My Stash, One Year Later

I've technically not yet met my stash goal, but that's okay with me. Why? Because when I compare my current stash to October's photos, I feel stupidly proud. And when I compare my current stash to what I had last year, I'm more than a little embarrassed. It's not that I have anything against large stashes, and it's not like I didn't try out all of those products. I just...didn't really need all of that. And I certainly didn't need it to take up that much room.

Now that I've reduced how much I own as far as makeup, clothing, and other shtuff goes, I feel far more comfortable in my room. Granted, my sister doesn't really live here anymore--she stays with her fiance and comes home about once a week--but very few of her space-hogging items have left the room. (I say that with love.) That means the new un-cluttered room is the result of my regular purging. And while I still wish I had a little more space, I'm incredibly happy with the progress I've made so far!

The most visible reduction is that I'm down to just one plastic tower. Whereas this tall tower used to be almost entirely full of makeup and skincare while a second, shorter tower was full of various junk and one extra skincare drawer, I now have one tower for everything, plus a tiny cloth organizer for magazines and books. (The organizer was actually my mother's, but now she prefers to keep her knitting in the big sewing case we got her for Mama's Day.) I also don't have the top of the tower covered in perfume and haircare: there's a picture of me with my boyfriend and a lamp. You can see a pair of scissors and my cellphone in this photo, but that's because I'd just woken up and done some packaging for my blogsale. I gave the shorter tower to my brother so he could organize his books, movies, and videogames. Just removing that one tower makes my room feel so much more spacious and open.

My dresser contains about a third as much stuff as it did last June. I got rid of most of the extra makeup storage containers, and the antique Japanese bowls no longer hold makeup--they just sit there and look pretty, as they should. I currently keep all of my pencils and brushes in cups (whereas I used to keep half of them on top of my dresser and the rest in an overfill drawer in the plastic tower), all of my lipglosses and a few of my lipsticks, and some of my most-used perfumes on top of the dresser.

My sister was kind enough to give me her plastic makeup organizer, as she rarely wears makeup and doesn't own all that much. It might seem like a set-back, adding a new organizer in a new place, but nothing could be further from the truth: because I do my makeup at my desk, half of my stash ended up on it in big piles, anyway. The organizer holds most of my blushes and base products, plus plenty of other every-day items. I also moved the palette holder on to my desk to free up the top of my dresser; I have so few palettes now that I actually had to put my Lancome blush compacts in to the holder to keep the palettes from flopping around!

I still keep a few "loose" items on my desk, but this is primarily stuff I'm just now trying out or plan to review. It keeps them right under my fingertips so I don't forget about them. The Dior Instant Cleansing Water will move to that large skincare compartment on the left after I get my last use out of that Elizabeth Arden body lotion (sob!).

And of course, no examination of my stash would be complete without a peek in to my Sterilite drawers! Again, I've gotten rid of one plastic tower and now use just this one for my makeup, important papers, scarves and hats, and nail stuff. There's also a "junk drawer," so to speak, at the bottom, but I don't think that's a bad thing. I think we all need to have a designated junk drawer for the little things we aren't quite ready to give up yet.

I use one of the smaller drawers for my false eyelashes, cream eyeliners, pigments/glitters, and single eyeshadows. There's also a Laura Mercier lip stain and some extra KA SSE that I keep up here for lack of a better place. I must admit that the blank space is a comfort to me; I'm a big cream eyeshadow fan, so I like having extra room to ever-so-slightly expand that part of my collection.

The large drawer contains the rest of my makeup stash. You'll also see my makeup bag and some extra false eyelashes at the front, and I keep them there so that they're out of my way, but still readily available for me to grab-and-go as is necessary.

The basket in the back holds a few Prescriptives items my mom wanted me to store for her, plus some backups, extra puffs and eyelash curler pads, and empty MAC compacts. There's also that old Prescriptives gloss palette my mom gave me years ago...I know it's not safe to use and it just takes up space, but my emotional attachment to it is still too strong. So it stays.

The middle basket is all of my skin stuff that won't fit in to my desk-top organizer. It's not a coincidence that it's skin stuff I don't tend to grab when I'm in a hurry or doing an every day look.

The most mind-boggling part of this drawer, at least for me, is the lip products basket, which is only half full. Granted, the 10 or so glosses I've kept aren't here, and I keep most of my daily lip colors in the desktop organizer. But this is still a MAJOR change from ye olde days of 3 or 4 baskets for lip products alone. While lipstick is still my main passion, it's a passion I try to limit, as I already have plenty of beautiful, incomparable colors.

I also use a big drawer to hold most of my perfumes, some extra baby wipes and q-tips, a few back-ups and skincare products that are too big to put anywhere else, and all of my samples and nail polishes. I've decided to start painting my nails again and taking decent care of them. Having a nice manicure was a big part of my ethos as a teacher, and I've missed that. My current polish is OPI Dulche de Leche, one of my all-time favorite polishes that's perfect for job interviews.

So there you have it, my current stash! Again, check out my old stash photos, especially if you're having trouble reducing your own stash. I think it's proof that even if it takes you a while, it can be done. :)