Labelling and organising toiletries

My best friend has inspired me to get on the laptop and put together a blog post, after I excitedly told her my label maker has arrived and I'd immediately set about labelling my toiletries.

Yeah, that's right, I've labelled my toiletries. Not, as you might imagine, with the names of what they are (overkill?) but with their purchase dates. This is a long story so buckle in and join me for the ride...

Our bathroom has a lot of storage. How much of it does my husband get? Ooh, I'd say less than 10%. Of the 7 cupboards available, he has access to half of one. The rest are medicines, travel cosmetic bags and toothbrush holders, a small amount of bathroom cleaning equipment, storage for things we've bought on BOGOF or in bulk, "ladies items" and a whole heck of a lot of my "lotions and potions" as he's aptly named them.

I simply don't get through things. I am a sucker for a new product and want to try new things all the time - I'm far more interested in skin care than make up and as a result I had (at the start of 2014) 8 body lotions on the go. Imagine this multiplied by the number of other skin care related things you can imagine (facial wash, hand cream etc) and you start to get the picture. One of the major down sides of this addiction is the utter waste it creates. Not only a waste of space, but a waste of money if you think that:
a) I never give anything long enough to work / see results
b) I never finish things before they go off

One of my non-resolutions for this year (I'm calling any new routines "Getting a Grip in 2014" rather than resolutions) was to use things up before buying more*. Not only has Christmas left a massive dent in my bank account, but it's also time to get rid of some of the clutter in our home that makes what's a fairly large house feel claustrophobic (more posts about that next week!).

During my first week back at work post-Christmas I decided to work my way through the cupboard one by one, applying each lotion daily until it was gone, then move on to the next one. Yesterday I finished my tub of Clinique Deep Comfort body butter (which I've worked out I bought in April 2012). It's really quite disgusting how long I let these things sit around for. Currently retailing for £24 a tub (though I got mine in Bicester Village so it would have been about £18) it would be a waste to not use it. I must have had about £14-worth left. Next I'm moving onto the Elemis Tranquil Touch body cream which I was given in August
2012 (I reckon there's only one leg's worth left now).

I've labelled everything else I can find worth labelling and found out when I obtained/started using them (easy for December items, my overfull inbox helped with order dates for other items). I'm going to work through them in date order, before I have to send them off to the landfill site for Stig Of The Dump to get silky with.

Oh here's my lovely label maker (Dymo LetraTag LT-100H) and the first thing I used it on... oops!

*Let me tell you - this is killing me because I want to order Embryolisse from Space NK like it's going out of fashion!