It’s the perfect time of the year to clear out any expired or barely used makeup in your collection. Below you’ll find 4 quick tips for getting started that’ll have you finished in about an hour! I used these tips earlier this week to clear out my own makeup collection (while watching some reality tv on DVR, of course 🙂 ) and it is so nice to get rid of what doesn’t work anymore for whatever reason. It’s been easier to get ready each day! I even re-discovered a few products in the process that I really love and had totally forgotten about. Keep reading to see my 4 quick tips on how to get your makeup collection spring ready!
1. Gather ALL of your makeup! The stuff you use daily, as well as things you have in your extra drawers and backup stash.
Spring Cleaning Your Makeup Collection:
2. Start a category for each type of makeup you will be sorting through. This saves a ton of time! Keep the categories really basic if you can. Here is what my simple approach to making categories looked like:
- Lips (balms, liners, lipsticks, and glosses)
- Face (foundations, powders, primers, highlighters, bronzers, blushes)
- Eyes (shadows, eye liners, shadow primers, mascaras, lash primers, brow gels/brow pencils/brow powders)
3. Throw out any expired makeup and anything that is broken, missing a lid, or in a broken container. Check for the little “open jar” icon with a number written on it on the back of each product (most have this icon). This tells you how long you should keep each product before it needs to be replaced. Also, here is a quick list of expiration dates for makeup to help you decide what needs to go:
- Lipstick – 1 year
- Lip gloss – 18 to 34 months
- Eye shadow (powder) – 2 years
- Cream eye shadow & cream blushes – 12 to 18 months
- Mascara- 3 months
- Brow pencils & lip liners – 1 year
- Eyeliner pencils – 2 years
- Liquid or gel eyeliner- 3 months
- Oil Free foundation- 1 year
- Cream foundation (compact) – 18 months
- Concealer – 2 years
- Powder (pressed foundation, blush, bronzer, highlighter) – 2 years
3. Swatch, think about your experience with each product, and then decide what you want to keep, what goes in a “maybe” pile, what can be passed on to a friend, or even donated (if unopened). Make separate piles for what you are keeping, what you might keep, and what is definitely going out of your collection for whatever reason.
*The maybe pile is for products that you aren’t sure are right for you. Place all of your “maybe” products in a separate container near where you get ready each day. Vow to use those products in an effort to test them out thoroughly, making a final call on whether to add it back to your collection or pass on in a few weeks time.
4. Organize your new lighter collection by product type and enjoy getting ready faster each day! For example, make a drawer in your makeup organizer for lip products only, a drawer for foundations only, and so on. Be sure to make a habit of rotating your makeup regularly, so that things don’t have a chance to go bad and everything gets equal usage.
We are all guilty of finding our faves and sticking with those only, leaving everything else to either go bad or to never get used. Avoid wasting money and also achieve different looks by using all of the products in your makeup collection.
I hope you found some useful tips to making sure your makeup collection is ready for spring!
Pin this as a reminder or share with a friend! 🙂
What are some of your favorite makeup storage ideas? I’m looking into new ways to store mine!
