ESSENTIALS OF A CURATED CLOSET
Of all the rooms in your house, your closet is often the most neglected. It’s stuffed with clothes and shoes you haven’t worn in years plus others you’re holding onto “just in case.” Basically, it’s become your wardrobe junk drawer. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There is hope. Follow these simple steps to minimize your apparel and learn the essentials to a clean and curated closet.
Determine Your Winners
When sorting through your closet to determine what’s staying and what’s going, separate your wardrobe into one or two categories: The Winners and the Losers. When determining the Winners, ignore the urge to whittle down your wardrobe to a specific number of items. Simply keep the clothes that you need for your everyday life and the ones that bring you joy.
To help you determine the Winners, look for any possible wardrobe redundancies. Are five black sweaters really necessary when one or two will fulfill your needs quite nicely? Weed out your duplicates to start thinning your apparel. Next, move all your out-of-season wear to the back of your closet and in-season clothes to the front. Go through your in-season items and keep anything you wear frequently or absolutely need on the rack. Everything else, bag it up to be out of sight and out of mind. After a month, anything you’ve pulled out of the bag and worn can go back on the rack. Congratulations. You’ve found your Winners. Anything left in the bag are the Losers. Repeat this process with your other seasonals and you’ll have a leaner wardrobe in no time.
To clean your smaller wardrobe, use Thieves® Laundry Soap from Young Living. With natural enzymes and powerful essential oils, it will leave your clothes fresh and clean with a calming, light citrus scent.
Discard Your Losers
Once you’ve filtered out your Losers, it’s time to banish them from your closet and your life. Take everything you’re tossing and sell them to a consignment shop. If they won’t buy, donate it to a thrift store. Be sure to keep an itemized list of everything you donate. It’ll come in handy at the end of the year when it’s time to do your taxes.
With the Losers out of the way, it’s time to clear the clutter. Our closets tend to become a layover station for anything in our house that doesn’t have a permanent home. So go through everything and if you need to keep something, find a place to store it. If it holds sentimental value, place it in a memory box that can be easily stored away. Everything else must go.
When your closet is cleaned out, it’s time to clean it up. The lemon-scented Thieves® Household Cleaner will give your closet shelves and racks a deep clean without dangerous or synthetic ingredients.
Every Item Has Its Place
By now, you’ve noticed you have a lot more room in your closet. So there’s no excuse for not making it look great. Use colorful matching hangers to hang your clothes. It will give your rack a clean, consistent look while keeping your different items organized and color coordinated.
Fold your bulky apparel, like jeans and sweaters, in coordinating stacks before sliding them into cubbies or laying them neatly on shelves. Also, give your closet the look and feel of a designer clothes boutique by placing some of your favorite things, such as a pair of shoes, a hat or purse, on a special shelf.
As an added touch, add a diffuser to turn your favorite scented essential oils into an extremely fine mist, dispersing the micro-particles into the air. With stylish designs like the Bamboo™ and Dewdrop™ to the Aria™ with its solid American Maple base, essential oil diffusers can bring a sense of calm and serenity to your new curated space.
Keep It Up
Think of your new curated closet as a living thing, constantly evolving as your tastes in fashion and style change and your Losers and Winners compete for consideration. To nurture this space in its streamlined, minimalist state, follow a one-for-one policy. For every new blouse or pair of shoes you add, be willing to give up something similar. It will keep your wardrobe healthy and lean.
And one last very important tip. Always remember that fashion and style are optional. Your clothes should not define you but should make you feel comfortable and confident. So wear what makes you happy.
