BBHQ May Task - Beauty Collection

This is my current updated collection. ***Warning, makeup overload ahead!!!***

Beauty Bloggers Headquarters task for this month is about our beauty collection. I have a ridiculous amount of beauty products but I'm sure you've seen bigger collection. I don't really like to show them off because quite honestly, I'm a little embarrassed. I didn't collect all these products overnight. I've accumulated them within the past 3 years and I have way more than what I need but the fact that I love playing with makeup, enjoy blogging, and doing reviews to help others, this had become a pretty serious (an expensive) hobby of mine. 99% of the makeup/products featured on my blog were purchased with my own money. A very small portion were gifted by family/friends or provided by the company for review purposes.

At least half of the products that I've purchased, I got during a sale, used coupons, purchased at discount stores, and looked out for clearance items. I won't be listing everything that I own. There's just way to much stuff. I'll let the pictures speak for itself. I guess the only time I make an exception and pay full price is if there's something unique about a product, if it is limited edition, it never goes on sale, or if I cannot find a cheaper alternative.


Where do you keep your collection?

• In a corner of my bedroom. Because I have such limited space, I stacked a lot of things on top of each other. 

What furniture or organizers do you use? (brand names and website links help)

• A small computer desk. My sister-in-law wanted to get rid of her old computer desk and I asked her if I could have it. I actually like it. It's not fancy but it's practical. I particularly like the glass and the keyboard slide also allows for more storage.
• A wall shelf, purchased at Target. It's inexpensive, easy to assemble, sturdy, can store a lot of stuff, and you can mount it just about anywhere.
• 3 drawer organizer. I believe I bought it from Target. It's been so long. It's made of metal so it's quite sturdy. There's a lot of room to store plenty of makeup.
• 3 tier baskets - TJ Maxx and Wal-Mart
• Pencil holders - office supply store. 
• Coffee mugs.
• lipstick holder - the Container Store.
• Plastic containers, plastic stackable organizers. Those can be found at just about any store and are fairly inexpensive. 
• Jewelry organizer - TJ Maxx, Marshalls. Those also come in handy for lipsticks and blushes. 
• Boxes...I save a lot of boxes from all shape and size and re-use them for organization. Anything from chocolate boxes, to jewelry boxes, perfume boxes, packaging boxes, shoe boxes, etc...Anything that I know can hold makeup or nail polishes I save. 

Here's a glance at how my desk looks (when it's clean, lol)

I purchased the red pencil holder at Office Depot (I think). This thing holds all of my lipglosses, lip pencils, and pencil lipsticks. It also rotates on its own.

The white plastic rotating organizer was purchased from Wal-Mart. It's not the best quality but never broke on me and I've had it for a few years. I store shorter items under there such as creams, powder, deluxe beauty samples, q-tips, cotton rounds.

Top basket: makeup remover, moisturizer, eye cream, facial serum, facial spray.
Middle basket: BB Creams, foundations, face primer
Bottom basket: Beauty samples

Top basket: liquid liners, pencil liners, glitter liners, eyeshadow pencils.
Middle basket: tweezers, small scissors, eyelash curlers, cuticle removers, top coat, base coats, nail polish thinner.
Bottom basket: nail file and buffer, nail clipper, cuticle pusher, box cutter, flash light.

This wall shelf holds: skincare, lotions, nail polish removers, soaps, disinfecting wipes, alcohol, eyeshadow palettes, and whatever else I can put on it.

This 3 drawer organizer holds: single eyeshadows, eyeshadow pigments, eyeshadow palettes, tissues, paper towels, and some random stuff.

Do you have a cataloging system? If so, can you share your secret?

• I wished I was this organized. My system is what I call "an organized mess" lol. It's all over the place and on top of each other but surprisingly I know where I put everything. 

Collection Overview (I'm only going to list the brand. I'm sure I'm forgetting some)

Skincare: Lancome, Boscia, Clarins, Origins, Mario Badescu, Lush, Missha, Aveeno, Raw Skincare, theBalm, Murad, Sephora

Foundation/Powder: Lancome, Too Faced, Missha, Revlon, Motives, Estee Lauder, Physicians Formula

Concealers: NYX, Murad, Hard Candy, Revlon

Blushes: MAC, Milani, NYX, ELF, Tarte, Philosophy, Femme Couture, Sephora + Pantone, Josie Maran, Physicians Formula, Sally Hansen

Bronzers/Highlighters: Tarte, Wet N Wild, NARS, Illamasqua, MAC, Physicians Formula, Philosophy, Josie Maran

