Bathroom Messy? Clear Bathroom Clutter With This Simple Rule

Is your bathroom messy? It could be as simple as clearing the bathroom clutter. Learn how to easily transform your bathroom into a calming place.

Bathroom Clutter is Making Your Bathroom Messy

I used to be the girl who kept everything on top of her bathroom counter that I needed to get ready every day.

Why did I have so much bathroom counter clutter?

Well, because there was no room under the bathroom sink. It was stocked with all of the items that I felt were essential to keep, even though everything I used every day was on the bathroom counter.

I was embarrassed when guests would come over and ask if they could use the master bath because the other one was full. I wanted to scream “No! You can’t go in there! I didn’t clean THAT bathroom. I put all my efforts into cleaning the rest of the house!”

Why Declutter a Messy Bathroom?

If your bathroom is messy, it creates a snowball effect of other issues:

There’s too much stuff on the counters, so you don’t wipe them often.
There’s too much stuff in the shower, so you don’t wipe it down every week.
You have too many towels, so there are always towels lying on the floor, waiting to be washed.
You have so much make-up, half is expired, but you don’t even know it.
You have lotions you received several Christmases ago, but there is so much stuff under your sink that you forgot you owned them.
The list goes on.

This is what too much does…it makes cleaning and knowing what you even own sooooo much harder!

Declutter your bathroom, and you will be able to clean it so much more often. You’ll even spend less money because you will know what you own and what you need!

A Simple Rule for a Messy Bathroom

In order to cure my bathroom clutter and messy bathroom problem, I needed a simple approach. I needed a “rule” for how to manage it.

That’s when I developed the “Flat surface rule for bathroom clutter”. It spawned from my “Flat Surface Rule” I used in other areas of the home.

Here is the flat surface rule I developed for managing clutter:

If it is a flat surface (like the floor, the table, or the countertops), then the flat surface should be cleared of anything that is not a permanent fixture.

When leaving a room, any flat surfaces should also be cleared.

Remember, clutter attracts clutter!

It seems simple enough…until you look at your messy bathroom counter and immediately get overwhelmed. I get it. Stick with me.

The Flat Surface Rule for Bathroom Counter Clutter

If your bathroom counter clutter is driving you crazy, then here is the flat surface rule as it applies to your bathroom counter clutter:

For a single bathroom vanity: Have no more than two decorative or functional items on your bathroom counter.

For a double bathroom vanity: Have no more than four decorative or functional items on your bathroom counter.

Do you have to follow these rules hard and fast? No, it’s your bathroom. You can make your own rules. These were just rules that I adopted in order to make sure my bathroom counters never look cluttered again.

It’s easy to make a rule like this, but what do you do with all the stuff that’s on your bathroom counter right now? If you’re anything like my past self, there is no room under your bathroom sink! So, let’s start there.

A messy bathroom counter full of bathroom clutter.

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Clean out under the bathroom sink

First, let’s make room under your bathroom sink. Set aside approximately two hours to complete this task in full. You may not need the full two hours, but I would rather not sugarcoat anything.

Depending on the state of your bathroom, this may not be fun. However, it will be worth the tradeoff of your time and effort when you are done. I promise!

Open the cabinets to your bathroom sink, and pull everything out. Yep. Everything.

Now, grab your cleaning supplies. You may have pulled a few cleaning supplies out from under your sink. Wipe down your cabinets now that it is empty.

Do this with your drawers too, if applicable. Isn’t that nice?! OK, maybe the mess that you have sitting outside of your bathroom cabinets isn’t so great, but we are about to fix that.

Find a home for everything you are keeping

Decide what you want to actually go under your bathroom sink. Does everything that you have pulled out really need to be stored in your bathroom? Can it be stored somewhere else?

For example, I have found that I really like storing all of my cleaning supplies in one place, not in my bathroom. I have stored them in our laundry utility room or in a linen closet on an empty shelf. I’m not saying you have to move your cleaning supplies, this is one easy suggestion to create a lot more space under your bathroom sink.

Do you have medication stored under the bathroom sink?

Once we had kids I needed to get creative and move all of our medications into an area where my kids cannot reach them. I bought a small, clear shoe box container and put them all in there. I now store the clear shoe box container on the top shelf of our bedroom closet.

Little hands can’t get into anything potentially dangerous and I have an entire area opened up under my bathroom counters or in my medicine cabinet.

