Genius Storage Idea for Perfume Samples That I Wish Was Mine

Right, so hold on to your hats, perfume buddies. I found this brilliant idea thanks to Lipstick & Libraries, and promptly stole it, and it's freakin' GENIUS.

This is my current storage for samples, and it's not that satisfactory. I have them sorted into companies and stored in little empty cosmetic jars. It's neat enough, I suppose, but still a bit too cluttery for my liking.

But then Lipstick & Libraries wrote a blog post about using bullet boxes as storage, and I headed straight to eBay to investigate. As an Australian, and like most Australians, I have no experience of weaponry or its accroutrements, and I didn't even know there was such a thing as a bullet box (though I guess it makes sense that there is). But seek eBay and ye shall find, so I bought one to check it out and see how it went.

Size matters, apparently. I followed instructions and got the box that holds 38/357 (whatever that means), and it is the perfect size for standard sample vials. It doesn't hold the bigger ones, like Common Brimstone's screw tops or Darling Clandestine's 1.5ml taller ones, but that's okay. As long as the majority of my samples can be tucked away neatly, I'm happy.

If you're one of those people who gets all antsy about rolled labels, this is obviously not going to be for you. However, I don't care about them and I don't sell my samples - I just give them away - so I don't need to keep them all 'collectably pristine'. So these are mostly Possets and Arcana with the labels rolled up to fit neatly.

Ta da! I. LOVE. THIS. It's small - about the size of an iphone - and it's a fantastic way to keep samples both tidy and also upright so they don't leak. Also, considering I'm a touchy feely lefty feminazi who hates guns, I feel like I'm giving a tiny bit of ner ner by using a bullet box to store something lovely and harmless.

Paddlepop Lion, what  do you think?

Storing eyeshadows aka cheap shit from eBay

Every now and then I like to trawl eBay and find some random cheap thing (less than $5) and buy it to see how it is. If it turns out to be useless garbage (hello, Strawberry hair curlers), I don't care because I only spent a few dollars on it. If it turns out to be something useful, then I feel absurdly pleased with myself.

One of my recent purchases was a set of plastic jars intended for holding beads. I thought I'd see whether they were any good for holding eyeshadow samples, as I have quite a lot and I don't like the little ziplock bags (does anyone?). This little set cost me $3.67 AU (free postage), and I got mine from this seller, but they're everywhere on eBay. It took maybe 2 weeks to arrive.

A few weeks ago on a whim I bought the sample set of Friday the 13th eyeshadows from Meow Cosmetics. There are 14 - one is an extra for luck or some such - but I only had 12 jars in my little bead wotsit so I left out the two colours I was least likely to ever use. I'll just give those away to someone at some point. I transferred the rest of them into the bead jars. They are quite small so they wouldn't hold a full size loose eyeshadow, but they're perfect for samples and great for keeping a collection in one place.

Et voilà!

I'm pretty happy with this storage - it was super cheap and it's small so I am definitely going to get some more to put all the other samples I've got floating around in. I doubt it would be travel friendly though - the jar lids are the kinds that never seem quite tight enough, and I imagine they would loosen more rattling around in a suitcase. 

 P.S. I will get around to swatching this collection, by the way.

Organising!

A couple of days ago Jacquie and I went for a trek to Ikea to buy some drawer organisers and things to hold makeup brushes and generally just mess about in Ikea and eat meatballs (my first time!). I came home with a bunch of divider things that go in drawers, but rearranging all my makeup in those I decided I didn't like them and wanted something else (lucky they were cheap - I can use them in the kitchen for something). So instead I ordered some Keji document storage things from Officeworks - one with 5 small drawers, and one with 3 small drawers and a larger size drawer.

They arrived this morning, and I've spent some of today organising my stuff in them. I'm really happy with these - they were only $15 each. Bargain!

In this one I have single eyeshadows, sorted roughly by colour: green in top drawer, next blues and purples, then pinks and peaches, then browns, then random other neutrals and some odd colours that don't fit anywhere else (a yellow one I received as a freebie and so on).

This one has most of my other stuff - the top drawer is mascaras, gel eyeliners, lashes, eye primers and brow products. The second drawer has blush, the third face products like primers, foundations and concealers. The bottom larger drawer holds eyeshadow palettes and one stray primer that is too high for the other drawers.

I also tidied up some other stuff while I was there - I'm not overly thrilled with the nail polishes being in a basket all higgeldy piggeldy but I don't paint my nails all that often so it will do until I can be bothered working out something else. In the cups and little spice canisters are (from left) lip glosses, lip pencils, eye pencils, jumbo eye pencils.

I did use one of the drawer organisers to get some currently unused stuff out of the way - a couple of empty jars, some empty eyeshadow sample bags, and brushes I don't use much.

And I finally got around to labelling the top of all my perfume oils, as I keep them in a drawer in a darkish corner and it's a pain in the butt having to pull half of them out to find the one I want.

Not gonna lie, I'm feeling a bit proud of myself!