Cosmetic Bag Clutter

I decided I was fed up with my cosmetic bag the other day (and yes, some of you will laugh at this because I probably own less makeup than the average woman). 

Before

Anyway, I don't spend a lot of money on beauty products, but one of the things I splurge on (with a 20% off coupon, of course) is mineral makeup. I am very fair-skinned and have found it to be nice and light with a more believable skin tone match than traditional foundations. The problem with this nice powder makeup is that it gets everywhere, creating a pale orange dust.

It was time.

To get everything clean, I emptied out the bag for a trip through the dishwasher. I do this often with things that might not hold up in the washer (great for baseball caps!) but I am also aware this can void the dishwasher warranty and potentially cause a fire hazard.

I also grabbed a microfiber towel and used it to wipe the dust off everything in the bag. Here's a picture of everything laid out before it was cleaned:

That lineup includes two caps that no longer have a pencil to cover, two pairs of tweezers (don't like the angled ones!) and scissors, and most embarrassing, a contact lens in package from two prescriptions ago.

After

I took a few things out of the bag that I only use on occasion--the nail scissors, double-sided tape, hand lotion--and put other things back where they belong (safety pins in the sewing kit, etc.). I still debate about putting my razor in the shower.

Aside from the dishwasher cycle and a little extra time for photography, this process really only took 10 minutes. And after about 10 days of telling myself this needed to happen, it's good to have it cleared off my mental list. And, just for fun, I took a few extra minutes to look at the over-the-counter medications in my medicine cabinet and ended up throwing about half of them away. One expired in 2007. Eeek!

What do you use every day that could handle a good cleaning?