Do you have any idea what’s lurking in your bathroom drawers? If you’re like me, you probably haven’t got a clue. In week 18 of the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge, we’re going to venture into the unknown. Yes, I’m talking about decluttering bathroom drawers. I promise it will be an adventure.

This post was originally published in May 2021 and republished in May 2024.

Many people have a junk drawer in their kitchen. This is something I’ve never had. But while I don’t have a dedicated junk drawer in my bathroom, I learned this week that I had a lot of accumulated junk.

Are you ready for week 18? Let’s get decluttering!

What is the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge?

In this year-long journey, we’re tackling one task at a time with the goal of cleaning up and organizing our homes. If you’ve just joined us, no worries. You can jump right in with this week’s challenge. Just check out the first two posts in the series to download your free checklists.

• 52-Week Decluttering Challenge
• Week 1 – Easy Decluttering Checklist

You can get easy access to all previous weekly posts on the main Decluttering page.

Week 18 – Decluttering bathroom drawers

For me, decluttering bathroom drawers was a long overdue task. Like last week’s under the bathroom sink activity, I don’t remember the last time I emptied out the drawers in our bathroom vanity.

This week, I cleared out 4 of the 6 drawers in our bathroom. The other two have my husband’s stuff. I will leave them for him.

Here’s a picture of the contents of the 4 drawers. What a mess! Lots of work to do here.

This week’s decluttering and organizing tips

Not surprisingly, I identified a lot of strange things and ways to stay on top of bathroom clutter in the future. Before we get to what I got rid of, here are my tips and learnings from week 18.

• Avoid free samples. Unless you know for sure you will use the product, don’t bring it home. Over the years, I’ve had a bad habit of collecting samples thinking I would use them when travelling. Most of them were sitting unopened in a drawer. I also found 10 small packages of dental floss that I brought home from the dentist’s office over the years. I’ll definitely use them up and say no next time they offer me one.
• When you buy a new product, ditch the manual and package insert right away. I found several medication inserts and the manual for my epilator.
• Combine half-empty packages. We have a first-aid kit, but yet I found several half-empty packages of different-sized bandages, Band-Aids and other supplies. I put them all in the first aid kit and ditched the boxes.
• Purge expired items. I’m sure you’re thinking, “Well, duh! That’s obvious!” Surprisingly, though, I found a few of them.
• Ditch multiples. I rarely use a comb, so why did I have 4 of them?
• Relocate things that don’t belong. I relocated a few items to the medicine cabinet. I also found 3 pens in one of the drawers. I’m not even sure why I’d need even one pen in the bathroom, although this article on LifeHack.org tells us the bathroom is one of 9 places to always keep a pen and paper handy.

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What I got rid of

In total, I got rid of 81 items this week.

The 81 items fall into 4 main categories:

• Stuff I don’t use
  • 1 cup & toothbrush holder set
  • 12 shower curtain hooks
  • Diffuser attachment for blow dryer
  • Shower cap
  • Travel container
  • 2 toothpaste tube squeezies
  • 3 combs
  • 1 shoe horn
• 3 expired items
• 13 empty boxes and containers
• Garbage and recycling
  • 3 broken hair ties
  • 6 rusty safety pins
  • 1 rusty earring back
  • 2 pieces of old wallpaper
  • 2 buttons
  • 13 pieces of miscellaneous garbage
  • 1 dried up pen
  • 5 instruction manuals
  • 1 bamboo skewer
  • 2 makeup brushes
  • 2 hotel sewing kits
  • 1 pumice stone
• 4 things to use up – I had a few miscellaneous samples that I will commit to using up over the next couple of weeks. One of the items was this animal mask that was given to me as a gift. I decided to use it up right away.

So that’s week 18 done. Here are a couple of before and after shots of two of the drawers. What a huge improvement!

2024 Update

It has been three years so I’m rebooting the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge to see how much I can get rid of in 2024.

When I read through this post after the latest round of decluttering my bathroom drawers, I had to pat myself on the back. This is an area where I’ve done an excellent job of not adding new clutter. I found just six items to get rid of—along with three free samples that I’ve left out to use up over the next few days. I need to go back and re-read my first tip above.

Now that I’ve freed up some space in the drawers, I’m ready for next week’s task—the bathroom counters.

If you have friends or family members who could benefit from a little less clutter in their lives, please share this post and spread the word!

What did you declutter from your bathroom drawers this week? Tell us below.