Spring Cleaning 2023: How to Organize Bathroom Cabinets

1. Get rid of excess

The best way to get things to be more manageable is to have less stuff. I’m going to pull everything out and see what I can get rid of before I start organizing. I’m getting rid of anything I don’t like, as well as anything that is broken or expired.

Now that I’ve gotten rid of the excess, I will try to get organized. First I had to do some cleaning because there was a bottle of shampoo that leaked all over a bunch of stuff.

It seems like bathroom supplies are always leaking and spilling onto each other but maybe that’s because it was all stuffed in and piled together. Hopefully, getting down to the bare essentials and storing everything in an organized manner will help prevent future spills.

2. Organize by categories

I’m organizing my items into piles of categories that go together. This will make it easier for me to figure out where and how to put everything away. The issue is I have a lot of repeat items.

For example, I found eight bottles of shower gel, and most of them are half-used. I’m going to organize multiple items from most empty to least empty so I use up the emptier ones first.

I created one bin just for the extra items of which I had multiple bottles. I am also creating a separate bin for travel-sized products. Travel-sized items take up space in a chaotic way because they are small, so I’m just putting them all together in one container.

I created a basket of items that I use every time I shower. This way I have everything I need in one place. I also put some of the products that are almost finished in there so that I remember to use them and get rid of them as soon as they are empty.

3. Clean your shelves

Once you have gotten rid of the excess and reorganized products by category, it’s time to clean. Obviously, it would be counterproductive to just put everything back into a dirty cupboard.

Get some cleaning spray and a rag and just wipe everything down so it will look nice when everything goes back inside.

4. Put everything back in an organized fashion

I had to do a bit of Tetris-style moving and planning to get everything to fit into the cabinet, but I managed to do it and I am very pleased with the results.

The cabinet is a lot cleaner and has a lot less stuff in it. This makes it very simple for me to see everything that is there. Hopefully, that will help prevent me from buying more than one of the same items in the future.

My discard pile was less of a decluttering and more just throwing out empty packaging. I didn’t even realize how much garbage was just sitting there taking up space in the cupboards. It feels good to get it all out. 

As pleased as I am, I still think I am going to need to do some more decluttering. I still have too many products and I need to get through some of the half-used, abandoned items. Hopefully, once those have been used up I can clear out a lot more space.

4. Think ahead and make a plan for sustainable organization solutions

While more storage and organization bins might be helpful at some point, I want to focus right now on just using whatever I have. As much as I’d like this to be a one-and-done type of cleaning situation, I think this is going to be an ongoing process.

I will have to work at the decluttering little by little. Once I’ve gotten rid of more clutter I can start planning better strategies for storage. When I’m at that stage I may find it’s worth investing in some more organizing tools.

I have learned that as much as it feels like progress to go out and buy organizing products, it’s actually just avoiding the real work that needs to get done and creating more clutter.

To truly get this bathroom under control I need to work through what is already here and make a plan for getting things to stay organized in the future. I’ll work with the storage solutions I have now to see if I need to buy more later down the road.

How to organize bathroom cabinets

That’s all I can do here for today. Organizing and decluttering is an ongoing task but I think I made some pretty great headway. I hope you found this article helpful and are maybe even feeling inspired to tackle your own bathroom cabinets.

If you have comments, ideas, or even tips for me, please leave a comment below. I always love hearing from you guys. Let’s help each other.