Ah, the makeup collection and storage posts (or videos). I love them so. Since I love reading about everyone else’s collections, I thought I’d share my own!

The area for my makeup is pretty small. The desk is shoved into a corner of the bedroom where it fits snuggly against the wall between the window and the closet door. The desk is from IKEA (go figure) and I’m really unsure what the model is. It’s similar to this one, but that’s not exactly it. It has a glass top and a single shelf that spans the length of the table (which, as you can see, I stuff just about everything under this table).

Obligatory zoomed out shot with Nemo product placement. Complementary unmade bed courtesy of the cat.

So as you can see, the space is small and narrow, but I manage to fit everything in quite nicely. One of the most important things to me is being able to see ALL of my makeup at a glance. I don’t want anything packed away in drawers where they’ll inevitably become forgotten. For that very reason, I don’t want my collection to get too big.

So here is a closeup of the entire set up. I keep a bag of empty products on the shelf below. There are a few makeup bags stored there as well. And a pile of yoga pants that no longer fit me but I refuse to throw out because they’re Lululemon and I paid a pretty penny for those!

The mirror is also from IKEA annnnd yet again I can’t find it on their web site. What the heck is going on here?! Kind of wonder if IKEA did a total stock overhaul… Anyway, I love it because I love the look of wrought iron and the shape and curve of bent wrought iron reminds me of my tattoo (tribal design). I like to hang my jewelry off the curves – everything from watches, necklaces, bracelets and rings. Since I’m not much of a jewelry person, I don’t need a lot of storage space for my accessories and dangling them works out rather nicely. I also have a small clippy lamp stuck to the top of the mirror. It’s not the best lighting, but it works well enough for those winter mornings when the sun still isn’t up when I need to get ready for work.

So let’s zoom in a bit closer and start on the top of my makeup table.

I bought this letter/mail divider from Bed, Bath and Beyond for about $20 CAD and it houses most of my palettes. It’s not height-staggered inside, so I arranged my palettes as best I could from shortest to tallest. You can see I labelled my Sleek palettes since they’re impossible to differentiate just by looking at the packaging. I’ve only recently become a palette person (Urban Decay‘s Naked set me off) and I have six Sleek palettes, one MUA, a MAC eyeshadow quad of shades I’m trying to finish up, all three UD Naked iterations, Laura Mercier‘s Artist (2013), a customized Inglot palette, Tarte‘s Off The Cuff, Too Faced’s A Few of my Favorite Things and a massive Sephora palette in the back.

To the left of my palette divider is an acrylic makeup organizer I also picked up from Bed, Bath and Beyond (brand is Hotel Balfour, approximately ~$16). This is truly organized chaos. Starting at the back left, I have all of my L’Oreal Infallible eyeshadows stacked up along with a few random items (a depotted MAC Hibiscus lipstick when the bullet broke, a sample of a Laura Mercier powder, a tub of crystals and some hand sanitizer).

The back middle section contains my favourite foundations (Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum, No7 Instant Radiance,  yaby, Revlon Colorstay). Just in front of the foundations are my lipsticks – primarily MAC but also some Revlon and Maybelline.

To the right at the back are my pencil-like products, primarily eye and lip liners and any jumbo eyeshadow pencils I happen to have. In front of the liners is my entire collection of NYX butter glosses (I had the whole lot of them until they just recently released more shades) and a few other assorted glosses. In front of the glosses are my MAC fluidlines which are my preferred liners, along with a tiny baby sample of Benefit‘s Watts Up.

That unit also has a pull out drawer which has my false lashes, my gungy Duo eyelash glue that clearly needs replacing, some sharpeners and…. the nail clippers for my kitty’s claws.

The next acrylic unit to the left of the previous one was also purchased from Bed, Bath and Beyond (~$14 CAD). Starting at the back left: This has my smaller eyeshadow palettes – two Wet n Wild and three Maybelline quads. In front of the palettes is kind of a mishmash – I have my eyeshadow singles/duos (NARS, MUA, Illamasqua, Urban Decay, NYX, Wet n Wild) and my lip balms (Nivea, Blistex).

The section on the right is a bit of a mess. At the back are a few glosses and lipstains along with my beloved Rimmel Apocalips and some jumbo lip pencils I’m not a huge fan of. I also have two foundations I’m trying to use up (CoverGirl CC cream and MUA matte foundation). The lipstick holder area has products I’m trying to use up (left side) and some sample size mascaras that I haven’t opened yet. To the right are a few small sizes of a lipstick and lipgloss and a Revlon lip butter in Creme Brulee.

Both units separated so you can see their size when compared to each other.

This is an eyesore to me, but  it’s my only solution at the moment for my blushes, bronzers and highlighters. I bought this utensil divider from Kitchen Stuff Plus (~$20 CAD) and it really isn’t the best divider for these items – too much of my stuff rattles around. The left side contains all of my blushes (Tarte, MAC, Joe Fresh, Physicians Formula, Maybelline, Cargo, Sleek, Wet n Wild, Hard Candy, Revlon, Illamasqua, NYX, Bourjois).

The right side has my bronzer in front (NYC, Joe Fresh, Physicians Formula, Revlon) and my highlighters behind (MAC, Hard Candy, Too Faced, Dior, Hourglass).

Moving up from the table, I have three shelves (Debbie Travis shelves from Canadian Tire, $~28 CAD) that I absolutely love.  They’re three different sizes and I think they look quite unique.

The smallest shelf houses two upcycled Bath and Body Works 3-wick candle holders. The left one has all of my mineralize eyeshadows from MAC, the right one has my Maybelline Color Tattoos.

The largest shelf has my four MAC palettes (check them out here: Neutrals, Blacks & Whites, Greens & Blues, Pinks & Purples) along with a 9-pan Z Palette with my Makeup Geek eyeshadows.  To the right of the palettes is a potting planter that I picked up from a gardening center – this one contains my larger face brushes. To the right is another upcycle candle container filled with eye brushes.

The last remaining shelf is the medium sized one. The left side (container is from an emptied out Ferrero Rocher chocolate box) has my pigments and glitters. Another small candle holder (this one was from IKEA) has my currently in use mascara, concealers, lip primer, eye primers and glitter glue. There’s a potted MAC Omega shadow remaining on the shelf along with my perfumes and sprays (Alfred Sung Shi, Bath and Body Works Warm Vanilla Sugar, Bath and Body Works Sky, Adidas Pure Lightness and MAC Turquatic).

There you have my entire collection! I love having everything in plain sight which makes it easy for me to pick out what to wear. I especially like that the small shelving units give me a lot more visible vertical space. If you have a collection post or video, I’d love to see it!