Q: Hi Sabs! I just graduated from Makeup School at Frank Provost (where you studied!) and I can never organize my makeup kit. When I am doing makeup, I always end up scrambling around looking for products. I heard from a friend that you are very organized and obsessive compulsive with your stuff. Can you give me tips? I really appreciate it! Thanks so much! -Sandra [Sent via ASK SABS on May 19, 2009]

A: Hi Sandra! Organizing and cleaning my makeup kit is one of my pet peeves. After every shoot, I clean my palettes and make sure that everything is in place and intact. Any broken shadows I have I remove from my kit and recycle them. I even taught my assistant where to put everything and I can get pretty anal about it. Remember, no one wants to see a dirty makeup bag.

I like organizing my makeup in the order I will be using them. So the way I talk about the kit is exactly the same order I put makeup on. I took pictures of my kit so I can better explain this to you:

This is my makeup kit. It's just a 3-layer small sized makeup kit that is enough to hold everything that I need in it. During set up, I open it up so that all the layers are seen.

In a separate tray, I put all my liquid foundations. I transfer my Lancome foundations in our tester bottles so that they are easier to carry. The actual Lancome foundation bottles are so heavy that it would be impossible to carry all these shades in one bag. So these cute tiny bottles make them easier to lug around.

My loose powders are kept in a black tray together with my lipstick tubes because the last thing you do to finish and polish your makeup is dusting the face with loose powder and applying lipstick.

Going back to my makeup kit, the bottom most layer is where I keep all my blush palettes, eyeshadow palettes, cream foundations and some lipsticks that i placed in SUESH Well Palettes.

On the second layer, this is where I keep my blush and eye shadows that are not in palettes. I make sure that these are sandwiched together so they are held in place when I carry my kit around.

On the third layer, this is where I keep my bronzer, a contour trio, eyebrow gels and more concealers. I also keep the eyelash curler, mini scissors, tweezers and an eyebrow shave in here.

Since all my lipstick tubes can't fit in my makeup kit, I organized them by lipstick line and by color numbers. This makes your life easier when you are looking for a particular color or shade. I keep these in a black tray that I just bring out of a small luggage when I set up.

On the top most layer of my kit, I put all my lip glosses, mascaras and liners. These are the products that are most used when you are retouching so it's best to keep them on top.

When you are already on the top most layer of your kit, it'll be easy to pack up because all you have to do is close your kit and lock it.


PHOTO CREDITS
Photographed by Sabs Hernandez