How to Organize Your Bathroom Once and For All

How to Organize Your Bathroom Once and For All

Bathrooms are havens for clutter. They’re hideaways for plastic, too. If you’ve been wanting to learn how to organize a bathroom, this article is for you. Because first, we responsibly minimize the clutter. Then we organize smart and – finally – we get serious about creating eco-friendly sanctuaries out of our bathrooms.

But first … where does the mess come from?      

1. Cosmetics subscription services (ahem … Birch Box) mail bathroom clutter on recurring, monthly bases.
2. Medications are quick to expire, resulting in drawers filled with unusable tablets, drops and syrups.
3. Travel-sized toiletries we’ve accumulated on our travels inevitably find their ways to the bathroom.

Clutter suffocates the serenity right out of our bathrooms, and that’s why I recommend doing a deep clean of your bathrooms once per year. Here’s how to organize a bathroom, once and for all.

How to organize a bathroom

Step 1: Minimize responsibly 

Medications

Stop before you flush! If your medications are expired, dispose of them properly.

Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discourage flushing most medications down the toilet.

Why? Pharmaceutical reliance is growing at a rapid rate and flushing our drugs pollutes our water supply. Water quality experts are increasingly concerned with water pollution in the form of chemicals from prescription drugs.

Dispose most medications with your household trash. Mix the prescription with something unpalatable (coffee grounds, cat litter) and put out with the rest of your garbage.

For particularly lethal drugs, Use a drug take back program, or contact local nursing homes and inquire whether they will take and properly dispose of unused medications. If all efforts fail, then flush.

Make-up

Too-da-loo, smokey eyeshadow: If you don’t use an item at least once per week, let it go.

Unopened makeup can be donated to your local women’s shelter.

If your makeup is opened, discard it. Just be sure to scrape out the makeup and recycle the plastic packaging.

Towels + Sheets

There’s no “right” amount of towels for your home. There’s isn’t a foolproof formula, either.

Instead, ask yourself this question: How many towels does your family actually need?

In my household, I keep 2 sets of towels per person on hand. I have some beach towels, too, but that’s it.

Regarding sheets, ask yourself the same question.

I keep three sets of sheets per bed. Two of these are cotton and one is flannel; we live in a cold climate so flannel sheets are a must during winter. But if you live someplace warm I argue that you can easily get away with just two sets of sheets per bed, because one set is on the bed and the other is in the wash. Simple.

Determined which sheets and towels you’re willing to let go of, then donate sets in good to very-good condition to Good Will or the Salvation Army.

Donate towels and sheets in rough shape to an animal shelter, which will repurpose them into beds and toys. Be sure to keep some on-hand, too: I store them in my garage and use old towels as rags and old sheets as paint cloths and trunk liners.

Nail polish

Thanks to its toxicity, EPA has labeled nail polish household hazardous waste. Tossing the bottle into the trash or recycling bin isn’t an option. Pouring it down the drain isn’t, either.

Plug in your zip code at Earth911.com and the website will give you a list of drop-off locations for your old nail polish.

Prefer Audio?

You can find this episode of The Sustainable Minimalists podcast (and much more!) wherever you listen to podcasts.

Apple Podcasts     |     Google Podcasts     |     Spotify     |     Stitcher

Bath toys

Bath toys are havens for mold, so assess your child’s stash. If they’re moldy, attempt to clean them by soaking them overnight in diluted white vinegar.

Know that – despite your best efforts – your child’s bath toys may never get clean. So instead of purchasing more, look around your house and find items that could be repurposed to provide bath time entertainment. A quick glance in the recycle bin is a good place to start.

Travel-sized toiletries + samples

Donate travel-sized toiletries to Operation: Care and Comfort, which creates care packages for American troops serving overseas.

With regard to travel-sized floss and toothpaste, politely decline these samples at your next visit to the dentist. Politely decline the plastic toothbrush, too.

Perfume

Most perfume has a shelf life of 3 to 5 years. Think of how many bottles you have and compare it  with how often you apply it.  If you have more than you can possibly use, keep your top 2 or 3 favorites.

First Aid Supplies

Take note of what you have and what you need in case of an emergency. Donate the rest.

How to organize a bathroom 

Step 2: Set up long-lasting organization systems

If you like the aesthetics of minimalism, remember this: minimalist decor is all about clear countertops. So as you organize, make sure everything has a place that’s hidden and out of sight.

Other tips:

– Store all your First-Aid supplies in a single, lidded box. This will help save precious time in the event of an emergency.

– Put like items together and combine. For example, put all the band aids regardless of size in a single box (as opposed to 3).

– Find containers that you already own and organize like items:

Repurpose a mason jar to hold makeup brushes.

Organize hair ties by threading them through an old carabiner.

Find an an old wine rack to hold hand towels. Rolling towels saves space and looks luxurious. Alternately, roll towels and display them in a basket.

Use a kitchen utensil organizer inside drawers to divide and organize toiletries.

Hang cleaning supplies under the sink on a repurposed tension rod.

Place a Lazy Susan under the sink to make all items accessible.

How to organize a bathroom

Step 3: Get sustainable

If you want to know how to organize your bathroom, know first that organization is a natural consequence of tidiness.

As you minimized and decluttered, you probably noticed an awful lot of plastic lurking in your bathroom. That’s because  all our personal care items (shampoo, body lotion, make-up, et cetera) are packaged in – you guessed it! – plastic.

Then there’s all the disposable items that are equally environmentally disastrous: Q tips. Razors. Cotton balls. Floss. Such items are shipped straight to the landfill after a single use.

By cutting back on disposable items and replacing them with reusable ones, you will minimize clutter and promote long-lasting organization.

It’s sad but true: Disposability is deeply ingrained in daily our lives.

The good news is, when it comes to waste, the bathroom is one of the easiest places in our homes to cut back.

Here are 7 tips to create a bathroom that’s both decluttered AND eco-friendly:

1. Buy soap bars instead of plastic pump bottles. Lush sells shampoo bars and other beauty items in as little packaging as possible.

2. Use up the cleaners that you have, then make your own using nontoxic ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen.

If you have no interest in making your own cleaners, consider supporting an eco-friendly brand with your dollars.

3. Make your personal care items at home, including toothpaste, lip balm, deodorant, and shampoo.

4. Buy items packaged in glass or aluminum whenever possible, and support cosmetic and body care companies that avoid plastic. I like Farm to Girl’s thoughtful packaging, Lush’s shampoo bars and the refillable eye shadow at Afterglow Cosmetics.

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5. Break up with plastic toothbrushes for good. There are many stellar biodegradable options these days.

Sanitize your old plastic toothbrush, then save it. Use it in the laundry room to help scour stains out of clothes, or use it to clean your computer keyboard, or your car console, or add it to your child’s art supplies, the opportunities to reuse your toothbrush are endless. Find more ways to repurpose your toothbrush here.

6. Install LED bulbs, which will save energy AND serious money on your electric bills.

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7. Doing a bathroom renovation? Be sure to install motion censored faucets, a Low flow toilet, and a low flow shower head.

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