Makeup and skincare products are not only fun; they also hold the potential to make you look and feel more attractive. It’s important to take care of your collection, and part of the process includes decluttering them from time to time. Here are five reasons to sort through and declutter your collection:

Reason #1: Potential Health Risks & Damage To Skin:

You might have heard that makeup and skincare products have a shelf life, so when they are past their expiration date or have gone bad, you could be putting yourself at minor health risks or damaging your skin if you are still using them.

You can follow the timelines in this post (coming soon) as a guide to determine when it’s time to toss expired items so that you don’t put yourself at risk. Even though I was once a skeptic about the expiration dates, I’ve come across a handful of clients who have proved me wrong.

I go into more detail in that timelines post (coming soon), but one of my clients had developed an eye infection from old mascara, another client had a slight rash on her face from using an expired moisturizer, and another developed Angular Chilitis (cracks on the corner of the mouth from bacteria) from using expired lipstick.

One of the things I think about is this… we put on nice moisturizers/serums to make our skin better for the future- how ironic if we were spending the time and energy (while using up expired products) to damage our skin instead. Skincare and makeup can get expensive, and sometimes we don’t want to throw out expired items because of loss aversion, but after a certain point, it’s better safe than sorry, whether we’re aware of the damage or not.

Reason #2: The Emotional Toll of Clutter:

There might be skincare products or makeup that you don’t use, have outgrown, or don’t  like taking up space in your bathroom. Why even have them there? These products are usually the insidious culprits that cause overcrowding, take up precious storage space, get in the way, hide the items that you do use or want to find, or you might have to constantly push them out of the way (or sift through them) to get to the items that you do love or use.

It just feels so much better to get those items out of the way and out of your space, so you don’t feel frantic, annoyed, or waste time looking for things.

Reason #3: It can end up costing you more:

This reason doesn’t apply to everyone, but more to people with a great excess of products. Say if you haven’t decluttered in a while and have a lot of items, you might not be able to to find what you’re looking for because it’s buried or hidden behind another item, and then you go by a replacement. As a result, you end up spending money on a duplicate you didn’t need to buy. Worst case scenario is that by the time you find the initial item you already had, it’s expired.

Another reason leading to buying duplicates is when you have too many items, it’s hard to remember what you have. Say you’re shopping, and you can’t remember if you do actually own a green eyeshadow, and buy it, only to come home and discover that there was already one in your makeup drawer.

If you declutter your excess items, it’s easier to find and remember what you have. This in turn, reduces the chance of having to buy duplicates or having older items expire.

Reason #4: You Owe It To Yourself To Get Ready In a Beautiful Space: 

A beautiful space doesn’t have to be luxurious or fancy, it just has to be clean and decluttered. It just feels so good to get ready in a clean and decluttered bathroom. Besides your bed, your bathroom is a pre-determined area that you spend time in both first thing in the morning when you’re getting ready for the day, and at the end of the night when you are getting ready for bed. If you have a clean, decluttered bathroom and spend the morning getting ready there, it can impact your mood for the rest of the day.

Imagine getting ready in a five star hotel bathroom- impeccably clean countertops, large vanity, plenty of counter space and no clutter- it feels really good right? And sets the tone for the rest of the day. Now imagine getting ready in a dirty, grimy, cluttered bathroom. It subtly impacts not just your day, but how you feel about yourself. The bathroom doesn’t have to be luxurious, per se, just clean and uncluttered and you will feel so different!

You can have great, expensive products, but if you have a lot of them, they cluster together and lose their luster. If you have just a select amount of those same products, it looks and feels nicer. Not having too many products makes your space more beautiful because there’s less visual clutter and you appreciate the items that you have more.

 

Reason #5: Taking Feng Shui Into Account

According to Feng Shui principles, everything exudes energy. Items that you love or use regularly have positive energy. Items that are left unused/unwanted/unloved have a murky energy. Having that murky energy around you weighs you down. In a nutshell, getting rid of excess items that are just cluttering up your space basically takes a weight off of you.

It’s the little things that add up and can make a big difference. Decluttering your makeup and skincare products might not seem like much, but you might end up shedding a bag of items and clearing out some stuck energy in the process, which can directly impact other areas of your life.

I hope that this article motivates you to take a look at decluttering your products if it’s needed. Remember to follow the rule of thumb to only keep what you need, use, and love.