My Makeup Stash and Storage

*This is a marathon post, but hopefully you'll enjoy it. I hope to provide more detailed images over time. Although some of these pictures were taken quite quickly, it still took ages to edit and put together so please do not steal them*
Ok, I promised stash pictures and have been meaning to do this for a long time, even before I started this blog. I've been a member of MUA for years and always figured at some point I would photograph my collection. However I've just been overwhelmed by the sheer size. Where do you start?

Years ago, when I was at University, I used to pretty much work out of a vanity case (a leaving pressie from the chemist I worked when I was at school). It went everywhere with me. My foundation, concealer, blusher, eyeliners, mascaras, brushes etc were all contained in there. When I think of it now, I can't understand quite how I managed that! Lip products (99% lipstick rather than gloss) were housed in a huge hat box. I used to get loads of freebies from work (old and new testers) and must have had around 200 lipsticks at that point (mainly Lancome, Clarins, Bourjois and Kanebo). When I moved back home (after Uni), my makeup addiction spiralled and I grew more and more frustrated at my makeup storage.

I like everything to be kept together and in some sort of order (you need it, when you have so much stuff). I had most things in makeup bags, but it was difficult remembering where and which one they were in. I bought these drawer units which are pretty ugly, but a complete godsend (although now, I do even have overflow from them). There is 3 shallow drawers and 3 deep in each tower. I sit in front of one (with a mirror on top) to do my makeup every day.

This tower contains (from top to bottom)

• blusher
• highlighters
• lipsticks/lipliners
• wand lipgloss/cream eyeshadow
• pink/red nail polish
• foundation/bronzer/concealer/base stuff

You've seen the foundation and nail polish drawers but here are pics of the others. Please click to see more detail. This is the majority of the blushers, however there are maybe another 20 bought recently that don't fit in. I once counted them thinking I had around 20-30 total, it turned out to be more than 80 (oops). Any palette blusher (i.e. Too Faced Quickie Chronicles) are obviously kept in a seperate drawer (more on them soon), this is purely single blushers.
Highlighters, some of the bigger puff type ones don't fit in or I have some compacts seperately and I must admit I haven't been using highlighter as much since my skin started playing up (which is a shame as I love sparkle and shine!).
Lipsticks, this is purely what I've bought in the past few years (not the aforementioned testers!). I had to put my Lancome CF seperately and I have a big Bobbypin case with L'Oreal, Bourjois and Rimmel lipsticks. I've also shown you before, my Soap & Glory case with MAC lipsticks (but I have overflow from that too!)
Wand lipgloss, I keep my MAC seperately and my Lancome CF, No7 and Pout lipglosses are in a clear makeup bag within the drawer (which you can see to the left of the picture). You kinda need that as this is a deep drawer and it can be difficult to find the lipgloss you need. You can also see a Pop makeup bag at the front with cream eyeshadows in it, which I use for an eye base.
My other tower is in a seperate part of my room. I tend to sit on my bed to apply my eyeshadow and just take out whichever drawer I need. The tower is as follows from top to bottom,

• pinks/nudes/golds/odd eyeshadow
• purple eyeshadows
• greens/turquoise eyeshadows
• squeezy tube lipgloss, jewellery lipgloss, lip stains etc
• backups/new things/odd things
• other nail polish (green, blue grey, purple etc)
• I have a huge BeneFit Bathina box on top of this unit with blue eyeshadows in it and

a Dior makeup bag with my silver/grey/black eyeshadows.

Now you may be looking at these images thinking my collection isn't actually that big. However, you'd be surprised at just how much these drawers hold, they are very deceiving. I've taken this tube lipgloss drawer as an example. I emptied out all the lipglosses, which take up 2 thirds of the capacity. I counted more than 120 tubes...but it really doesn't look like that until you lay them out, does it? Click pics to supersize.
I have loads of eye pencils and liquid eyeliner, some of which are kept within the corresponding eyeshadow boxes (pictured above). Off the top of my head I know my L'oreal Superliner and black pencils I use every day are on top of my other MU tower. My UD liquid eyeliners and glitter eyeliners from NYX are kept in various places. My Collection 2000 loose powder eyeshadows are all kept together on top of the BeneFit box. Also my mascaras are kept in a bag next to the unit I work from.
As I mentioned before I have another storage system for my palettes. I have a deep drawer unit, twice the width of these ones (which I bought for holding fabric and craft stuff), I have given over one drawer solely to palettes. It weighs a ton and is bursting full of amazing goodies. I'm a little lazy about using palettes though and tend to use my single blusher/eyeshadow/lip things more often. I haven't taken a pic of this drawer yet, but would like to and show you in some detail the palettes inside as there are some real gems.

This isn't everything. I still have recent hauls, most of which you've seen on this blog, that I haven't yet found room for. It's always a work in progress and I know these drawers aren't the prettiest way to store makeup, but they are practical (wipe clean) and do store almost (!) all my makeup.