I organized our master bathroom drawers shortly after we moved into our house six years ago, and I must have done something right, because the drawers are just as organized today as they were on day one. That almost never happens!! Usually I have to reevaluate every so often and tweak the system to better suit our changing needs. But somehow I managed to get our bathroom drawers right on the first try!
Obviously, what’s right for us won’t necessarily be right for you, but I can share a few pointers…
{1} HIS & HERS: GET IT TOGETHER
If you live with a significant other, my number one piece of advice for organizing toiletries in your bathroom drawers is to get it together! My husband and I are extremely fortunate to have a whopping six drawers in our master bathroom, two columns of three drawers which are centered between our two sinks.
With this configuration, it would have been really easy for me to allocate the three drawers nearest my sink for my toiletries, and the three nearest my husband’s sink for his. But I didn’t do this for two reasons. First, I have a lot more “stuff” than the mister, making an even split of drawers illogical. Second, and more importantly, this wouldn’t have been the most efficient use of our space.
Especially if you’re limited on space, I highly recommend forgoing the his and hers approach in favor of combining like items. You each have a toothbrush and deodorant – so why take up twice the space by storing these items separately in your “own” drawers?
Instead, get it together! Start by grouping all of your toiletries by category. You’ll find that some categories contain items that you both use, while other categories will be specific to just one of you.
And some categories may also require further division. For example, to organized my makeup, I separated it into three categories. {Read the details of my makeup drawer organization}
{2} CONSIDER YOUR DAILY ROUTINE
Once you determined the categories of toiletries that you need to store in your bathroom drawers, the next step is determining what goes where. For this, I recommend a top down approach. Think about your daily routine. Those items that your use every day should go in the top drawer {or drawers, in our case}. For us, the daily items are our toothbrushes and toothpaste, hair brushes, deodorant, contacts and contact solution, and glasses {for evenings after our contacts come out}. I also wear makeup on a daily basis.
In our case, since we have two columns of drawers, I use the top drawer closest to my sink for my makeup and brush, and the top drawer closer to my husband’s sink stores all of the remaining daily items that we both have in common.
The next drawers down contain the items that one or both of us use frequently, but not daily, including: extra razors; extra contacts, eye drops, and glasses care items; hair accessories; nail files and clippers; and nail polish. {Read about my organized nail polish}
And the bottom two drawers – well those are all mine, and they store items that are used occasionally, including my hair dryer, curling irons, curlers, and feminine products. Since we have extra space, I also keep a few extra rolls of toilet paper in one of the bottom drawers.
{3} CONTAIN IT TO MAINTAIN IT
Once you’ve categorized and prioritized your toiletries, the key is contain items within appropriately sized containers. When everything has a designated and separate space, it’s easier to put things away than not. For my bathroom drawers, my go-to containers are the Viola Drawer Organizers and Seamless Tins from The Container Store.
I use a combination of the small and medium-sized Viola bins for our toiletries. If you plan to use these bins, be sure to measure your drawers carefully because the medium bin is not only wider, but also slightly taller than the small bin. Both sizes fit nicely in our bathroom drawers, but our kitchen drawers are not quite as deep, making the medium Viola bins just a bit too tall.
The Viola bins are perfect for corralling most of our toiletries, but for smaller items I rely on the Seamless Tins. The 8 oz. tins are perfect for my hair accessories, such as bobby pins and hair ties, while the the 16 oz. tins work great for slightly larger items, such as nail clippers and tweezers, and the accessories for my husband’s beard trimmer.
Using containers to divide items within our drawers has been key to maintaining our organizing system for all of these years! I certainly don’t keep my makeup or other toiletries perfectly organized within each of bins at all times, but by always tossing each item back into the appropriate bin, the basic organizing system remains intact and I can always quickly find what I need.
{4} MAKE IT PRETTY TO KEEP IT PRETTY
This last step is optional, but in all of our organizing systems, I find that making it pretty at the outset helps me to keep it pretty for the long haul! If you have trouble keeping up with your organizing systems, I highly recommend taking an extra few minutes to dress things up a bit. You might just be surprised at how it motivates you to put things back where they belong so that you can continue to enjoy the beauty of your organized space.
The easiest way to make a drawer pretty is with some self-adhesive shelf liner. Much to my husband’s chagrin I chose black and silver leopard print. But since very little in our home is overly girly, he just shrugged it off. You can also use decorative wrapping paper to line drawers, but for the bathroom, I find the wipeable, durable surface of real shelf liner to be preferable.
Since all the silver tins look just the same with their lids on, I used some adorable black and white leopard washi tape to label the contents of the tins. I wrapped a piece of tape around each tin, and then used my trusty label maker to print out clear labels with black writing that I layered on top of the tape.
I also purchased some silver adhesive shelf liner and used my Cricut to cut labels for the bottom of each of my bins. This is the part that made my husband think I was a bit nutty since the bins are full of stuff most of the time. And I’ll admit that this was really more for my own personal satisfaction than anything else. What can I say? I love to label! But in my defense, while it’s true that some of the labels won’t be seen often, other of the labels are seen daily – like every time we take our toothpaste or contact solution out of the drawer.
And while your making things pretty in the bathroom, here’s another quick tip: use washi tape to dress up boring canisters on your counter top for items like cotton ball and swabs.
No matter how many bathroom drawers you have to work with, you’ll be able to make the most efficient use of your space by grouping like items together, keeping the toiletries you use daily within easy reach, and corralling items in appropriately sized containers. Then consider adding a few pretty details, like drawer liners and stylish labels to motivate yourself to keep things looking good.
I hope these tips will help you to get your bathroom drawers whipped into shape!
I originally shared a version of this content as a contributor post on Pretty Well Organized.
Want more tips to help you get organized and stay organized all throughout your home? I’ve broken in down in to 10 simple and specific steps to help you get organized once and for all!