Beauty Hacks

Time to Spring Clean Your Beauty Stash

Spring is all about getting rid of the old and welcoming in the new – not least where your make up products and skin care potions are concerned. There really is nothing more therapeutic than a good old de-clutter and sprucing up of your kit. It won’t just free up space in your beauty bag, allowing you to find things more easily (oh joy unbounded!) but you also ditch any old timers that have passed their shelf-life and keep the ‘fresh’ ones in pristine condition. After all, as the ancient saying goes: ‘She who keeps her lipsticks in line shall live long and prosper…’*

Here are our top five tips for keeping your beauty stash orderly and in pristine condition.

Get rid of the ‘deadwood

‘First things first is to give your collection the ‘Simon Cowell treatment’, i.e. you need to be ruthless in separating the good from the not so good (‘broken powder pallet? That’s a no from me…’). Look for products you rarely use, ones that have passed their sell-by date or others that are just a bit too battered and shabby to function properly or bring you any joy.

Donate and recycle

Don’t feel guilty about giving redundant products the heave-ho – anything you’ve barely used but is still in fairly good nick you can donate to friends, siblings or even charities such as {Give and Make Up}. Plus, candle holders can be recycled to make cute plant pots and brush containers (just ask Verity our Content Ed, whose beautiful {Bella Freud} candle jars now have all manner of exotic greenery growing out of them!)

Clean what you’ve kept

Any beloved products lucky enough to have survived your cull still need some TLC to get them looking and functioning their best. Using a damp cloth, wipe your palettes and make up bags and around the necks of tubes and jars. And it goes without saying that you should regularly give your brushes and sponges a good going over to get rid of any residual bacteria. {Sigma Beauty’s Sigma Spa Brush Cleaning Mat} and {Beautyblender’s Pure Solid Blender Cleanser} will take most of the legwork out of the task.

Invest in some shiny new storage solutions

Once you’ve spent time de-cluttering and cleaning, your next step is to reorganise. For example, {Morphe Brushes Roomy Set Bag} is spacious and see-through, so beauty products won’t get lost in the abyss. And for your handbag, the {3 Concept Eyes Pouch} is oh so chic and made with wipe clean material. But if your kit is seriously sizeable, we’d recommend the {NYX Professional Makeup’s Makeup Artist Train Case – Beginner}. It’s ideal for budding MUAs or product junkies, with multiple compartments to store all manner of beauty loot.

Reward yourself with some new additions

No we don’t mean going overboard and replacing one heap of clutter with another. This is more about a few choice pieces to create a capsule beauty collection – e.g. throwing out five knackered red lippies for a fresh nude such as {Charlotte Tilbury’s} {Hot Lips in Kim K.W}. If anything, it will give you an extra incentive to get the de-cluttering part out of the way to make room for your new arrivals.

Check out some more of our new arrivals to treat yourself to by clicking the link below.

SHOP NEW ARRIVALS >>

*Might not be an ancient saying.

by Viola Levy



Verity Douglas

Verity Douglas

Content Editor

Cult Beauty’s Content Editor and a Cult Beauty OG, Verity loves nothing more than the marriage of language and lip balm. A quintessential Libran, she’s a self-professed magpie for luxury ‘must-haves' and always pursuing the new and the niche — from the boujee-est skin care to cutting-edge tech. Balancing an urge to stop the clock with her desire to embrace the ageing process (and set a positive example for her daughter), Verity's a retinol obsessive and will gladly share her thoughts about the time-defying gadgets, masks and treatments worth the splurge...