Raise your hands if you’ve wasted time during a glam routine from ransacking your vanity table for a misplaced product. The key to an efficient beauty routine? A well-organised vanity table, where everything you need is at reach for any occasion. A cursory glance at a vanity table tour video on YouTube and TikTok greets you with lavish displays of neatly-placed products and colour-coordinated items with elaborate decorations.
A good vanity setup isn’t necessarily one with a tightly tailored aesthetic, but one with neat and logical product organisation to facilitate efficiency in beauty routines and prevent damage to your products. Even if you know the exact layering order and products to use, your vanity setup can make or break a plan—realistically, who has time to search for a single product during a busy morning?
Below, Vogue Singapore’s tips on turning tables–and your routines for your perusal.
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Categorise your products
Struggle to find your usual lipstick amidst the clutter? Categorising your beauty products is an effective time-saver, so you can easily reach for them instead of wasting time rummaging a sea of products.
There are a few ways to do this. For example, you can place products of a similar shape or size, such as bottles, directly on the table and group them together in a spacious area. If you prefer to group products by type, a section dedicated for a particular type can be further subdivided. For example, a drawer with eye makeup can have separate sections for palettes and eye pencils.
Does your vanity boast its own shelf or is near a standalone one? You can take advantage of their vertical space for bulky items, such as fragrances or large make-up palettes. This is ideal to save storage space if you have several products, or simply want to free up space on the table for your everyday beauty essentials.
Find the right storage for your products
The right storage doesn’t just neaten your space, it helps protect your products from damage. For example, make-up brushes can’t be haphazardly stashed horizontally, as this can damage the bristles, so it’s best to store them upright in a vertical container. The same goes for palettes, especially powders, because this can damage the case or the product inside. To prevent this, you can carefully stack them on top of each other and line up their edges so they occupy minimal space.
Sunlight exposure and the temperature are also things to consider to prolong its shelf life, especially in Singapore’s humidity. Some products, like lipsticks or skincare products are unable to withstand direct sunlight and heat. In situations like this, you can find a shaded area or store them inside a cool, closed-off space. Additionally, always check the product’s storage instructions to determine an appropriate place on your vanity table for them.
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Even if you don’t plan on sharing photos of your vanity setup on social media, getting creative with storage containers and decorations are an effective way to inject your personal aesthetic and fun into a tedious routine. Get creative and experiment with storage shapes and colours when shopping, or scour social media for do-it-yourself decorating tutorials. Just remember to place ornamentations in a non-obstructive place.
