Bulk Buying Means Bulk Storage – We Have Solutions
Black Friday, extreme couponing, one day only sales…
We have all fallen into this trap – you see a good deal, you find another great one, you walk past a two for one sale, and before you know it the loo-paper, huge 2 litre shampoo bottles and bulk packs of shower gel are creeping up on you.
Well, all you need to do now is go back to the shops and buy the right storage solutions, and your future self will thank you.
We can go on for days and give you all kinds of homesteader levels of food and perishable storage ideas, but we are keeping it simple for now.
Let’s imagine Checkers, Dischem and Clicks all had amazing sales on the same day.
Suddenly you have 8 bulk packs of loo paper, 24 bottles of shampoo and a 5kg bag of bath salts…now it’s time to figure out storage. We don’t know about you, but it feels weird to store bathroom items in the rest of the house, or even with your kitchen cleaning supplies. So let’s rethink and organize our bathrooms.
For toilet paper, the most important part is accessibility.
There is nothing worse than needing white gold but finding the loo-roll wiped out. Now, unless you have one of those barbie dolls with the knitted dresses on the cistern, you’ll need to get an obvious, but out of the way space to store your stash.
We love a two-ply approach.
The first step is to keep at least one roll close to the loo itself, for obvious reasons. But let’s imagine that this spare has been depleted – you don’t want to leave yourself or your guests hanging – so the rest of your extra toilet paper needs to be somewhere in the bathroom. If you don’t have a cupboard under the sink, we suggest you invest in either a small side table sized cupboard, or a loo roll dispenser for your bathroom. No South African bathroom is so small that a small cubby can’t fit in. If this can’t work, invest in a floating shelf, and go all out – build a loo-paper pyramid on it, and take pride in it. Its better to have it, than not, and trust us – your trapped guests will thank you!
For your personal toiletries (the bulk shampoo and soap…) we love the seasonal approach.
Make two or three boxes/containers, based on your seasonal needs. Think about it – in winter you might need more moisturising, richer soaps, bath oils and face care. In summer it’s sunscreen, all things hair removing, light lotions, and possibly even the super strength anti-perspirants. There is no reason why your bathroom cupboards need to be crowded with all of the same toiletries year round.
The same goes for your medicine cabinet: Keep the basic pain meds, and wound care in one place and then have a cold and flu box, and a hay fever and sunburn box, and switch them out as needed.
Even small spaces can be organized.
In a perfect world we would all have bathrooms as big as barns with cabinets, shelves and whole cupboards to keep all our bespoke, luxury self-care items. But in the real-world, bathrooms aren’t spa’s, and they need to be functional to deal with that morning rush.
Individual containers are your saving grace.
Apart from loo-paper (as we said), not everything needs to be in your bathroom every single day. As with the “seasonal” boxes, split your toiletries into different genres. Deodorant, dental care, soap and haircare probably need to be at hand 24/7, but specialized skincare, and manicure/ pedicure products can have their own box that you simply haul out on selfcare Sunday.
Clear out the towels and straighteners
To make space for yourself and declutter your smaller bathroom, find alternative spots for extra towels and hair styling tools. (These can take up real estate in your guestroom or linen cupboard.)
Dispense with clutter
Try to keep your shower and the edge of your bathtub/sink empty – this will give the impression of having an organized bathroom, even if it means you just dump your everyday toiletries into a drawer or box under the sink. We also like the idea of getting matching refillable dispensers for your shampoo/conditioner and shower gel, and fixing them to the wall, instead of keeping the large, mismatched bottles on the shower floor or crowding the caddy.