Makeup and Skincare Storage

Hi friends,

As promised, I am giving you  Grand Tour of my makeup and skincare collection. It is so much easier to showcase my stash now that I have everything organized and categorized by like items.

If you recall, I built this baby all by myself (you may check out the blog and coordinating video series here):

So, without further ado, let's get started with Skincare.

I keep all my everyday skincare products on the shelf above the sink.

Above, I keep my two sets of Yves Rocher day and night creams (Serum Vegetal and Elixir 7.9 ) as well as my skin serums (Palmer Face Oil and Yves Rocher Elixir 7.9 Serum). I do not like to keep a lot of skincare products on hand since they go bad fast and I could not possibly go through an entire jar if I had many to choose from. As of now I am also trying out some Lancome samples, but will talk about these in a separate review.

On the left side of the shelf, I keep all my cleansers, eye makeup removers and skin toners. Unlike face creams, I do like to switch cleansers and find it hard to stick just to one brand. Lately, I have been loving the Lancome Creme Radiance Foaming Cleanser. Though it is a tad expensive ($36), the product itself is very economical and goes a long way with only a drop at a time. (I will also review this product, and others, in a separate and upcoming blog).

In the cabinet I affixed to the wall, I keep all my scents (perfumes, lotions and shower gels). because these require that they be kept in a dark and dry area.

On the top shelf, I keep all the bath related products such as my shower gels from Bath and Body Works as well as some body scrubs.

In the middle shelf, I keep my perfume collection - it is ever expending but you can see that I use ALL of them. There is no wasting here, if you ask me, I could not live without perfume. I go in further detail about each bottle in the coordinating video which you can watch on my YouTube Channel.

In the bottom shelf, I keep all my body lotions. For the most part, they match the shower gels on the top shelf, but I do remain faithful to Bath and Body Works Pink Chiffon collection. I just find it to be both warm and refreshing, it's just the kind of scent I prefer.

On to my vanity:

On the top left side of the vanity, I keep all my palettes and lipsticks.

I found this mail/office sorter for under $10 at Home Goods. It is perfect to keep my palette collection together and protect the packaging from dings and scratches. I guess it goes without saying that I am addicted to Too Faced as a brand. I think their palette are not only innovative, the quality of their shadows is just perfect for my skin Ph and I am yet to be disappointed with any of their products. Here is a little tour below:

1. Chocolate Bar Eye Shadow Collection: a nice assortment of 6 mattes and 10 shimmers. You can divide them into duos, trios or quads. Plus the shadows are infused with cocoa powder (they re not edible, thankfully otherwise the stuff would be gone by now). What does it mean? Every time you open your palette and apply makeup, your senses are awakened by the bitter sweet aroma of chocolate. What a way to start the morning, eh? It just makes me happy.

2. Matte Eye: It's hard to find a palette that is only mattes, this one has a nice assortment of blending and base shadows (three large ones on the right) and 6 colors you can also use as duos or quads.

3. Natural Face Palette: This one is mainly a bronzing and warm palette. I use it a lot in the winter as it gives me a well needed glow.

4. The Secret To No Makeup Makeup Great concept: it's all about giving you that little hint of pink on the cheeks and enough combos of highlighters and concealers to make you look like the original sleeping beauty.

I keep a portion of my lipsticks in this crystal Champagne coaster (why not?) I tend to sort lipsticks by brand and by kind. These are mainly cream lipsticks with a mix of drugstore and a lot of Mary Kay stuck in the middle.

Underneath the shelf, and inside the three sliding drawers, I keep additional lipsticks and other lip products, also organized by kind and brands.
So for instance, and on the left, I keep all manner of tinted lip balms and sheer lipsticks. In the middle I keep mostly Yves Rocher and Mac Lipsticks and on the right, jumbo Revlon lip pencils and Mary Kay Lip Glosses.

The vanity has two sets of shelves (three on each side). On the Left side I keep mainly face and odd products (no makeup):

For instance, in the top basket, I keep my jar of coconut oil, some lip treatment and hand lotions. I also keep a bottle of Lavender Water from Tassot Apiaries, it use it to spray and clean my makeup brushes in between deep cleansing.
My Burt's Bee Facial Cleansing Wipes are also here, I use them on those days I am not wearing makeup to simply and quickly clean my face.

