As a cosplayer, whether you are male, female, both, or neither, make up is basically essential for any cosplay. And if you are anything like me, you have like, 30 cosplays, which requires at least 2 different products to complete the look. And before you know it, you have 8 different eyeliners and 6 blushes and 12 brushes. But these are some helpful hints that will hopefully help you figure out how to properly store your makeup!
First, I try to figure out how much make up I have. I do my very best to remember when I bought it (If it hasn't been all used up), and usually throw it out if I haven't used it in a year. According to Huffington Post, "Eyeliner: 6 months to 1 year, Mascara: 3-6 months, Blush, eye shadow, and other powder cosmetics: 1-2 years, Foundation: 6 months to 2 years, Lipstick: 2 years, and other natural products: 3-6 months." After these time lines, you should be getting rid of these products because bacteria can grow and cause infections on the affected area. It's extremely important to make sure you are roughly keeping track of the time tables for your safety.
Brushes, aren't as important, as there are so many different types of cleaners to make sure your brushes don't have bacteria on them. It is important to remember to clean your brushes at least once a week, if you wear makeup daily, or once a month if you go to a convention about that often.
Now that we've talked about replacing makeup and brushes, we'll talk about the actual storage part of this article. There are like, 8 million different places you can buy a makeup case, most notably, Amazon, Target, Sephora, Ulta, Walmart, and the Container Store. Making sure you have the proper container to hold all your makeup is important to make sure that you have all your makeup safely stored in one place. It's also hella important to store your makeup in a dry, cool place in order to make sure bacteria doesn't grow faster. I also read that you can spray alcohol on certain products in order to keep it sanitized as well.
As for at-con storage, sometimes you don't have all this extra space in order to bring all the make up you'll potentially need. I always pick out which cosplays I am doing for the convention, and make a list of the make up I need. Once I separate it all, I put it in a makeup bag I've made. You can purchase your own from my store, or from plenty of different artists (insert shameless self-promotion here.) This cuts down on the space my makeup takes as well as the unnecessary anxiety that extra makeup has on the off-chance that I am unable to find the product I need the first scour. This streamlines the process and instead of looking through 30+ products, there's only 10 or even less.
Hopefully, this has helped you organize your cosplay life to be a little more clean and coordinated to create a little more peace of mind in the hectic life of cosplay. As always, you are more than welcome to comment or message with any questions you may have. Happy cosplaying!