Get rid of stuff you don’t use

I’ve been there, where I’ve tried out new hair products, and I hated them. I felt guilty about buying them and not using them, so I stored them under my bathroom sink instead of immediately finding them a new home.

If you’re never going to use something, be honest with yourself. It is time to let it go? If you have a friend that you think might use a certain product consider giving it to them. Otherwise, dispose of the product responsibly and recycle your containers, if at all possible.

I got rid of a lot of stuff when we first cleaned out our bathrooms. I got rid of perfumes I never planned on wearing. I also got rid of hair products that I hated after one or two uses. We had an extra hairdryer I got rid of too. I’m not sure why we needed three hairdryers! I did put the second hair dryer in the guest bathroom. Think of these kinds of things when you are going through the stuff under your bathroom sink.

A small bathroom vanity with no bathroom clutter on the counters. It's a tidy bathroom space, even though it is small.

Stop stocking up for the apocalypse under your bathroom sink

My husband travels and would bring home tons of travel-sized free toiletries. Don’t get me wrong, when times are tough financially, every penny saved counts! If you are collecting freebies or stockpiling from coupons, at least have a system for your extras.

I store all of our freebies in a small, clear plastic container. I call this our “bathroom store”. I also store extra toothpaste or other small items I find on sale here. If you are stockpiling on bigger items, like shampoos, you may want to find a storage spot that is not under your bathroom sink if you are running out of room in there.

We like the bathroom store. It allows us to have back-ups, stock up when things are on sale, and feel prepared. However, if the bin gets full, that’s our signal that we have enough on hand.

Storage solutions to conquer bathroom counter clutter

Find storage solutions for the stuff that you’re going to put under the bathroom sink. Now that you have all this new space under your bathroom sink, you don’t want to just haphazardly put your items under the sink without a solution. Check out these ideas for easy solutions.

Make-up storage

If you wear make-up every day, create a solution that allows you to have all the items together that you use on a daily basis. I’m not talking about your special occasion makeup. Keep that separate.

Create a simple storage solution for the items you use each and every day so that you can access them easily, without having to dig around for those items you only wear on special occasions. We use a plastic divider bin like this for a lot of the common items we use daily. It would work well for make-up too.

A flat lay photos of make-up accessories on a white background

Storage for your daily items

Just as you did with your makeup, create a storage solution for the items you use on a daily basis to get ready. For me, this includes any daily medication, my hairbrush, a couple of ponytail holders, hair products, a sleeve of my daily contacts, toothpaste, floss, deodorant, and my three pieces of make-up. I don’t have a separate storage for my daily make-up because I don’t wear that much makeup. I use a simple basket for all these items, and it gets stored under the sink.

I store my flatiron in a flatiron case, and I love it! This is probably the last piece of clutter I got off of my bathroom counter, and it was simply because I had nowhere to put my flatiron while still warm. This case also works amazing when you are traveling.

I keep my toothbrush under the sink, next to my basket that stores all of my daily items. For some reason keeping your toothbrush on the bathroom counter grosses me out. All I can think about are the germs spraying up from the toilet or germs from someone’s nasty hands dripping over my toothbrush. Call me weird, but ever since I learned I could store my toothbrush underneath the bathroom sink, it has bothered me when it gets left out.

Every morning and night, I pull out my basket of daily items, and I use it to get ready for the day or to get ready for bed. If you have any larger bottles you use on a regular basis, they can be stored next to your daily use storage solution and still be easily assessable every morning and night.

Store the items you don’t use on a regular basis towards the back of your bathroom cabinet.

What stays on your bathroom counter

Be selective about what stays on your bathroom counter so you don’t continue to have to fight the bathroom counter clutter battle. You probably need some form of soap, possibly a towel holder if you don’t have one hanging on the wall, and maybe one or two decorative items that make you happy when you see them in the morning or at night.

Simple Solutions for Messy Bathrooms and Cluttered Bathroom Counters

There you have it! It is a pretty simple solution. You only need the time and effort to pull things out from under your bathroom sink so you can make space for the items that are contributing to your bathroom counter clutter.

Then create a simple storage solution for the items you use every day, and you can enjoy clean bathroom counters! No more being embarrassed with an unexpected house guest walks into your messy bathroom!

Done decluttering? Check out this step-by-step guide to deep clean your entire bathroom (like the pros!).