Makeup is a part of many people’s daily routines and can amount to a significant and expensive collection depending on the individual.
In fact, in the UK, women spend a remarkable £10 billion annually on cosmetics and hair products, emphasising just how popular makeup is.
As many cosmetics fall into the category of luxury goods, makeup needs to be stored properly not only to protect your investment but also to reduce the risk of acne and infection.
To store your makeup collection, you will need to:
- Assess your makeup collection
- Organise your makeup into categories
- Arrange makeup by frequency of use
- Clean your makeup brushes
- Store your makeup in a dry location away from direct sunlight
1. Assess Your Makeup Collection
To begin, you’ll first need to assess your makeup collection.
While your collection has likely grown over the years, you need to have regular clearouts of your makeup.
This comes down to the fact that makeup has a shorter lifespan than you might expect. Additionally, if you can’t remember the last time you used something, this is the perfect example of what not to pack into your storage solution.
Disposing of any makeup that is past its use-by date is important as every time you use makeup, touch your skin, and then touch the product again, you add more bacteria to it.
By regularly clearing out your collection, then, you can help minimise the risk of acne and infection.
In the UK, women spend a remarkable £10 billion annually on cosmetics and hair products, emphasising just how popular makeup is.
2. Organise Your Makeup Into Categories
Next, it’s time to organise your makeup into categories.
How sophisticated your categories are is up to you and how much makeup you have.
For those with smaller collections, you might split your categories into ‘face’, ‘lips’, and ‘eyes’, for instance.
Alternatively, for larger collections, it might be wiser to split your categories into subcategories, such as ‘lip glosses’, ‘lipsticks’, and ‘lip liners’, just as an example.
Without a suitable storage solution in place for your makeup collection, your home can quickly become cluttered and disorganised.
Read our article on how to pack makeup here for inspiration.
3. Arrange Makeup By Frequency Of Use
Whatever storage solution you use, be it in a vanity table or larger drawers to store all of your makeup and skincare essentials, you’ll want to arrange your makeup by frequency of use.
Make sure that your daily makeup is easily accessible to ensure your storage system is as convenient as possible for you. This might include your everyday foundation, concealer, and mascara, to name a few essentials.
On the other end of the spectrum, you can store your special or occasional makeup items together in a separate drawer that you don’t use or need to access as frequently.
Disposing of any makeup that is past its use-by date is important, as every time you use makeup, touch your skin, and then touch the product again, you add more bacteria to it.
4. Clean Your Makeup Brushes
Once you’ve arranged your makeup collection by frequency of use, it’s a good idea to clean your makeup brushes before you store them.
Makeup brushes and sponges are highly porous, meaning that they’re the perfect environment for trapping remnants of makeup, bacteria, oil, and dirt.
This is emphasised by a UK study on makeup brushes, where ‘scientists found that samples harboured a collective 4,364 colonies of yeast and bacteria’.
Cleaning your brushes on a regular basis is essential anyway, but it is especially important when it comes to storing your makeup brushes away for a long time.
How Often Do You Need To Clean Makeup Brushes?
Generally speaking, you’ll need to clean your makeup brushes at least once a week.
This will ensure that you keep your brushes in the best condition possible.
That said, when it comes to eye shadow brushes and any other brush that you use close to your eyes, you should clean these brushes after every use to be safe.
Makeup brushes and sponges are highly porous, meaning that they’re the perfect environment for trapping remnants of makeup, bacteria, oil, and dirt.
5. Store Your Makeup In A Dry Location Away From Direct Sunlight
Lastly, you’ll want to store your makeup in a dry location away from direct sunlight.
Sunlight can accelerate the ageing of your makeup products due to the heat of the sun, so storing your collection on a windowsill, for instance, is not suitable.
Keeping your makeup in a bathroom also isn’t sensible as the moisture and humidity of the environment can damage your makeup and cause bacteria, mould and mildew to impact the products.
Instead, you should store your makeup ideally in a bedroom or a dressing room away from direct sunlight.
We hope this article has inspired you on how to store your makeup.
To learn more about our removal services or purpose-built storage facilities, contact Nathan. At Falconers, we use meticulous moving techniques, passed down and perfected through generations for over 132 years, to ensure your goods are moved with expert precision and kept in perfect condition. For more expert advice on how to pack, move and store your belongings — or other FAQs on how removals work — check out our blog page.
Written by Jemima Thomas for Falconer Removals & Storage.
