A Small Bathroom That Works for a Beauty Editor

Akili King has been working in the beauty world for over six years: as a columnist at Vogue and the Cut, a senior beauty editor at Rose Inc. Beauty, a writer at Milk Makeup, and, now, as the senior beauty editor at Essence. Her job often requires testing a never-ending influx of serums, moisturizers, shampoos, blushes, and more, so Akili has spent the last year turning her small NYC apartment bathroom into a testing center, or what she calls her “second office.” Part of the appeal of her Brooklyn apartment was the bathroom, which has a built-in vanity light on the mirror where she often does her makeup, but the lack of any cabinets except for under the sink meant she needed to start a system from scratch.

Akili shares how she transformed her bathroom into a space that works for her. 

Anywhere from three to eight brands send products per week to my apartment. The number depends on how many events I have to attend that week. Some brands send just one product, while others might send a full range.

I decide what to send to my apartment versus the office based on the brands I already know; I love to prioritize Black-owned brands, and I’m really into clean beauty. Otherwise, I’ll have a lot sent to the office. This week, for example, I have eight unopened packages that I need to get through.

I moved into my apartment last summer, and I didn’t have any storage space in my bathroom other than under my sink. I had a lot of boxes and products on the floor of the bathroom, but I wasn’t actually able to test them. I was just overwhelmed with where to begin; what’s new, what’s old? It made me feel anxious coming home. Being a beauty editor, your bathroom is like a second office. So if your office is messy, it’s hard to focus on what you need to do. When both your workspace and your care space are in disarray, it makes everything else, at least for me, feel dysfunctional. So I was like, “I have to get some organization.”

I looked up “bathroom wall-mounted cabinets” on Amazon. My bathroom has white marble, so I picked a white cabinet with silver finishings because I thought it looked more seamless in the space. I also appreciated how these weren’t too expensive. I started off with one, which was about two feet wide and two feet high, and then I was like, “Wait, I need another one.” Then, two somehow became three, and now my bathroom walls are completely covered with cabinets. I thought about getting floor cabinets, but I like having them on eye level and having my floor area clear to keep it open and airy.

The cabinets are where I put all the new stuff that I want to start testing and things that I already like. They get full really quickly. I also have this basket underneath the cabinets where I put in all the new products that I want to eventually file into my cabinets for testing. Usually, after about a month or two, I take out all the products in the cabinets that I haven’t opened or used and just didn’t like, and I’ll put them in a giveaway box that I’ll either give to friends and family or I’ll donate it to charity. Once the old stuff is out, I start filling the cabinets with the new stuff I want to test. I do this about once a month or so.

If I notice products are piling up in my cabinet, I know it’s time to downsize. When the bathroom gets to this point, I just use one of the larger boxes that I receive from a brand, after I empty it out, and start selecting the products to give away. Once filled, it’s usually under the cabinets on the floor in the bathroom or near my front door to remind me to drop it off at a donation center or offer to my friends and family when they come over. I try not to let it sit around for too long once it’s full.

There’s a skin-care cabinet, a fragrance and tools cabinet, and a makeup cabinet. Within the cabinets, there’s three shelves. In the skin-care one, the bottom shelf is all body care, body oils, and I have some deodorants too. Then, the middle shelf, on the left is the daily skin care that I use regularly, and the right side has things I want to test. On the top shelf, it’s masks and pimple patches and eye patches.

In my fragrance and tools cabinet, the bottom shelf is all perfume. The second shelf, I have gua sha and lymphatic-drainage tools. On the top shelf are travel-size perfumes.

Within the third cabinet, on the top shelf are foundations, and then I have a plastic container with some palettes in there. The second shelf holds my blush sticks and contour sticks. Then, the bottom shelf is an organizer that has concealers, lipsticks, brow stuff, and some blush palettes as well. My makeup is a little bit all over the place; it’s organized more by the shape of things.

Akili’s makeup cabinet, one of the three she has installed in her bathroom.
Photo: Akili King

I also have woven shelves on the top of each cabinet, one with my day-to-day hair-care stuff; creams, leave-in oils, edge control, spray bottles; and then one with bath salts and one with nail polish and nail-care stuff. I got my woven baskets and clear mini-drawer organizers within the shelves from Amazon.

Under the sink, I have a two-tier plastic shelf. The bottom shelf has tampons and trash bags for my trash, and then on the top I have cotton swabs and stuff like that. There’s also some hairbrushes as well. This is probably my least organized area. On the other side, I keep my makeup bags and my heat tools, specifically the Pattern curling iron and hair dryer.

I don’t really have a specific day or time where I test products — I try to incorporate the products into my everyday routine. I have super-sensitive skin, so I patch-test skin care a lot because I’m just scared. I would say testing hair products is probably my favorite because I feel like I can play around and spread my wings a bit.

I’m usually testing products out while standing at the respective cabinet or in front of my mirror in my bathroom. I try to have one cabinet open at a time, but there’s no real set way of doing this. Daily, I’m always swatching shadows or spraying a perfume that I received. Then, especially if I’m writing a story or I have a writer on a story, I’ll test the product out while I’m editing or just to give a story some color. I wouldn’t consider my sink area super large. I definitely have enough space to hold several items at once, but I try not to do too many at once as I tend to knock things over when I do this.

Ninety-five percent of the time, I’m doing all my beauty routines in my bathroom in the mirror. Usually if I’m doing my makeup in my room at my desk, it’s because I’m filming content for a brand and want to use natural light. But, even when I do my makeup in my room, I keep all the products in the cabinets in my bathroom and take the products to my desk that I want to use.

Even though the bathroom is where I test stuff out, I still try to make it peaceful. I have some framed vintage album covers and old magazine covers, like an old Essence cover and one from the Chicago Times. I love vintage beauty covers focused on Black women, and I’m from Chicago, so the one I have in my bathroom I really love.

Every time I use the bathroom, I always burn something. I try to use beauty-brand candles in my bathroom. Usually, I have the Pattern candle burning or the Glossier You candle, which I keep on top of the toilet. Or, I’ll burn a candle from Terra-Tory — it’s this really great Black-owned brand that I’ve been loving. I go through candles so quickly, so I don’t have a particular space I store them in right now. I’m also really big on incense and palo santo. The incense sits on top of my toilet in an empty Diptyque Miami candle; also in that candle is palo santo, a lighter, and the lavender water spray that my godmother makes. It’s my personal scent; a mix of oud, a candle, palo santo, and lavender.

I definitely want to give more love to my under-the-sink cabinet. Maybe I should get some baskets or another shelf. It could be nice to have more of a system there. In general, I feel like under the cabinet is such an anxiety source for people. It would be ideal one day in the future to have a whole separate cabinet that’s just testers.