves. This didn’t have too much to clean up since I use most of these products every day, so it was just a tidy and dusting, same with the top of the sink.

Lastly was under the sink where I looked at expiry dates and tidied things up. Having the shelves makes it much easier to organize and store things in such an awkward space.

Overall I got rid of 10 items. There were two sunscreens that were very expired and had begun to change texture which is a sign that it should be thrown out. We also got rid of our last plastic toothbrushes as we have switch to electric toothbrushes and we have new bamboo ones for when we go away.

There was also a few nail products that I never use or were very old as well as an old lip balm that I was never using. 

My tips for decluttering your bathroom:

1. Check expiration dates: Some bathroom products do go bad so check when they expire, but also look if they are changing colour, texture, or smell which could mean that they are no longer good
2. Have an area of items to use up first: I have lots of travel sized products, way more than I can ever use while travelling so I need to make sure to use them in my regular bathroom routine or else they will sit there for too long without being used
3. Don’t buy more until you have used up what you have: give yourself a buying ban, and make sure that you are clearing out what you have before you are buying more items

Now I know to some people I still have a lot of stuff, but I use everything that I have out and I am very consciously working on my items in storage. Minimalism to me means that I am getting use out of everything I own and am enjoying that and I am slowly working towards that.

Happy decluttering and let me know what you want me to tackle next month!