Eyeliners/gel liners/pencil liners: Physicians Formula, Urban Decay, MAC, Make Up Forever, Stila, Rimmel, Prestige, Hard Candy, Cargo, Tarte, Kat Von D, Smashbox, Ulta, Sephora + Pantone

Eyeshadow pencils: NYX, Rimmel, Urban Decay, Sephora, Milani

Cream Eyeshadows: Estee Lauder, Benefit, Maybelline, MAC, Chanel, Illamasqua, Lush

Single eyeshadows: MAC, Milani, NYX, Wet N Wild, NARS, Essence, Urban Decay, Sephora, Revlon, Icing, Estee Lauder, Sugar Pill, Prestige, L'Oreal

Eyeshadow Pigments: MAC, ELF, Ulta, Pure Luxe

Eyeshadow palettes: Urban Decay, MAC, Bare Mineral, Lorac, ELF, Too Faced, theBalm, NYX, Wet N Wild, Coastal Scents, Kat Von D, Kroma Beauty, Estee Lauder, Essence, Profusion, CoverGirl, Philosophy, Inglot

Lipsticks: MAC, NARS, Revlon, Rimmel, Urban Decay, Milani, NYX, Boots No7, L'Oreal, Maybelline, Wet N Wild, Femme Couture, N.Y.C, H&M, Dior, Illamasqua, Estee Lauder, Motives, Guerlain, YSL, Shiseido, Missha, Kat Von D, Sonia Kashuk, Lancome, Napoleon Perdis, Make Up Forever, CoverGirl, Essence

Lipglosses: NYX, MAC, Philosophy, Revlon, Hourglass, Illamasqua, Wet N Wild, L'Oreal, Dots, Milani, Femme Couture, Josie Maran, Rimmel, Essence, Golden Rose, Lorac, Jordana

Lip Color/Stain: Chanel, Revlon, Hard Candy, Stila, NYX, Maybelline, Ulta

Nail polishes: OPI, China Glaze, Essie, Orly, Color Club, Finger Paints, Sinful Colors, ICING, Claire's, A England, Zoya, Barielle, MAC, Ulta, Milani, NYX, Deborah Lippmann, Butter London, Chanel, L'Oreal, Wet N Wild, Sally Hansen, Revlon, Pure Ice, Hard Candy, Illamasqua, CoverGirl, Anise, Borghese, Confetti, Essence, Kleancolor, Love&Beauty, Layla, Nicole by OPI, Spoiled, theBalm, Piggy Polish, Rue Beaute, Born Pretty Store, H&M, Bongo, Nails Inc, Nina Ultra Pro, Missha, Sephora by OPI, Savina


How do you keep it organized? By brand, color, type, etc.

• For the most part, my products are arranged by type first, and maybe brand if I have a lot of the same product of that particular brand. Nail polishes is a perfect example. I try to keep them all by brand and not by color. 
• Everything that is sitting on top of the desk are products I'm likely to use often so I try to keep them within reach that way I don't waste my time looking for them when I'm getting ready.

My hidden stash of nail polish. Oh yeah those are Christmas ornament organizer plastic containers and shoe boxes.

Do you have any special displays for your favorite items?

• I don't really have a specific place where I especially display my favorite products. However, because I have an insane amount of nail polishes, I use a nail polish rack to store my favorite nail polishes and I prefer to keep the rest hidden in boxes/containers.

When you get new items, where do they go?

• They are either lying at my desk or in a designated box. I try to put them somewhere I can see them so that I don't forget about them. 

For Fun, share your top 5 FAVORITE items in your beautiful collection :)

It's hard to pick only 5 products but for me a favorite is something I would never get tired of and something that is indispensable.

• MAC 217 blending brush. I cannot live without this brush. It's perfect for a flawless blending. 
• Sedona Lace 928 flat top face brush. Love the pink/black packaging. It's soft, affordable, and makes my face look flawless! 
• Urban Decay Primer Potion (original). I never knew what I was missing out until I tried this. 
• Physicians Formula Eye Booster Ultra Black. I've repurchased this liner over and over again. It's the best drugstore eyeliner. I love the fine brush tip, how easily the product flows, and the pigmentation. It's not waterproof but as long as you don't rub your eyes or cry, it will stay on all day. 
• The Balm Jovi face palette. I love a few palettes; however, this one would be my top choice if I had to only pick one. Reason is it's got the complete package and the quality to go with it.

And here's the rest of the pictures...There's so much makeup that I had to put them into collages. You may click on the picture if you wish to enlarge.

