• Anti-aging and acne treatments: Three months to a year.
• Body lotion: Two to three years, particularly if it’s in a pump container.
• Shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel: About three years.
• Bath oil: One year.
• Sunscreen: Check the package for an expiration date.
• Mascara and liquid eyeliner: Three to four months.
• Eye and lip pencils: Three to five years. Sharpen them before each use as a way to preserve them and keep them clean.
• Lipstick and lip gloss: Two to three years.
• Foundation: About two years.
• Perfume: About two years. To get more mileage out of a perfume, resist the temptation to display a pretty bottle on your vanity. Instead, stash it away in a cool, dark place.
• Nail polish: One year.
• Hairstyling products: Three to five years. Most are alcohol-based, which helps preserve the formula.
• Bar soap: Up to three years.
• Shaving cream: About two years.
• Deodorant: Up to two years.

Go ahead and use this chart when cleaning out your bathroom shelves and drawers. Tell me about the oldest product you found! I found some foundation that I think I remember wearing 3 houses ago!!

This week, I am working on the bathrooms. My bathroom surfaces are cleaned thoroughly each week,  but the insides of the cabinets are another story. It is time to clean out the shelves and drawers. I’m sure stuff has accumulated that I don’t even remember having and I’m positive there are some out-dated products that need to go!

As you are cleaning out your bathroom cabinets this week, ask yourself these questions:

• Is it outdated?
• Do I need it?
• Do I use it?
• Am I ever going to use those old towels on the top shelf?

Throughout the week, I’ll be emptying out, throwing away and re-organizing. I’m starting with the make-up drawer. Tomorrow, I’ll post some helpful tips on how long to keep your cosmetics. That is one area that you don’t want to forget!

image from GraceBrooke.com

Are you joining me in Slow and Steady Spring Cleaning? This week, I am working on the closets! Here are some links with closet decluttering/organization how-to’s and inspiration.

Closet organizing tips and inspiration from Operation Organization

20 Ways To Organize Your Bedroom Closet from Apartment Therapy

Organizing and Inventorying Children’s Clothing from Organizing Junkie

How to Organize Your Disorganized Closet from Grace Brooke

walnut & platinum elfa décor freestanding closet

Welcome to week two of Slow And Steady Spring Cleaning. This week, I am tackling the closets  - one each day. I’ll be working on our two entry closets (one by the front door and one by the door going into the garage) and our bedroom closets. And by cleaning them, I mean decluttering them – getting rid of everything that doesn’t belong!

Even though these closets all hold different things, I can use the same basic decluttering principles for each .

1) Evaluate each item - When cleaning out a space, don’t just eyeball the stuff on the shelves or hanging on the hangers. Touch each item and evaluate it (quickly). It should fall into a category.

2) Categorize each item - Each item in your closet will fall into one of three main catagories – Keep, Toss, or Give. Find a box for each catagory and quickly sort your stuff. When you are done, take the “toss” box to the garbage and take the “give” box to your trunk. Then, you can take it to Goodwill or somewhere similar to bless someone else next time you are out. Or, if you do yard sales, you can close the box and mark it “yard sale” and store it with your other yard sale items.

3) Re-categorize the “keep” items - Now that you are down to just one box. Determine these things: Does it belong in this closet? How often do I use/wear this? Will I use/wear it again? Is it useful? Do I love it? Answering these questions might cause you to recatagorize the item or determine that this is really an item worth keeping.

4) Determine the best way to put the items back in your closet- Just because you have always kept the kids shoes in a box in the closet, doesn’t mean that is still the best way to store them. The hall closet might not be the best place to store your sporting goods anymore. Look for better solutions to your storage problems.

Apply these basic steps to spring cleaning your closets, and you will be amazed at the difference!

Look for more specific closet tips throughout the week on Overcoming Busy, on facebook and on twitter. On Wednesday, I’ll be giving away a fab resource to help with your decluttering and simplifying your life. And on Friday, I’ll post some before and after photos of spring cleaning my closets. You can link up yours if you like.

Have a great week of spring cleaning!

Here is a previous organizing idea from The Creative Mama

The beginning of a new year always gets me in the mood to organize. The idea of clean and orderly are so appealing after the chaos that is the holiday season. Each January, I want to work through my house organizing everything from the kitchen cabinets to my make-up drawer. The only problem is that my enthusiasm can get me in over my head. I can either get so into organizing that I don’t have time for anything else or I dive in and get burned out. Can anyone relate?

A little trick I’ve learned along the way to make sure I get my organizing projects completed and keep my sanity is….

Join me at The Creative Mama to read the rest!

In the mood to de-clutter and get organized for 2012?? Click on over to Today’s Housewife where I’m sharing some tips to make the task a little less stressful.

I recently decided that the time had come to find another system for organizing winter gloves and hats and scarves. I got tired of rooting through that crate looking for that one glove!! As I was reading through a great organizing blog series (31 Days to {cheaply} organize your home at Organizing Made Fun), I came across a great idea!

Use an over the door shoe organizer. Brilliant! It hangs on the inside of the basement door right beside the door to the garage that we use to go outside the majority of the time. Everyone can see their stuff. No more hunting and rooting! Love it! Thanks to Becky at Organizing Made Fun for the great inspiration!

Where do you store your winter accessories?

Click over to Today’s Housewife and see!!

During the month of July, I am working my way through the house one room a week decluttering and re-organizing. I would like to be able to start school with everything in its place so we are not distracted from our learning. So far, we have finished my daughter’s room, the multipurpose room (homeschool/toy/tv) and our office space. My son’s room, the master bedroom and the basement are still to come.

As I work through the house, I am finding past organizing solutions that worked and those that just didn’t. One thing that really worked for us this year is our art displays. Our kids have always made TONS of art and are offended when we don’t hang each and every piece up for the world to see. We have tried many systems and ways to display, store, giveaway art. This year, I think we finally found something that works!

We basically turned a couple parts of our house into an art gallery.

We have framed kids art on the mantle.

We have kids art displayed in our multipurpose room.

This display was created at the spur of the moment by my daughter and I. We needed some place for her art projects to dry and to display. She has some ribbon left over from a project and I had a 3M command strip hanger and some clothes pins. It works great!

The kids know that in art galleries the art is only displayed for a certain amount of time. So, just like regular galleries, the art show is limited at our house as well. When the show is over, the art gets photographed and either recycled, gifted or a couple really good pieces might get stored in an art storage container.

School is starting soon, so the next art show will begin soon! I’m looking forward to it.

How do you handle all your kids’ art projects?

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Do you need some organizing help? How would you like to win a one hour virtual consultation with a professional organizer?? Who wouldn’t?? Head on over to Operation Organization – MN and get the details. Hurry!!! The contest ends Tuesday July 26th.