Moderate Stash: 2017 Storage Situation

This past Christmas, my partner and I agreed to skip giving each other gifts and to instead just enjoy our time together. Being a bit of brat, however, my partner cheated and got me a "I heard your last week of classes was tough" present: this plastic storage tower. I've been wanting a tall tower with drawers for about a year now, since I found it difficult sometimes to navigate a flat tray and I wanted to conserve space on my desk. This sneaky present absolutely fits the bill!

Before we break down what's in my drawers these days, a few quick notes:

• I have two drawers in my bedroom Sterilite tower dedicated to beauty products. One contains all of my perfumes so they're away from light and temperature changes, the other contains body lotions, expired products used for swatching, back-ups, and my few nail polishes.
• Most of my skincare is kept in the bathroom, since that's where I use it.
• This tower actually came with three of the wide drawers. I removed one because I didn't need it.
• The top tray, wide drawers, and narrow drawers are technically three separate pieces. I used glue spots my partner had left behind to affix the tray to the top of the wide drawers.

Moving right along!

The top tray is technically designed to hold your "every day makeup," but I use it hold primarily base products. The larger compartment in the back left is good for my exceptionally tall bottles, like the Becca Shimmering Skin Perfector and the Clinique Moisture Surge spray. In the raised, divided compartments, I keep my most-used brushes, brow products, ELF makeup remover pen, and a few very long tubes, like the L'oreal Voluminous mascara primer and Physician's Formula liquid liner. My lash curlers are tucked in to the far left. The shorter compartments in the front contain smaller eye liners and my current mini-mascara line up. The right compartment contains most of my base products, including my foundations, concealers, and powder, plus some miscellaneous "dumb reach" products like my Kat Von D Lock-It concealer sample and lip balm.

The first wide drawer contains all of my blushes, and I was SO excited to see that they all fit in here! The Stila Field of Florals palette takes up about a third of the drawer, but that's fine; it contains 12 different colors, after all. There's also 2 blushes from Face Stockholm (sorry about the fingerprints), 2 Becca Beach Tints, 2 BBIA Downy Cheeks, and my YSL Creme de Blush in Babydoll and Kevyn Aucoin Creamy Moist Glow in Pravella.

The second wide drawer houses a small variety of products. First, the brushes I use only occasionally are in the back. I also put my Beauty Blender and my current pencil sharpener in here. My lip pencils are laid out in the front, and I really like this organization for now; it makes it very easy for me to spot each individual color. I stored my Besame mini-lipsticks in here because they're easier to see and get to laid flat like this.

This container has four narrow drawers, two shallow and two deep. The shallow drawer on the left contains my Lime Crime Velvetines; they're the only liquid lipsticks I use now because I'm a monster they're my favorite formula. I keep the eyeshadow products I use regularly on the right: three of the amazing but apparently discontinued Josie Maran Coconut Watercolor eyeshadows, Wet n' Wild Brulee, and Too Faced Shadow Insurance. I still own a magnetic palette containing the Urban Decay Book of Shadows and some singles, but because I don't use those often, they're put away in the Sterilite tower.

The deeper drawers hold--shocker!--more lip products. On the left, we have my two Bite High Pigment Pencils, the only gloss I own (this one is from the Glossier Holiday collection), and most of my Glossier Balm Dot Coms. (The fourth tube is kept in my purse.) On the right, I store my traditional lipsticks. I currently own 3 Glossier Generation Gs, 2 MAC mattes, 2 of the now-discontinued Urban Decay Revolution lipsticks, and 5 NARS Audacious. I wanted to store these lipsticks upright, but the Glossier tubes are just a hair too tall.

So as you can see, I'm back and totally ready for more posts in 2017! I'm hoping to write better reviews, finish more products, and find a few new Holy Grails. (Most perfect foundation for dry skin, I'm ready for you.) Here's to another year in the beauty blogosphere!