And then comes the time in every beauty addict’s life that they’re totally overwhelmed by their stash – or so, it was for me. And everything changed (at least a little bit).

Boxes full of stuff…

Responsible beauty buying habits
I might have a lipstick problem?

I’ve a history of complaining loudly about minimalism, declutter, that kind of thing. I still think I made some valid points about that in the past (here), but then, we all contain multitudes, and I had a big, messy move across continents. (Complicated gets a whole new meaning when the container full of all your belongings has to be shipped from one special port in the country because of your 500plus bottles of nail polish, let me tell you.)

When we finally moved into the new apartment, I met boxes of stuff I had packed six months ago, and also stuff that had been put into storage for some years. It was a lot. You start to become overwhelmed easily when you have a finite set of storage solutions and a nearly infinite array of boxes – from various stages in my life. (No matter beauty products, shoes, clothes, handbags, or bloody Christmas decoration.)

Solution?

shop your stash
I started to pull out all of my skincare from cabinets, drawers, boxes, and gave it a good hard look.

And here’s what I learned: The first step to any way of using your stash is actually knowing what you have. Not rocket science, I know! But then, easy to adapt, actually.

In the past, I stored skincare in the bathroom, backups in the bedroom, and some other backups and samples in my set of IKEA drawers in ‘my’ study/guestroom. And that’s an excellent recipe for forgetting what you actually own. (And also lying to yourself that your stash isn’t that large…)

I realise that I’m exceptionally lucky that I have the space to actually have everything in one place finally, and that might be difficult if you’re in a small apartment. But even then – get an inventory. Make lists. Get an app. Do everything for the end game: Knowing how much you own of every product group. It’ll be a revelation and the first step to finally using stuff.

Know thyself (and your stash)

sustainable beauty life
Know exactly what you own – and you’ll start to use your stash much more responsibly.

If you’re like me, the logical next step is having your stash easily accessible. Because I’m lazy, and I don’t like rooting through drawers (my approach to makeup is rather sticking my hand in a drawer and see with what I come up with). I wrote about this before and it’s also still valid, so you might want to take a look.

But honestly, actually using your whole makeup or skincare stash starts with knowing what you own. And if the thought of going through boxes and drawers and that space on the bottom of your wardrobe makes you cringe – don’t worry too much! It might be embarrassing meeting products you had forgotten about, but you’ll feel great afterwards.

And finally – shop your stash

Bonus side effect of my ‘know where everything is’ approach? I finally, absolutely know that I shouldn’t buy another mascara because there’re still five unopened ones in my mascara drawer. Instead of having one in a drawer, one in the little glass of everyday essentials on my desk, one in my travel vanity case and one in the fridge. Yay for saving money!