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Even if you’re decanting all your products and putting them in tidier dispensers, your bathroom won’t be organized until you fix up your shelving and other storage spaces. If there’s one organizational lesson I can teach you, it’s that everything you own needs its own designated place—and if there’s another thing I can teach you, it’s that one big shelf for everything doesn’t quite cut it. Here’s how to get that bathroom storage into shape.
Consider more shelves
My bathroom came with three shelves built into the wall, which was nice and all, but I immediately knew I needed more. One became the home of my perfume, another was marked for skincare, and the third stores hair products—but that didn’t leave any room for makeup, hair accessories, hair tools, spare towels, lotions, and random items like cotton balls or q-tips. Before unpacking anything when I moved in, I went out and got more shelves.
First, I got a bookshelf, which might seem weird, but only because it was. (I didn’t buy it, but I found it discarded in the street and took it home to wash it off. I may not have bought one, but you should if you have room.) Mine looks like this basic one and sits right next to my sink. Look around your space and consider if there is room for any kind of shelving unit. Even a slim storage unit like this is great because it creates a designated shelf for four different categories of items.
You can also consider some extra shelving in the shower, even if you already have one storage piece in there. I have an over-the-showerhead rack like this, a corner shelf like this, and a mesh-pocketed caddy that hangs on the curtain rod.
Organizing shelving in the bathroom
How you choose to organize the shelving in the bathroom depends on what you have to organize, of course. Personally, I invested most of my time into getting the right tools to organize my makeup, but I also got dividers to space out my shelving for other uses. A major help has been an under-shelf basket like this one, where I keep headbands and other hair accessories that aren’t easily stored in other ways:
These turn any shelf into a double shelf without encroaching too much on the shelf below. I also got a locker shelf to set on top of my shelving unit, extending how much can be stored on the top, too. It’s designed to help organize the lockers students use in school, but it has been really helpful for keeping my q-tips, cotton balls, tooth whitening strips, and wet wipes separated. (Yes, I decant all of those and put them in more organized little containers, which then go on or above the locker organizer.)
Try these, too:
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Tiny drawers that can be put on shelves to hide discreet items or keep smaller items organized ($28.80)
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Simple floating shelves that can be used on the walls in the bathroom, maximizing the usefulness of your vertical space ($14.49 for four)
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Slide-out shelves that can be put in the cabinet under the sink to hold cleaning supplies or larger items, like towels ($29.99)
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Acrylic clip-on shelf dividers to give everything you store on a particular shelf its own designated space (six for $20.99)
