OK, so I’ve been planning this post for a while, but it’s a) embarrassing, and b) hard to come up with a system that you’re happy with. I think this is good for me right now. I have very little space, and I like it like that because it’s extremely obvious when I go overboard. On my work/only desk, I have a corner, a cubby, and a drawer for makeup I want within my reach. By this, I mean, I have a separate drawer for back-ups (e.g. new mascara I don’t want to open because of current mascaras in rotation, etc.) and products I don’t reach for often.
There were a lot more photos in the original iteration of this post, but I only kept the useful ones to show my main set-up. The desk looks neat because the other crap I have (books, bags, etc.) are on my bed, ha.
So this is what the main beauty~*~* area looks like. Predictably, I have 3 acrylic MUJI drawers: Acrylic 2 Drawers Narrow, Acrylic 2 Drawers Wide, and an Acrylic 3 Drawer Unit. Beside that is a PP Vanity Lid with Mirror (which I use just as a mirror), two Ball jars, and two random glass jars for brushes.
The wide drawers at the bottom have my cream shadows and eye bases in the top drawer, and most of my loose eyeshadows in the bottom drawer. On the part that juts out, I placed my Guerlain Météorites and a Le Métier de Beauté Kaleidoscope Lip Kit.
The narrow drawers on the top has mostly prepping stuff like my loose mineral foundations on the top lid, eye creams, concealers, and setting powders inside the first row, and eyelash curlers, lip brushes, and sharpeners in the second row.
The 3 Drawer Unit has a Koala, some figurines from Thailand and the earrings that I use the most. In the first row I have spillovers from the loose mineral eyeshadows, a shadow stick, and some gel liners.
The second drawer has OCC Lip Tars, a UD lip gloss, and Shiro Cosmetics Intertubes. In the third row, I keep my Addiction Cheek Sticks and BECCA Beach Tints.
In the two Ball jars, I have eye products (eyeliners, eyebrow products, NYX Jumbo Eye Pencils, etc) and lip products (lip glosses, lip crèmes, liquid lipsticks, lip liners, etc).
I have a deep cubby that I never knew what to do with, even when I didn’t like makeup. I got deep, skinny drawers from the MUJI (lol) PP Storage range to maximize the weird space.
These drawers are great because you can change the dividers to suit each partition need. In this one, for example, I have a) highlighters, b) blushes, and c) powders. I also keep mascaras, samples, eyeshadows and other lip products in the other drawers.
This drawer partition has my eyeshadow singles that haven’t been depotted or set aside. I have multiple shades from different brands and I stack them in rows. It can be a bit hard to determine where a particular shadow I need is… so I store them alphabetically (lol).
The last row has my palettes. I used to have them in drawers, stacked on top of each other, but this is MUCH better because they are all within reach so neglect is minimized.
Then I have this bareMinerals x Jonathan Adler case where I put spare brushes and my bronzers. This is the part of my system~* that I hate, so I don’t know what to do about that just yet.
This is my desk’s first drawer! In the upper left, I have most of my small, LE palettes and kaleidoscopes. Upper center is travel + misc. things, upper right has some samples inside the covered box and my Inglot palettes and Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder Palette on the lid. In the lower center, I have most of my liquid face stuff like moisturizers, primers, illuminators, foundations, BB creams, CC creams, and a MAC Fix+.
To the left of that, I have cleaning up type things like wipes, cotton buds, cotton pads, my brush cleaner, and a UD Makeup Setting Spray that wouldn’t fit anywhere else. Nearby are my Wild Peach Palette and MAC Palette.
To the right of the bases area, I have a zip bag full of lipsticks. I already purged this part so these are the ones that I really want to use regularly/use up.
The dividers in this super deep drawer are the PP Vanity Cases from MUJI~ They are sufficiently cheaper than the acrylic drawers and work well in the actual drawers if you don’t have tabletop space.
Off to the side, where I ought to keep my keyboard but don’t, I have another PP case that has some Project 10 Pan items + other things I want to use up. Beside that is a shu uemura x Karl Lagerfeld (Mon Shu Girl!) box that Sarie gave me where I store some products that I want to test out and don’t want to store yet.
So there you have it! I hope this was actually helpful and not useless, though I suppose the best and cheapest solution for storage for small spaces is to not keep buying new stuff. I’m going to do a purge soon, I think. I already gave Nude ‘Tude to my sister because she is my baby sister and I love her, and also she loves that palette more than I do.
As always, thank you for reading. 🙂
Softly Sometimes 
I always like seeing your desk hehe it’s bursting with interesting trinkets and stuff. 🙂
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Thanks Patty. 🙂
That looks great. I Especially like the zip bag for the lipsticks!
Thanks! That’s from Muji, too. 🙂
Love those big mac screens 🙂
Me too. 🙂
I just realized, your blog sale tab is no longer there!
It’s been out for a while. 🙂
It’s so organized… I tried organizing mine once, it stayed like that for about 3 days… Hehehe.
Hehe, IKR! The best thing I like about this set-up is that I somehow return everything to its place. 🙂
Everything is so neat and tidy 🙂 Well done. Steph x
Thank you, Steph. 🙂
Great post! I’ve been wanting to write a post similar to this, too, but I never really got to figuring out how. 😆 Thanks for the inspiration!
No worries, thanks for the comment!
This post was definitely very useful. I have quite a small space to store all of my makeup and I’ve been running out of room very quickly so I think I’ll give some of your storage ideas a try. Thanks so much!
No problem, hope they work out for you!
I’m loving the storage posts lately. We all must be in the same mind frame of purging and cleaning.
happy New Year!
~Anna
http://fairygodmotherbeautyblog.com/
Happy new year, Anna!
I reserved the large drawers from Muji because of your post! 😀 then I’m coming back for the small ones after I do my inventory. Thanks for the informative post! 🙂
You’re welcome! I’m happy it was helpful. 🙂
I desperately want to create my own makeup vanity via IKEA furniture but we’re on the brink of moving and I’d rather purchase it all and set it up after the move 😦 Until then, I just store all my makeup in a plastic tub. It frustrates me. I wish I could have more organization in my life.
Aw, that’s OK Mariko! You’ll be able to set everything up once you move, I’m sure!
Great post 🙂 love how you store everything, it looks pretty good! I only have a desk, kind of trying to make it look like a dressing table but failing miserably. My storage is just all over the place… *sighs*
http://www.beautyadoration.wordpress.com
Thank you! It’s hard for me to have them in different places since I tend to not use some of the other products. Good luck with your storage plans!
I love storage posts so I am FUHREAKING OUT !!! A+ organization skills!
Also where did you buy your acrylic drawers? 😀
Hey Gia, MUJI. 🙂
Wow, Muji is storage solution heaven. I think I should drop by, my stuff are all on glamour box lids and it’s starting to take too much space.
I used to use subscription boxes also, as the dividers in my drawers! I use them for other drawers now. Haha. Good luck!
Wow, that’s some amazing organization!
Glad you think so! 🙂