My Dressing Table & Makeup Storage

I've never been so excited to write a blog post as I am today! :) I love reading about other bloggers dressing tables and how they store their makeup (I also like to have a good nose at their makeup collections!) 

**I'll just put a little disclaimer here to say that yes, I have a lot of makeup but it's my hobby and my passion. I have built this collection up over about 4 years and unlike a lot of people in their twenties, I never go out drinking, I don't smoke and I rarely spend any money on clothes! I'm in no way showing off, I'm simply sharing my passion with the readers of my beauty blog.

I'd been wanting a dressing table for the past couple of years but I couldn't decide which one to get. I thought about a pretty, Venetian style table with a little drawer and a fancy little stool but it was just too impractical for me considering how much makeup I own! Then, about a year ago, I started seeing the Malm dressing table from Ikea pop up in blogs and on youtube videos, with bloggers and vloggers raving about the practical but stylish piece of furniture that could store a ton of products. I immediately knew it was the one for me, but I couldn't justify the splurge back then. Fast forward a year and the beautiful Malm is finally mine!

It's quite a simple design and I'm a sucker for anything white at the moment so that's the colour I chose (I believe you can get a black and pine version). It comes with a nice hefty pane of glass for the top which is much needed to make cleaning spillages easier :) but the main feature that I fell for was the huge drawer. It spans the length of the table, which is 120cm so pretty big! and I knew I could fit the majority of my makeup in there.

I tried to keep the top of the table reasonably clutter free but I wanted it to look pretty too :) 

On the left are my makeup brushes (excuse how messy they are! It's brush cleaning night tonight...), my face brushes are kept in a black and white polka dot box that I had lying around, the eye brushes are in a cute little pot decorated with large gems that I picked up in The Range about a year ago. In the middle of the dressing table I've got a small set of acrylic drawers from Homebase. They're called the Osco drawers and they come in various different sizes but I chose this one for £12.99. They're so handy to keep my 'everyday' products in. In the first drawer I've got some lip glosses I wear often, concealers and my Urban Decay Naked Basics palette. The middle drawer holds a couple of primers, my Elf brow kit, my mascara etc and the third holds my Eyeko skinny liner (which I featured in my recent favourites post here), a sharpener, my Seventeen heavy duty concealer and a couple of other essentials that I reach for every day. On top of the drawers I keep my beloved Soleil Tan de Chanel cream bronzer which I love and my current obsession - the Makeup For Ever HD powder. I also keep my samples of Benefit's Posie Tint and Cha Cha tint there too.

Next to the acrylic drawers are my 'everyday' lipsticks, so the ones I tend to reach for often and I keep them in an acrylic lipstick holder which I bought on ebay a while ago for £2. I also have my EOS vanilla lip balm handy - dry lips are a no no! :) My current day cream is next, the Decleor oil mattifying fluid as well as my trusty Elizabeth Arden 8 Hour Cream. 

At last I now have a place for my No 7 mirror! I got this in Boots last summer when it was reduced to £15 and I love it :) I had the white wicker heart in my wardrobe doing nothing, so I tied it around the bottom of the mirror and I think it gives the dressing table another pretty touch. Unfortunately I can't remember where I bought it but I'm quite obsessed with hearts! I love buying any decorative hearts I can find. Finally I have my glass cake stand from Homebase (£7.99). Yes, cake stand! I thought it was the perfect thing to add a bit of glamour and I keep some special products on there, my MAC Fix Plus and my Motives 10 Years Younger - my two favourite setting sprays, my YSL Rouge Volupte lipstick in Opera Rose, Estee Lauder eyeshadow duo in 'Raisins', my Chanel lip palette, Guerlain bronzer, my Swarovski earrings, Lancome 'La belle est vie' perfume and my new Tanya Burr nail polishes (one of them is currently downstairs as I painted my nails last night). I have my beautiful Japonesque Safari brush set over there too because it's too pretty to keep in a drawer :)

Now for drawer...

I picked up a large cutlery holder from B&Q which takes up half of the drawer and houses my face products. The rest is organised into various boxes. 

From left to right - Foundations, primers and skin enhancers, correctors, more foundations and BB creams, face powders, blushes, highlighting powders, concealers, eyebrow pencils and mascaras. That's everything in the cutlery holder. Then there's bronzers, single eyeshadows, eye bases, MAC pigments, liquid liners, pencil liners, eye primers, lip liners, lip glosses, lipsticks, my Urban Decay Naked palettes, Stila In The Garden palette and my Z palette which contains MAC and Makeup Geek eyeshadows and finally at the back I keep my eyelash curlers (which I never use) and false lashes.

The only things I can't fit into the dressing table are my larger eyeshadow palettes and my Sleek palettes which I'm keeping on the floor under the table until I can think of a better home for them :) 

I hope you enjoyed reading about my gorgeous new dressing table! I can't stop looking at it and I'm so happy to finally have a good storage system for all of my products.