In the middle shelf, I keep all my nail polishes and the tools that go along a good and thorough manicure.
I am not very creative when it comes to nails and only keep purple and pink shades. I don't think I will ever build myself to the courage of wearing blue or green, never mind yellow nail polish!

Lately, I have been enjoying the Essie Park Ave-Hue (part of the Spring Trend 2013 Collection), it's a hot pink with a hint of a cool tone.

In the bottom basket, I keep upcoming giveaway items (hint) as well as my masks and facial scrubs. They are here rather than on the shelf by the sink because I only use masks when I am bathing, and the tub is literally 2 feet away from this basket. I am trying to be efficient here.

Moving on to the right side of the vanity:

On the top, I keep all my makeup brushes, again by kind, so I have a glass container with all the face and concealer brushes, another one with blush and bronzer brushes, a third one with eyeshadows and the last one with all specialty brushes such as eye liner, smudge and other brow brushes.

These little nesting owls allow me to keep my hair ties and clips, earrings, rings etc, compartmentalized. 

And in the sliding drawers, I keep all my finishing products as well as primers (left drawer) and all my eye liners, crayons and mascaras (middle drawer). The right drawer contains all my tools such as scissors and tweezers.

I really like the Urban Decay All Nighter setting spray as well as the Urban Decay Eye Potion Primer. Elf also has very inexpensive eye liners that provide good quality and staying power. I would recommend you give them a try. (I use the plum and olive liners).

Since the right side of the vanity is built just like the left side, I have a set of three baskets where I keep all my makeup:
In the top basket, I keep all my foundations and face powders.

Just like with skincare items, I do not keep a lot of them on hand since they get contaminated very fast. The majority of those you see above are unopened - brand new - foundations I keep as backups. I do like my MAC in Light Plus and remain very faithful to my Yves Rocher Pure Light Foundations in Rose 200 and Rose 300. I think they are just perfect for my skin tone and type.

In the middle drawer - this is where I really get in trouble - I keep all my eye shadows.
There are two stacks in separate baskets.

In the top baskets (long horizontal) I keep all my loose shadows, pigments and base shadows. Lately,  I have been enjoying the Elf in Flirty and the L'Oreal Infaillible eye shadow in Burst into Bloom. Both are beautiful shades of iris purple with a hint of sparkle.

L'Oreal Infaillible Eye Shadow

In the bottom basket, I keep all my blushes and bronzers. I am a bit of an addict (obviously) when it comes to blushes. My latest purchases are the Tarte Amazonian Clay in Natural Beauty (a matter finish)  and the Physician's Formula in Happy Booster (Natural - a highlighting finish). 

Physician's Formula - Happy Booster

Tarte - Amazonian Clay

Well, I hope you have enjoyed this tour of all my makeup and skincare items. I am a bit obsessed with pink and purple don't you think?

Do you have any favorite product you fell in love with lately? Comment down below, I would love to hear about your makeup trends.

Check it out on YouTube for more detail on all the products in my collections:

Thank you for reading and sharing my blog.

Connect with me on:

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

INSTAGRAM

YOUTUBE

Sophia, NJ.

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*my blog contains affiliate advertising, this is how I support my blog and giveaways. All items showcased above were purchased with my own money, I was not solicited to review any product nor did I receive any product for review. All opinions are strictly my own. I am affiliated with the following companies: Too Faced, Yves Rocher, Ver Bradley, Target, Teavana, Pacifica, CO Bigelow.

DIY Vanity + Makeup Storage

Hi friends,

This is a project I have been putting off for so long, but no more!

My husband and I have not done much with the Master Bath in our attic since we bought the house and it is just about as functional as functional can be. Tub/Shower, toilet, vanity with one sink, mirrored cabinet. That's it!

This is our bathroom after I had painted it prior to moving into our home.

It's a no thrill bathroom - but it does like space and storage for all my junk (ahem - makeup)

I had this dresser right under the window, which I use for my intimate stuff (undies etc.), socks and pajamas. I don't care much for the standing cabinet you can see in the back, the glass part of it is cool, but the drawers are too deep and very narrow making them unpractical for makeup and other small items. 

So, after 3 years in our home, my makeup collection and other stuff grew and the bathroom exploded with bins on top of bins, trays full of stuff, drawers that could not longer be shut etc. So, I decided it was time to take matters in my own hands and build a vanity that would be an extension of the sink, with enough storage underneath to stash all my stuff - in a more organized and functional way.

