Big Primpin’ — Remove Any Countertop Clutter With Quirky’s Zen Cosmetics Makeup Organizer
Over the years, I’ve amassed quite a makeup collection and, in the process, occupied every bit of storage space in my vanity table, as well as within an adjacent four-drawer chest. I’ve even invested in cool, stackable, acrylic cosmetic organizer units and lipstick risers from The Container Store but, as helpful as these are, I have always been a bit frustrated over how cumbersome they tend to be. With these concerns in mind, Edwin Van de Bospoort submitted a novel invention idea to Quirky.com, an online destination for would-be inventors, and had the general public vote on his concept, then awaited as both Quirky users and staffers decided to green light his idea: a colorful storage unit that’s compact yet holds a surprising amount of beauty products and tools. Four years in the making, the Zen Cosmetics Makeup Organizer ($14.99 at Quirky.com) will help you banish that pile of brushes, lip pencils, and eyeliners on your vanity table, dresser, or bathroom countertop.
What’s unique about this product? Well, for starters, it’s remarkably compact, measuring 8.3″ in length, 2″ in width, and 1.3″ in height, so that it won’t completely take over the surface on which you place it. But the real genius lies in its design: the rectangular unit features a grippy silicone base with petal-like cut-outs reminiscent of wildflowers. The spaces separating these four-leaved floral shapes are wide enough to accommodate lip crayons, eyeshadow sticks, lipsticks, mascara tubes, lip glosses, and even powder and blush brushes while the teardrop-shaped, petal-like cut-outs accommodate items with smaller diameters like eye pencils, lash combs, tweezers, crease and eye shadow brushes, spoolie brushes, and lip pencils. And, while the base is made of solid white plastic, the silicone layer comes in a girly bright pink (as shown here), as well as aperky tangerine orange, a retro seafoam green, and a modest heather gray.
Now, it’s important to note that the unit’s storage capacity depends completely on the type of items you store therein. The wider the items, the less you’ll be likely to store overall, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend using this exclusively for, say, lipsticks, which tend to have more girth. Also, the unit is ideal for products with cylindrical tubes or shapes as well as smaller knickknacks (like the aforementioned tweezers) but it clearly won’t accommodate bottles of foundation, sponges, blush compacts, or eyeshadow pans and palettes. That said, once you tinker with the unit and figure out which beauty tools and products are best suited for storage therein, you’ll be blown away by how much it can hold.
To give you an idea, I snapped the photos above, in which the Zen Cosmetics organizer is holding two Lancôme Le Stylo Waterproof Long Lasting Eyeliner pencils, two MAC lipsticks, a tube of MAC Supreme Sheen Lipglass Glass Tint, a Laura Mercier Caviar Stick, a Clarins Lip Balm Crayon, a pair of tweezers, an eyelash curler, a Lipstick Queen lipstick, a travel-sized tube of Smashbox’s 24 Hour Photo Finish Shadow Primer, a Sonia Kashuk eyeshadow brush, a butter LONDON Wink Cream Eye Shadow tube, a Sonia Kashuk powder brush, a MAC lip conditioner tube, and a Tweezerman contouring brush. And, as you can see, there was still plenty of room in there! I could have easily accommodated another 10 or so items!
Granted: the design is playful and doesn’t have the glamour we associate with vintage vanity trays and such, but a $15, it’s an absolute steal and it will help to release you from a life of clutter and mess!
