The Capsule Makeup Collection

I’ve been doing the whole ‘Capsule Wardrobe’ thang now for over a year and although I tend to bend the rules a bit more these days, I still love the streamlined and minimalist approach. Not only does it make me feel like I have shiz together and means that deciding what to wear in the mornings is relatively easy, it also stops me from aimlessly scrolling ASOS for 10 hours a day. It’s a win-win. So I thought it was about time that I gave the same treatment to my beauty stash.

Now I definitely don’t buy as much makeup as I used to, so my aim here wasn’t to cut off buying beauty products of the next three months. I more just wanted to cut it down to the bare bones and create a capsule that could perform basically every makeup look I like to wear with a minimal amount of products. It sort of turned out as a bit of a ‘Ride or Die TAG’ video/travel makeup essentials. There are only 16 products in total in there and with them I can create a bit of everything; from a rusty eye with an autumnal berry lip, to a minimal matte lid look with a quick slick of gloss on the lips.

Have a watch of the video below to see what made the cut, but in the meantime seeing as we’re talking about an everyday capsule. I thought I’d cook up some of my top storage tips when it comes to giving a good home to my beauty go-tos…

Makeup first, storage second. This is one of the main takeaways I had from reading ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’ by Marie Kondo, where she says that one of the biggest passions of hoarders is storage. You buy the storage to lob all your clutter into and when there’s still space left we’re inclined to purchase more things, just to fill it. I definitely used to have this mentally and if there was an option to squeeze a wardrobe into our tiny flat just for filling with makeup, I’m pretty sure I would have been up for the challenge. Instead these days, I cull my makeup down to the essentials that I actually need and use and then start thinking about storage options.

Think outside the box. Sometimes the most bizarre things, make the best storage. The bulk of my beauty stash is kept in old apothecary-style drawers from Vincent & Barn, my brushes in an old mug which does the job perfectly well and my acrylic box is a long-discontinued purchase from Oliver Bonas. When I was looking for my new beauty home I turned charity shops inside out, perused Etsy daily and spent a lot of time in antique markets on the hunt.

MUJI is your best friend. When all else fails, you can’t go wrong with good ol’ MUJI. Not only do they stock customisable acrylic systems that can hold makeup in a million different ways they also have trays and pots which work amazingly well at splitting up deep drawers and keeping things organised. My big apothecary drawers are basically one big MUJI super system inside. See?

Upside down. Storage system aside, when it actually comes to organising your stash I have a few tips up my sleeve too. I store my eyeliners and eyeshadow pencils upside down, not only to keep the lids in the place and prevent drying, but also that way it’s easy to spot the colour I need as most are labelled on the end. I also stand my cream eyeshadows and palettes on their sides so they are easy to grab. Nail polishes, lipsticks, glosses and pencils are again a good one to store upside down (just make sure the lids are securely on), especially if you have a lot from the same brand, so it’s easy to distinguish shades. Basically my whole makeup collection is stored upside down. But anyway – enough of the tips – let’s get on to the video…

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