Tuesday, August 23, 2011

A New Use for a Vintage Find - Perfume Sample Storage

Ok, Perfumistas, we can't all be Donatella Versace with her fantastic perfume cabinets. If you haven't seen the gorgeous shelves, check out this handy article on perfume storage. We also can't buy ever single bottle that strikes our fancy (try as we might)! So I'm sure that many of you have turned to great websites like The Perfumed Court and Lucky Scent for decants and samples. This feeds our insatiable need to try new things, revisit old favorites long discontinued, and check out niche perfumes. Not only that, if you are a makeup maven, there are plenty of perfume samples provides with cosmetic orders. So what to do with all of these bottles?

I hit a wall where I had bottles and little promo packets exploding everywhere. I would want to wear a sample that I knew I possessed only to find myself digging through boxes and bags forever and come up empty handed. Frustrated by this situation, I started looking for a drawer organizer. But a few problems arose. 1) The drawer that I intended to use was full of wallets and other small goods. Where would I now house them? 2) It is difficult to find an organizer to fit that would also make it easy to access the bottles and their respective brand labels. I even tried spice drawer organizers! After some pondering, muddling, and general procrastination, it hit me like a bolt of lightning (of course, it's months later!).

Here's what now houses my perfume collection.

This is a vintage Mele jewelry box. I happened to already have this one. It had been a container for all the buttons and bobs that come on sweaters and other clothes. I had a better drawer for these so they moved. I also purged my jewelry collection and was able to find homes for the charm collection that was in the upper level of the box. I love Mele boxes because they have multiple compartments that are flexible to being used with a variety of items unlike other boxes that have definite spots for rings or earrings. This box retails on EBay for an average of $10 which is a great deal considering some of the options for storage were much more expensive. Granted my box is not the prettiest Mele box with it's very 70's harvest gold exterior and interior. There's some very chic black ones on EBay. However, I'm perfectly happy with it's utility for now.

I just adore the ability to organize by brand or type. I have organized mine by designer. I also like the ability to have different sized bottles. In the drawers below, I placed the extremely tall or out-sized bottles, in addition to some of the smaller roller balls. Plus, I close the lid and drawers to the box and I won't have to worry about dusting tons of little bottles!

The only glitches that I found to my storage system were minor. First, I am a little obsessive about keeping the sheaths that surround the sample. I like to have the advertising/packaging available. But since I don't look at it all of the time and all of my bottles are labeled, I flattened the packaging out and tucked it in a box which I can then easily put away in my closet shelves. Second, now that I am relying on the bottles for labels, it may not be easy to read them. Not that I need reading glasses but the lighting in my bedroom is reliant on task and situation lighting. In other words, it's not very bright and to get to a light source, the box would have to be moved - not ideal. As I was cleaning up and going through bottles of lotion by my bedside (who doesn't have a ton of those!), I stumbled across the reading light that clips on to a book, still in it's package - a forgotten remnant of christmas stocking stuffers. The clip is large and durable so I clipped it on to the lid of the box. It's ugly. So ugly that I could not in all conscience take a picture of it. But the light's snake like ability and bright white light make reading bottles a breeze! Maybe I will bedazzle it. No that might be crazy.

In front of the box, my larger bottles of perfume have a home on the marble toilet tray that I purchased from Marshall's. Well, at least some of my bottles!

1 comment:

Closet Fashionista said...

Oh wow! Sooo much perfume!! :D
(make sure to leave a separate comment for your extra entries in the contest or you'll only have one entry, I count each comment as an entry :) )
http://www.closet-fashionista.com