My radical idea for de-cluttering my bathroom?

[tamrajo]

I travel at least every other month for work and have gotten fairly comfortable “living” out of my toiletries bag on the road. So my thought is, to throw out almost everything in my bath room except what I have in my travel bag. I would feel very wasteful in doing this. I almost never throw away anything (recovering clutter-bug here), but I think I need to just be a little bit wasteful here in exchange for a since of simplicity. Thoughts?

[Float On]

Well...there are two thoughts on that.
I use to travel 3 weekends out of 4 every month for art shows and I kept my toiletries bag packed and seperate from the house bathroom. I even had seperate make-up and hair care tools and 'stuff'. That way I didn't have to go through the bathroom remembering to add a razor or floss or shampoo, etc. It was simple and stream-lined.

But I would go through your bathroom. You could box up everything in the bathroom and put it somewhere else. What you need you take and put in the bathroom you could shop from the box. Everything else in the box not used after a certain time-frame can go.

If you don't like something, you don't have to keep it. Keeping 6 bottles of lotion under the bathroom sink when you only like one lotion doesn't make sense....get rid of the ones you don't like now. Do you really need 50 hair pins? Donate 30 if you don't. Etc..

[tamrajo]

Oh I love that idea- a 6 month trial! And yes, I have duplicates of everything so I don’t have to re-pack every time I travel.
I would donate, but do people really buy partially used bottles of lotion? Shampoo? I think in the past I have seen them at the second hand stores, but my reaction is usually “EWWWW”

[Float On]

do people really buy partially used bottles of lotion? Shampoo? I think in the past I have seen them at the second hand stores, but my reaction is usually “EWWWW”

That is always my first thought too. We have a local women's shelter and a homeless ministry that are always glad to get donations that they can pass along in 'care kits'. Otherwise.....if I can't use it for something else (like Tradd I've used shampoo for cleaning the shower - it works better than some cleaners) then I just toss it.

[Tradd]

In the past I've used shampoo I didn't like to clean the tub, toilet, etc.

[redfox]

In the past I've used shampoo I didn't like to clean the tub, toilet, etc.

Smart!

[mira]

In the past I've used shampoo I didn't like to clean the tub, toilet, etc.

Ditto. I sometimes refill handsoap dispensers with conditioner I don't like and some castile soap or dish soap.

I would feel bad throwing away all those 'excess' products too. Maybe you could use them all up and just never replace them.

[catherine]

I've thought the exact same thing for the exact same reason--I also travel a lot and depend upon one regular make-up bag and one clear one for TSA. I say go for it. If you do it, I'll do it! It's only wasteful if you wind up going out and cluttering up your bathroom again, but I say, it's just little collateral waste in the name of simplicity.

Thinking about what's in my bathroom, I MIGHT not throw out GOOD (not crummy) make-up brushes, but everything else... it's probably old anyway.

[fidgiegirl]

First off, welcome to the boards, tamrajo, and glad you are diving right in.

Here's something I shared on a recent thread that helped me get over the idea of being wasteful. I hated throwing out things, too, and still kind of do, but have made a lot of efforts to curb what comes in. (Like you, tamrajo, my mom is a borderline hoarder, and it's still sometimes hard to have a rational relationship to stuff).

At one point, I realized that all of it is already garbage. To explain, let's say it's a lotion. The bottle will go to the landfill whether or not it is full of lotion. So what does it matter if it goes now or later? Lotion might be a hard one because - I can hear it already - "but you can recycle the plastic bottle!!" (Not you specifically, but some might make that argument). Same deal - dump out the lotion and recycle the bottle. All done!

We have started limiting what is actually sitting out in our bathroom, but keeping what's stored very well organized so we an refill and replace as needed. Periodically we have to work through our stores. But I can see the appeal in your plan.

And think! You'd be helping out Catherine, too!

GO FOR IT!!!!!

[bekkilyn]

It might be a bit radical by most people's standards, but if it simplifies things for you and helps you to make keeping up the bathroom more enjoyable, then do it! Sure, it might initially seem wasteful to toss the extra items, but if you're wasting your time and energy by keeping them around, you're still being wasteful. Once you are clear of the extra stuff, you will have everything you need in your travel bag and it will be so much easier to keep any more wasteful junk from coming in. In fact, I'm inspired to do something like this myself!