Over the last few years my makeup collection hasn’t stopped growing which is great but storing it had become a bit of a problem. I’ve been lusting after the infamous Ikea Alex nine drawers for a few months but had never got round to buying it until a couple of weeks ago. This set of drawers is a really obvious choice used by so many beauty bloggers and makeup addicts to store their hoard of beauty products but since buying them I can now understand why as everything fits so well. The set of drawers themselves are narrower and shorter than I thought but there’s actually a perfect amount of drawers with some slightly deeper which I’ve found are really great for skincare and bodycare products. The shallower drawers are great for makeup as there is no wasted space above the products as there was in my previous deeper set of drawers. The Alex drawers look really great next to my Malm dressing table and I am now using the drawer in this for everyday products in a bid to keep the top of it clutter free.

The purchase of the Alex drawers prompted me to think about the organisation of my whole beauty collection. I found looking through blogs and trawling through sites such as eBay, Amazon, Muji, Ikea helpful to inspire the way I have chosen to organise my collection and thought i would document all of these in one blog post to save some of you time.

I’ll start with what is ontop of my Alex unit which is two sets of acrylic Muji drawers. I picked the Acrylic box 3 and 5 drawers as they stack really well ontop of each other as they both have the drawers that pull out rather than the lift up top. I think these are a really nice option if you have a small or big collection, people with smaller collections may be able to fit all of their products in a couple of sets of these and those with slightly larger collections could use these to store everyday products. Personaly I’ve used them for liquid lipsticks, some of my smaller eyeshadow palettes and highlight/ blush/ contour sticks.

Also ontop of the set of drawers I have some glass jars which I find really handy to store lots of different things. At the moment I am using the one with the white bunny on which is from TK Maxx to store sponges, the two with the gold bunnies on are from M&S and I use these for masacaras and lip balms and lastly the one with the bow which I got a Sanctuary gift set in has sample size perfumes in. These are all products I either have lots of or didn’t know where to store so this seemed like the best option. I’ve found with storing the perfumes like this actually makes me reach for them more than I would when they were hidden away in a drawer.

On my dressing table I have my makeup brushes which I have displayed in a candle holder from Matalan and a Zoeva brush holder from Beauty Bay. I really like the Zoeva acrylic holder but wish it was a little bit bigger so I could store all of my brushes in one place. On here I also have a metal letter rack from Tiger which holds most of my larger palettes, I love the way this looks and how neatly they all fit in. I find that having them all on display like this means I don’t get stuck using one palette for months on end.

Theres a little bit of a trend with a lot of the storage I am showing with a lot of the things being acrylic but I really do think it looks really nice and actually coordinates with so many different decor styles. The nail varnish stand I have is one of my favourites and it just displays them so nicely, this particular one is from Amazon. I have an acrylic lipstick holder too which I display all of my favourtie or higher end lipsticks in.

Finally a couple of newer ideas I’ve had for storing some of my own collection is using a wicker basket like the one in the picture to store things such as face masks or sample sachets, again I think it makes it much easier to use things up if they’re on display and not shoved in a drawer. For storage inside drawers I think things such as cutlery trays, little storage tubs/ trays (like the ones in the photo) or old beauty boxes are great for keeping things organised.

If you’d like to see more of my collection or a review on a product you’ve seen here then let me know in the comments below.