There was a time where I considered myself cursed if I spent more than half-an-hour hunting down my mascara each morning. You know those messy bathroom drawers stuffed with random tubes of half-used face wash, loose lip balms, and electrical cords with no identifiable owners? Yeah, those were mine.
Sure, my bathroom aesthetically pleased — white subway tiles, functional mirror area, all that jazz. But pretty isn’t synonymous with practical, and my vanity was a hot mess. It wasn’t until one particularly grumpy Tuesday morning — mascara already at hand, late for a client meeting, three fallen bottles of skincare when I reached for my foundation — that I vowed to streamline my bathroom routine and organisation once and for all.
Fighting back tears of defeat (and mascara), I slung my towel over a chair and got to work. If there’s one thing I learned along the way, it’s that bathroom organisation isn’t about cute jars or bins that match your Colour Matches, family Instagram photos (although, #basicbuthandy).
It’s about creating efficient systems that make sense for your lifestyle.
After all, nobody adheres to an organisation system that’s a pain to maintain. One of the first concepts I tackled was designated spaces for different bathroom routines. While I’ll get more into product corralling methods later, it made a world of sense to dedicate one drawer to my morning routine.
Yes, duh, Meredith. But hear me out. Before 9 AM, I only touch about five beauty products: cleanser, moisturiser, sunscreen, mascara, and lip balm.
I don’t care what time of day you wake up; those are Morning Products. All of those essentials now live together in one drawer (top right, if you were wondering) and never stray. This wasn’t the case years ago when I used to dump my makeup bag into the same drawer as my hair brushes.
Out of sight, out of mind. You may ask: “How did you decide which products to include in your Morning Zone?” Great question! An even better follow-up question: Do I USE you daily? * *I answered that question for you: No.
Easy.Peezy. Moral of the story? Be real with yourself about what you truly use every day and what can hang out in another drawer.
That fancy journal-looking facial cleanser you received as a gift but only use once a week? Keep reading. We’ll discuss.
As far as corralling products go, I tried them all. See-through acrylic organizers? Pass.
They look great on Instagram, but when your foundation pouch inevitably spills onto one of the trays, cleaning up those tiny grooves is a pain. Deep basket organizers? Forget about it.
While those suckers secretly hide every beauty-related item you own, they also hide it so well that you forget you own it and purchase doubles. Don’t ask me how I know this; I live it. Instead, go boring.
Grab some small, shallow containers. I speak from experience when I say that yogurt pots and disposable containers are your friend. Hear me out: Yes, your collection will look cheap as hell unless you invest in multimillion-dollar stainless steel domes for your lipsticks.
But those small containers are king for a couple of reasons. Products that are small and shallow (hello, lip products and potions) fit perfectly without getting lost in the abyss that is a deep drawer. They’re also easily replaced if they become gross, meaning you can snag another spare from your dishwasher unload pile.
And shower organisation? Still trying to figure that one out. Don’t get me started on caddies that promise to fit EVERYTHING but don’t suction properly to the wall or rust after two months.
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Suction cup organiszers? Waste of time. My first one fell during my very first shower…with the items in it.
But the evolving advice I will give you here is to install a shower niche. Yeah, you have to actually alter your shower walls, but these bad boys don’t fall down, don’t rust, and can fit full-sized shower bottles! When we remodeled our kitchen last year, we added a recessed shower shelf while we were at it.
It was literally one of the best decisions we’ve made for our kitchen and bathroom. If a shower niche is out of your budget/range of skills, go with a classic tension rod shower caddy that spans from the floor to the ceiling of your shower. Not as sexy?
Yes. But functional and keeps everything contained, plus you can adjust the shelves to the size of your bottles rather than hoping yours will fit some blogger’s-I-have-two-kinds-of-shower-bodies standard. Trust.
Alright, towel Storage. Here we go. Hooks on the wall look amazing, but my OCD cannot handle rolled up towels touching when they’re hanging.
Towel ladder? Never enough space for towels if you actually USE more than two. Instead, I picked up cheap wooden dowels in varying sizes at the hardware store and mounted them at different heights on my bathroom door.
Not very @hygge_home, but I can fit four towels without them touching, and they dry properly between uses. As for cleaning products that keep your bathroom systems functioning? Well, that’s the beauty of a routine.
Every Sunday morning, as my coffee brews, I set my timer for 10 minutes and reset my bathroom. No, I don’t deep clean. I simply return stray products to their homes, wipe down surfaces, and do quick inventory.
Replace anything? Is the Morning Zone cluttered with products that can be moved? Did anything jump zones?
Doing this quick refresh each weekend prevents things from becoming THAT messy again. It also only takes 10 minutes, which means you’re more likely to keep your bathroom organisned if it doesn’t feel like a full-time job. Oh, and one last tip: don’t try to replicate someone else’s bathroom organisation.
See, this used to be my problem. I wasted way too much time trying to achieve “the perfect” white-and-gold bathroom Pinterest/spotted on Instagram before I stopped and asked myself: Does this setup suit MY needs? And the answer was no!
Honestly, I have about twelve types of face masks and three different hair oils. Plus, I work from home.
Stereotypical influencer bathroom setups don’t work for me or my daily routines.
And that’s okay! Need I say more? My organisaton isn’t Instagram-worthy.
My bins don’t match. My shower “caddy” is literally a plastic drawer from Target. But I haven’t spent more than 30 seconds looking for an item in MONTHS.
I CAN get ready in the dark, and best of all, everything has a home AND stays in it. The beauty of a custom (and sensible) organisation system is that you won’t even think about it.✨ Looking back, that mascara meltdown was years ago. The worst thing that happens to me now is that I occasionally run out of cotton pads.
And let’s be real. That’s the kind of problem I can handle.
