Bathroom Cabinet Bliss

The bathroom cabinet can be a place of organizational wonder and delight. It can also be a place of mystery, and that’s not always helpful when you’re getting ready in the morning.

If a bathroom cabinet near you is a tad too mysterious and could benefit from some organizational attention, hopefully some or all of the following tips will be helpful.

Depending on the size of the cabinet, this organizational box of sorts provides you with a variety of shelves on which to place everything and anything from cotton balls to a hair dryer to make-up samples to deodorant to hair accessories to razors to toothpaste. So how to organize such a space?

Eliminate items before you re-organize

First things first. Take some time to declutter your bathroom cabinet by doing a quick audit of your items. Obtain three bins (or bags), which will hold your respective “trash,” “keep,” and “share” piles. Then go through your bathroom cabinet and identify whether you will throw away, keep, or share each item. Feel free to adopt the motto “when in doubt, throw it out.” Of course, “throw it out” can either mean into the trash pile or into your share pile. If any of the following situations arise in a cabinet near you, considering sharing the products:

• If you have make-up (including samples) that you’ve never used and you know someone who would love to have them
• If you have used bottles of shampoo, hair styling products, or lotion that you don’t plan to use again
• If you have an opened bag of cotton balls or sealed band-aids and you don’t plan to use them
• If you have a small arsenal of new or slightly used nail polish that you’ll never wear again

If you come across unopened products that you intend to give away, consider sharing them with a local homeless shelter or women’s shelter.

A few basic organization suggestions

When I open my bathroom cabinet I like to easily find that which I’m seeking. If the cabinet is cluttered or if items are leaning every which way, it’s not always a cinch to find things.

• Consider setting up your cabinet so that product labels face out
• Consider grouping like items together
• Ensure that every item has its own dedicated place

While there’s no need to color code or alphabetize your items like they do with shampoos and other products at big box retailers (this is just a bathroom cabinet, folks!), a defined sense of order will go a long way toward bathroom cabinet bliss.

Product labels help your organizational goals

Product labels make a huge difference in organizational wonderment. In addition to helping you identify the items that you’re seeking, they also serve as great reminders so that you consistently group like items together and maintain a sense of organizational joy long after your bathroom cabinet intervention.

Storing like items together is good for your budget

Storing like items together is a great way to organize your cabinet. Hair styling products should stand next to their counterparts. Same goes for nail polish, make-up items, and anything else. Doing this helps you find products easily. It allows you to easily see your “inventory,” and helps ensure that you don’t unnecessarily buy items that you already own. This approach is good for your wallet and for your organizational bliss. Don’t you just love win-win situations like this one?!

Several people I know store their nail polish bottles together – and organize them by color. They also do this with cosmetics, hair accessories, etc. The extent to which you organize each product grouping is up to you. Do whatever will make you feel the most peaceful the next time you’re looking for something in your bathroom cabinet.

Let height be your guide

In bathroom cabinets I’ve found that organizing items by height is an easy way to keep things tidy. When possible, place the tallest products at the back of the cabinet and shorter items at the front. That said, if you rarely use the short items and you use the tall ones every day, organize your cabinet accordingly.

No domino effect, please

Whenever possible, items on your bathroom cabinet shelves should be free-standing. Leaning items can create a domino effect that leads to general messiness. If you must stack or lean things on one another, do so in a deliberate manner to ensure that the domino effect won’t happen. Or use a plastic organizer, tray, or other object to help maintain order.

Keep your cabinet organized well into the future

As is the case with keeping your house tidy, your bathroom cabinet will remain in its state of organizational bliss if you put things back where they belong and generally keep things orderly. If you purchase a new product, be sure that it has its own place in the cabinet. Whenever you feel so inclined, do a general audit of the items in your cabinet to ensure that you only have what you need.

May your bathroom cabinet be a place of organizational wonder and delight for many months to come.

* Photo by Christina Fumi