3 Steps for Your Beauty Cabinet Clean Out
It's THAT time of year, again. Out with the OLD and in with the NEW- what better way to start than by refreshing your skincare routine?
Before you run out to purchase new skincare, let's purge together and make room for multi-tasking formulas designed for your specific needs.
We’re going to start by saying this is a no-judgment zone. We, too, have had 4-year-old beauty products lingering in our vanity. Unused, too-oily moisturizers taking up precious real estate in our beauty cabinet, on our shelves, or in our drawer. Specialty serums still on our shelves. You get it.
Many of us have no problem decluttering our lives Marie Kondo style, so why can’t we seem to part with these products? Well, for one, we spend a lot of money on products. And, we genuinely want them to work – like they said they would. But as the weeks and months go by, and bottles of serums and creams go unused, there’s a good chance those active ingredients are slowly losing their efficacy.
We asked our founder, Hillary Clark to help us out. This time of year, you can find her editing the vanities and beauty cabinets of her beauty-loving friends and celeb clients, sorting through their products and assessing their skin concerns. She helps them get real about what they are actually using. (And yes, this almost always involves a lot of laughs and applying toss-outs as body masks on the spot.) Here are her top three tips for cleaning out the precious beauty cabinet.
1. Categorize and Clean
Start by taking a look at all expiration dates and tossing old products. Then, look at your skin and identify your current goals and areas of concern. Hormonal Breakouts? Fine lines? Dry skin? Noted.
Then, remove all products from your beauty cabinet and sort them into categories by benefit or usage. Only put aside the products that address your current concerns and you actually use. (Not sure if a product actually works? Start here.) Now, throw away any products that have expired.
Pro Tip: If you don’t have the heart to throw away products that aren’t expired but that you never use, follow our lead and use those products on your body (or, even in your hair as a mask instead.)
2. Create an AM and PM Routine
Let’s focus on the pile of products that you actually do use – or want to use – on a regular basis. Divide by category and look for active ingredients to determine where they fit into your AM or PM routine. For example, caffeine is a great ingredient for de-puffing in the morning and has diuretic properties that keep fluids from pooling under your eyes while you sleep which is why we put it in our Eye Serum.
3. Label and Organize
Now that you have your favorite products sorted by AM and PM routines, you can label and organize them by category and the time of day that you use them. For example, divide your products by face and neck, then body, and then hair – for morning and night. You can also store all of your weekly treatments together.
Share your before & after Beauty Cabinet Clean Out photos with us @beautyhac.