I like to keep a small stash of beauty essentials next to my bed for those evenings when I only realise once I’ve jumped into bed that I’ve forgotten to put on my moisturiser or the times when I’m too lazy to do my evening skincare routine. And when I say lazy, I mean “merry” at 2am, after getting in from a night out.
I’ve found that having this little kit means that on those nights when wine has convinced me that I really don’t need to clean my face that I at least make a perfunctory attempt at removing it, which isn’t ideal but is definitely better than the alternative – doing nothing and sleeping in a full face of make-up.
It’s also great for those things I often forget about – if I remember once I’ve got into bed the chances of me getting out of bed to apply something are slim to none. So this also holds things like hand cream, a spare moisturiser (when I do my evening skincare routine, I like to wait a while before adding moisturiser on top of any serums etc. so this means I can still jump into bed and apply my moisturiser once they’ve been absorbed).
I currently use this little TJENA box from IKEA, which was a bargain at £1.25. It sits in the top drawer of my bedside table and holds my emergency beauty stash.
Here are the current contents… 
Hand sanitiser
Spot Treatment › Origins Super Spot Remover
Cotton Wool Pads › I prefer the larger oval ones
Micellar Water › Bioderma 100ml travel size
Face wipes › Yes To Cucumbers Facial Wipes travel size pack
Hand cream › Crabtree & Evelyn’s La Source
Nail file
Rennies
Lip balm › Palmer’s Cocoa Butter Formula / Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream Intensive Lip Repair Balm
Moisturiser › Eucerin Dry Skin Replenishing Face Cream
Eye Cream › The Body Shop Vitamin E Eye Cream
Facial Mist › MonuSpa Rosewood Reviving Mist
Pillow Spray › This Works Sleep Plus+ Pillow Spray (I have a 5ml sample I was given at a hotel. I’m yet to use it as I never really have trouble sleeping but it’s nice to keep on hand)
Ear plugs
Cuticle Remover Pen › Essence Nail Cuticle Remover Pen
Tissues
Also included but not pictured: vitamins, painkillers and a headband
I often mix the contents up, I’m not particularly fussy. This is a great way of using up those products from beauty boxes and free samples that we all get which are perfectly fine but not wowing us enough to want to use every day – the Monuspa Rosewood Reviving Mist, which I talked about here, is a perfect example of this. It’s pleasant enough but not something I would be that bothered about using however I quite like to keep a refreshing facial mist to hand for those morning when I’m feeling a little bleary-eyed when I wake up.
HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN BEDSIDE BEAUTY KIT:
It’s helpful to spend a week or so thinking about what you might want to keep in your kit as it’ll be different for each person. I found that making a note on my phone whenever I was in bed and thought “Oh, I meant to do THAT before I got into bed” helped, so jot down whatever your “that” is – hand cream, cuticle cream, file a broken nail, lip balm etc, etc.
For me the main priorities were things to at least make a stab at removing make-up if I’d fallen into bed without doing it (because seriously, once I’m in bed even the house being ablaze might not be considered a persuasive argument to get me out of it!!) and hand cream and lip balm along with a few other bits and bobs like painkillers and a hairband.
Once you have your list pick up a small box or container that you can keep in a bedside table drawer or out on your nightstand – you’re not looking to transfer your entire beauty set up here, just enough essentials that you can keep to hand. Then you can start filling it up with the things you already have to hand.
If, like me, you’re wanting to keep a duplicate of a product that you already use then it’s great to look for travel sizes of those products, like I did with the mini Bioderma, or you can buy some of those small plastic bottles and decant some of your existing product into it. I bought a travel sized pack of face-wipes because I really don’t use them that often and didn’t want to keep a full size pack to hand which might dry out but I keep a full size moisturiser in there because I know I’ll end up using it from the kit at least twice a week, so there’s no danger of it going out of date in there.
Do you think you’d find having a bedside beauty kit useful or do you already have one? What would you keep in it?
bobo & mimi 