(These are not the best pictures in the world, they were all taken with my cell phone - I hope you do not mind too much - I am simply trying to showcase the process here).

My first step was to remove the dresser - it was relocated to the other side of the room, by the door.

I also disassembled the tall cabinet and only kept the glass top for storage. This would make a great storage unit if fixed directly onto the wall.

I came up with a design that would fit the overall look of the bathroom and took off to The Home Depot to have some plywood cut to size.

I started with a simple design, two cubes with shelves on either side, feet and a single shelf on top, a lip all around, nothing fancy.

Here are my measurements:

Top: 53 3/4 x 21

Sides (4): 21 x 20

Shelves: (4): 21 x 15

Bottoms (2): 21 x 16.5

Lips (all around): 53 3/4 x 2.5 and two 21 x 2.5

Legs: I used deck spindles cut to size (8.5) but you can also use 2.5 in dowels cut to size.

The idea here is to simply assemble all the pieces using deck screws and wood glue. I started with the cubes.

Once the "U" shape was put together with three deck screws on either sides, all I had to do was insert the shelves and screw them directly into the sides. I did use wood glue on all sides prior to using the more permanent screws.

This is what it looked like once the two cubes where completed. I temporarily placed the top so that I could measure the needed space in between as well as the amount of overhang (in the front) I wanted. The overhang makes the vanity a bit more stylish and much less like a homemade design. My overhang is only 3/4 of an inch.

For the legs, I used leftover spindles from our front porch project a few summers back. These spindles are perfect since one will produce two feet, so all together, I needed four spindles (8 feet).

This is a great way to recycle stuff you have laying around in your garage. All I had to do was measure the height needed (8.5) so that the top of my vanity would align with my other counter top (with sink). I needed to cut the ball (in the middle) out and measure on up to 8.5 inches.

Here, they are, all 8 of the feet for my vanity.

Now, attaching the feet to the bottom of my cubes was a bit tricky and I ended up drilling a hole in the bottom and the foot, then used carriage bolts straight into the foot for a solid hold (I explain this process in detail in the video below).

The advantage of using carriage bolts drilled directly from the inside of the cube into the feet is of course stability and if need be, they can be tightened. Something that would not have been possible, had I just toe nailed the feet directly into the bottom panels.

On to the top!

Adding the lips all around was not a huge task either, however, instead of nailing them, I pre- drilled holes and screwed the lips directly into the top panel from the bottom. If you are planning on replicating this DIY project or a variation of it, remember to place the lips prior to fixing the top onto the cubes, otherwise you will not be able to screw the lips directly from the bottom of the flat top. I am hoping I am making some kind of sense here. I simply used wood glue and finishing nails to affix the top onto the cubes.

I wanted to have more use of the top and decided to add a shelf on either side, with a gap/ space in the middle for my mirror. You could also run a shelf across the entire top if you want to, it is just a matter of using finishing nails directly into the lips. You would need smaller inserts to support the middle part of the shelf though.

In my DIY project, I have a shelf on either side.

Because this is plywood, it is important to spend a lot of time sanding all surfaces and buff them to a smooth finish before painting.

I did use caulk (the paintable variety) all around to fill in hairline gaps and little defects in the plywood.

For paint, I chose a Glidden interior latex in bright white/semi gloss. The hardest part was to paint all the corners first (twice) before applying the top coats on flat surfaces.

And here is the finished vanity:

Next week, I will take you on a tour of all my organization and makeup storage ideas since the whole point of the vanity, was to store my makeup and other pampering goodies.

Here are two videos I made of the full project - I explain everything in much more details.

Part One:

Part Two:

I really hope I inspired you with this project - it really was not too hard, it is just a matter of being organized and taking the time to go through the process, no skipping steps on that one.

What do you think? Is that something you could build? I am interested in finding out what modifications (if any) you would make if this were a vanity for your own use.

Thank you for reading and sharing my blog.

Connect with me on:

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

INSTAGRAM

YOUTUBE

Sophia, NJ.

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Have you tried it yet? Teavana iss my favorite brand of tea! You can read my review here.

*This blog contains affiliate advertising. I receive a commission on items purchased through my links. I am not solicited to review products and all opinions are my own. I also purchase items with my own funds unless otherwise noted.