MAC and high-end lipsticks on left. On the right: MAC blushes, drugstore/random blushes, small eyeshadow palettes, drugstore lipsticks

I'm surprised at how much stuff I can store on the keyboard slide. 

This is everything (dissected) that goes on the keyboard slide. I have two trays that are stacked with a smaller tray within. 

Most of the stuff under my desk are nail polishes and nail related stuff. Some of my polishes have to be stored in cardboard/shoe boxes for now. 

Yep, had to use shoe boxes

Whew...**Faints**  I hope this post didn't hurt your eyes. Sorry, like I said, I wasn't kidding when I mentioned that my stuff are all over the place and on top of each other. If you have any questions, let me know.

Here Kitty Kitty

Hello Beautiful,

I hope your weekend is going well. I wanted to take a moment to show you my new kitty. Isn't she purrrrdddyyy?!
I found her at my desk Friday morning along with a lovely card when I arrived to work. Next to her was also a delicious donuts awaiting for me. My eyes just started tearing. I have some incredible friends and I felt all mushy for such a loving and caring gesture. **sniff** I love you girls! You managed to make me cry and smile, lol.

Sorry guys, enough with the sappy story. Since this was a gift, I really can't tell you where you can find this kitty but I know you can find something similar on Ebay or Amazon. Get one for yourself and one for your BFF. This kitty is adorable, she even have rhinestones in her eyes and she's looking at me like "pet me"! Such a lovely and decorative piece to hold a few rings. It is approximately 4 inches high from the feet to the end of the tail.

Do you have something similar? How do you store your rings?

Luuux Shared Link

Clever & Cheap Nail Polish Organizing Idea

As you probably noticed, I have a few hundred nail polishes, lol...JK, I actually didn't keep a count but let's just say I have a lot. This isn't my idea to begin with but I saw another blogger, Jasmine @ Green Eyed Monster, post about this idea and I really wanted to give it a try.

So if you keep your nail polishes, in a box, like how I keep most of mine, you know that it can be a bit of an inconvenience to look for the shade that you had in mind. This is a simple and clever organizing solution. Though, I must admit the process may be long if you have a lot of nail polishes to organize.

What you'll need:

• Labels. I am using here file folder labels, the peel and stick kind.
• Hole puncher. Initially, I purchased the small heart-shaped hole puncher from Michaels thinking it should be good enough. Well, after I got done with a few of them, I felt like I needed a bigger heart so I went back to Michaels again to get a hole puncher with a bigger heart. I printed off from their website a 50% off coupon so I was able to get them both for like $3-4 each.

So basically, what you do is paint your nail polish on the labels, like so. Wait for your nail polishes to dry. Then, use your hole puncher and punch it. Peel and stick to the cap of your nail polish. 

I wasn't completely pleased with the small hearts cause they were itsy bitsy small but they're cute. I like the big heart cause you can see more of the color but some of my nail polishes comes with smaller caps so the big heart is a bit too big for it.

My dilemma with the big heart is that they don't wanna lay flat. They tend to curve a bit and if the surface of the nail polish cap is embossed or curved, forget it, it doesn't stick very well. I'm debating if I should use some glue to keep the heart sticker in place.

So as you can see, now I can glance over my stash and get a pretty good idea about the color of the nail polish I'm looking at without having to pull it out. If you want to save yourself a few bucks for this project, you don't have to use a heart-shaped hole puncher but you can just cut the label in a square shape.

How do you organize your nail polishes?

My Shoe Rack

I was taking pictures of myself the other day and my shoe rack happened to be in the background and I thought to myself, why didn't I post this already? LOL. I am pretty sure you have seen something like this before but in case you are wondering where I got mine, I purchased it from Bed Bath and Beyond for $29.99. BB&B occasionally sends out coupons so if you hang on to the coupon, you could actually get this for cheaper.

This shoe rack is designed to be hung over your door and hold 36 pairs of shoes. There is a minor flaw that I didn't like about this rack, you are supposed to have your shoes facing the door when storing them...um hello? Why the hell do my shoes have to turn their backs on me? How I fixed this was quite simple, I switched it up side down so I was able to store my shoes facing me. The downside to that is I can only store 33 pairs this way.

So if you are limited on space, would like a quicker way to search through your shoes, and don't mind hanging your shoes on the door, I think you might like this storage solution. The material isn't the best quality and it is actually cheaply made and easily assembled but I've never had any problems with it falling apart (as long as you don't accidentally knock it off, it won't budge) and I've had it for a few years already.

