Muji and Ikea Storage! | Make Up and Beauty Set Up

I just wanted to start off and say that preparing this post quite literally drove me to the very brink of sanity. It also invoked quite a bit of hoarders guilt as I shuffled through my 15 concealers and wondered what the hell I was doing with all of them, let alone the stack of eyeshadow palettes that I wear about one shade from once a month. Oops. Anyone else who's ever tried to put together a 'make up collection' style post/video or even just rearranged their stash will probably have experienced the same frustrations, and I just simply can't find a set up that I feel completely satisfied with. Even after a full morning of rearranging I'm now sat starting the display of acrylic and picturing ways that I could make it look better. This could be an ongoing saga. 

Anyway, for today at least, I've given up on the switching, shuffling and slotting into the little plastic drawers and I invite you to browse my partially completed make up set up..

The big rearrange and this post were both spurred on by a trip to Ikea (my first one, ever!) to update some furniture and I did stand for a long time looking at the Ikea Alex tower which seems to be a 'blogger favourite' but settled on the much more practical Malm Chest instead which has 4 hugee and extremely spacious drawers that can fit so much inside - plus it was half the price of the Alex tower. 

Ikea Chest of 4 Drawers | White - £45 LINK

Inside the first of the two drawers are some of the Skubb drawer separators that are dotted literally everywhere around the Ikea store. A set of 6 boxes was only £6 which I thought was pretty reasonable and helps to be able to store smaller items of make up/beauty products in the drawers without them rolling around everywhere and it becoming a huge big make up mess!

Skubb Box, Set of 6 | White - £6 LINK

Next up is the cult make up storage favourite - Muji drawers! I already have some acrylic drawers (shown further down in the post) but there just wasn't enough space and I needed some more room.. but even now I'm thinking hmm, should I have got the 5 drawer and 2 drawer too??  Quite a pricey box of plastic really but none of the competitors live up to the quality and I just couldn't find what I wanted from anywhere else, especially not for any cheaper! Personally, I'd just say to save yourself the search because there's no cheaper alternatives for the quality, and just go for Muji :) ..and yes, my YSL products stay in their boxes. They're precious.

Muji Acrylic 5 Drawer Box - £24.95 LINK

 

As you can see, the drawer filling process has been left abandoned. Even though the top drawer is still empty, there's not a lot of space left in the 'eye make up' drawer and it's missing a whole lot of eye products, namely mascara and other single shadows so I feel frustrated, and it looks like I underestimated the amount of make up that I had lying around. 

My old storage how now been demoted to holding the 'odds and ends' that don't seem to fit in any other place. These drawers are a lot smaller than the Muji drawers; they're similar in drawer height but a lot narrower in width so I've managed to dedicate a whole drawer to 'brow products' and one just for Baby Lips and Burts Bees lipbalms because they're my favourites, and the rest are just bits and pieces that don't seem to fit in the other side with the Muji. 

Ryman, via eBay - Osco Acrylic 3 Drawer Storage - £9.99 each LINK

There's 2 x 3 drawers stacked on top of each other here and this is an example of what I mean with Muji being good value, because if you were to buy two of these 3 drawers and add on the postage, you'll be paying nearly £23 and yes you'll have 6 drawers of storage, they're half the width of the Muji drawers, so realistically you can only fit in half the contents. Whereas, 5 big, wide drawers from Muji would cost £25.. you do the maths!

Sorry for the unclear picture on this next one, but I was almost about to forget to include it! On top of the Muji drawers is an organiser called 'Glam Cosmetic Organiser'. I can't remember if I bought it from eBay or Amazon but I've included a link below to a very similar price I bought mine for, however, feel free to search around for it because it will probably be available from another seller a bit cheaper. 

Sadly it looks very sparse at the moment, but this used to be the predominant organiser for my make up as it has slots to hold up to 12 lipsticks, 2 small, shallow compartments behind the lipsticks, one large compartment to the left, and then two tall ones behind that, i.e. for mascaras, eyeliner etc. If you have a small (and reasonable) make up collection you could probably fit everything into the Glam Organiser. ..I wish I still could! :( But it's good for the 'everyday reachables'. 

eBay, Acrylic Glam Cosmetic Organiser - £8.49 LINK

For lipstick holders I've got two separate ones and I think that they are both slightly different sizes too but they were both bought from eBay quite a long time ago. eBay is absolutely riddled with cheap acrylic storage like this for lipsticks  (not so good on the drawers front, but good for lipstick holders). I'm not fully in love with it and think it looks a bit messy but it's one of the best ways for me to keep all my high street lipsticks together and by storing them upside down I can instantly see what shade I'm looking for.

Acrylic 24 Lipstick Holder - £3.19 with free postage from Hong Kong LINK

Similar for £2.98 LINK

In the office and desk accessories section of the Muji site I found this 3 partition holder that just screams out to you 'I'm perfect for your brushes!'. I don't have many make up brushes so they all fit in just fine (except the RT Blush brush, that's a bit big so stands at the side) and I use the three compartments for: eye make up brushes, base application (foundation, concealer brushes), and then blush, bronzer etc in the final compartment. 

Muji Acrylic 3 Partition Desk Pot - £5.50 LINK

Andd, in not so great quality pictures, I also got two more office accessories from Muji - a round pen pot, and a rectangular pen pot. As of yet, I don't have specific purposes in mind for them, but my current thought is that it might end up being 'most reached for mascara and eyeliner and brow spoolie' in the rectangular one, and brushes in urgent need of a wash to go in the round pot.  

Muji Acrylic Round Pen Pot - £2.25 LINK

Muji Acrylic Rectangular Pen Pot - £1.95 LINK

Phew, now I've finished this post I'm off to rearrange and sort out my hair care, skin care, and body products - fun evening! I fully intend to do a complete and more thorough set up /collection post of my make up in a couple of months when there's more time on my hands and I feel a bit more satisfied with the layout of everything. 

What do you think so far?

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