Beauty Tips

The 8 Stages of Organizing Your Beauty Products (and Your Life)

Can tidying up help you get your sh*t together and change your life? We investigate

by Allie Flinn | 2 COMMENTS

PHOTO 3/9

Stage 3: Everything Is "My Precious" According to Kondo, you keep only the products that bring joy when you touch them -- the act of touching is very important. It's easier to determine how important something is to you by picking it up. She believes that, in order to truly appreciate the things that are important to you, you first have to ditch the things that have "outlived their purpose."

Unfortunately, even starting with hair care products, I was reduced to a Gollum-like figure, clutching bottles of shine serum like they held the greatest power in all of Middle Earth. Finally, I summoned the strength to toss things that didn't truly make me happy into either the garbage bag or giveaway bag, depending on the state of the product.

And so it went for a while longer. I got into a rhythm. But then I looked around and saw I hadn't made much of a dent; it was like spending an hour at the gym and finding out you burnt significantly fewer calories than you thought (definitely not enough to make up for the ice cream you ate last night).

SEE NEXT PAGE: Stage 4: Despair

EDITORS' BEST OF

12 Best Acne Products for Your Clearest Skin Yet

11 Best Tinted Moisturizers for Easy, On-the-Go Coverage