I have other pairs of shoes stacked up inside boxed and on my closet shelves and some more on the closet floor. I reorganize this rack twice a year. Once during spring and once during fall. It helps me organize my seasonal shoes so I can find them quicker and spend less time trying to find the right pair to match my outfit.

I don't really love this storage rack because I would prefer my shoes to be out of sight but because I'm limited on space (and because I'm too lazy to clean up my closet), this rack really does come in handy to keep my shoes somewhat organized.

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?SKU=14093249


How do you store your shoes?

Luuux Shared Link

Storage Solutions For My Bracelets & Sneak Peak At My Collection

Hello there!

I've been obsessed with arm candies, which is why you've seen a few of my arm candy posts recently.
When my makeup collection used to be smaller, I used this black lacy train case. I can't remember if I bought it from Wal-Mart or Target. Anyways, I got tired of using this train case to store my makeup so I stopped using it for a while. When I needed to find a storage solution to my growing bracelet collection, I figured why not  use this unused train case.
The train case has total of 7 compartments. There is 3 pull out compartments on each side and one larger compartment in the middle. You could organize your bracelets by type or color if you wanted but for me since I'm messy, I just toss everything wherever I can fit it, lol.
This storage works for me since I have a lot of bracelets and it has a lot of room for them. So if you have an old train case that you are not using, you might like it for storing bracelets or other jewelries.

 

Secondly, I use this bracelet holder that I bought from the Container Store a long while ago. Now I can't remember the price but I don't think it was more than $10.00. This small but can hold a few bracelets. This is good if you have a small collection or if you just want to store your favorite bracelets on it. It's made out of clear acrylic and metal.

If you missed out on my arm candy posts, don't forget to check them out:

Gold and Pearsl Arm Candy

Black Lace Arm Candy

Blue and Gold Arm Candy

White and Gold Arm Candy Featuring My New A|X Watch

Black and Gold Arm Candy

Black and Silver Arm Candy

Red and Gold Arm Candy

Flowers Arm Candy

 

How do you store your bracelets?

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More Storage Solution For My Beauty Station

So I was trying to figure a way to make my makeup station a little more organized and thought about getting a shelf type of storage. I try to make my beauty product easy to reach and easy to find since I tend to neglect a lot of them because they are not within reach or sight.
I found this shelf unit at Target for $15.00. It's like the perfect size. Not too big and not too small.
When I arrived home from shopping, I asked my son if he was busy and he told me he wasn't so I asked if he could put it together for me since I don't really like to do that sort of thing and I was tired from a long day. It only took him like 15 minutes to assemble it. Then it took me hours to reorganize everything.
At first, I thought about just leaving it on my desk but figure I would save a lot more space if I just hang it on the wall.

After I filled up my shelf, I felt like I needed to get another one, lol.

If you have some wall space and need some storage solution for makeup or whatever else, I think this shelf comes in very handy!

I'm so proud of myself, I've done such great improvement in how my makeup are stored now. Wanna shout out a big thank you again to my sister-in-law for giving away her desk. It made such a big difference!

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My Beauty Station

Well, I didn't really have a beauty station to begin with, lol. So this is more of an upgrade. My beauty products were pretty much all over the place in my bedroom, especially on my computer desk. A few weeks ago, my sister-in-law posted on Facebook that she was getting rid of her computer desk so I asked her if I could have it. I was in desperate need to do something to organize my makeup because I was running out of storage space. I didn't want to spend money on a fancy vanity so I thought the computer desk would do the trick.

This is a medium-sized metal and glass computer desk. It has a small shelf on the right, where I think the printer would typically be stored but I decided to put my spinning storage thingy. Underneath that, I have the majority of my lipsticks. On the back, I have a couple 3-tier organizers, which holds random stuff.
On the side, I have a metal 3-drawer cart, where most of my eyeshadows and palettes are stored.
Underneath the desk, I have my nail products and a tool organizer, which is also great for storing makeup.

The desk has a sliding compartment for the keyboard. I decided to store there my blushes, gel liners, cream eyeshadows, concealers, some lipsticks, and pigments.

Overall, I really like my makeup station. So far, it's holding everything that I've got and keeping things a little more organized and easier to reach. So if you don't have a lot of money to spend on a fancy vanity, definitely consider using a computer desk (if you haven't already). I'm pretty sure you can find one for cheap at your local yard sale.

If you have any storage ideas for your beauty products, please feel free to share. I'm always looking for ways to improve.

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