Doing a little house cleaning? I have but one plea: Let's not ignore our bathroom cabinets.
Bathrooms should really be spartan spaces, not just because it's aesthetically pleasing and hygienic, but because it will make it easier not to waste money and abuse beauty products.
Almost everything consumable has an expiration date. If you're hoarding things for years at a time, using them sporadically, switching between comparable products and storing items in the shower, you're probably spending money on products that are essentially ineffective by the time you use them.
All those fancy chemicals and potions that you covet for their anti-aging, moisturizing, skin brightening, pore clearing, acne-fighting properties don't respond well to neglect, excessive heat or contamination.
So here's where we start.
Grab a box, bin, bag, tray and take everything out of the cabinets.
Now get your handy vacuum with the crevice attachments, and vacuum out the debris and dust bunnies from inside medicine cabinets and drawers, under counters and along the floor, in corners and along the floor crease. Next, grab a cloth and some cleaning solution, and go crazy.
Here's what you'll need next:
1. Permanent marker
2. Trash bag
3. Recyling bin
4. Funnel
5. Willpower
First, organize your supplies into piles. Put all the shampoos together, conditioners, lotions, soaps, toothpaste, deodorant, etc. Now, let the weeding begin.
Time flies when you're on a shelf, so if you can't remember purchasing something and you haven't used it regularly, it's probably expired by now. If you really can't bear to part with something, think back to sometime when you used it. Was it for Christmas? Was it last spring? OK, once you're convinced you can part with something, you should aim to have only one of each product type open at a time.
That means one shampoo at a time. Some people use hair masks once a week or so and that's fine, but you don't need to alternate between multiple shampoos and conditioners.
Use one and use it up, then move on to the next one. If you have high-maintenance hair, decide on one hot oil treatment, one hair mask or what-have-you, but you don't need a half dozen. You can stock one backup product. Not two, not three. Nail polish remover and Vaseline will probably last forever, but most opened products don't. They will last longer if you haven't broken the seal, but most won't last more than three years, and that time decreases if you happen to love long, hot steamy showers that expose the products to varying temperatures and moisture.
In the end, you should have a modest collection of items that you actually use.
Now, use your permanent marker to note the estimated month and year that you bought all the items you have. It will be helpful, so keep that marker in your medicine cabinet from now on. It will keep you honest.
Lastly, it's great to have a fragrance collection, but be careful of well-aged bottles. Fragrance is not wine; it doesn't get better. Develop a signature scent and use it up. A trio of rotating scents for lazy days, work or a night out would be fine, but you don't need dozens unless you just love the bottles. Perfume goes south after about two years, and bottles gather a lot of dust.