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Last week, I shared 5 tips to declutter your home. Continuing with that theme, today I’m talking about 4 practical ways to make the most of the travel size toiletries that so easily accumulate under the bathroom sink.
We collect them from hotels when we travel. They’re leftover from vacation. We got them as a free sample and just stashed them away. The dentist gives them to us when we have exams. However they got there, chances are you’ve got a pile of travel size toiletries somewhere in your home just like we do. I’m continuing to find areas in our home I can clean out and organize better and my basket of toiletries struck me as a good candidate for some extra TLC.
Here’s the thing though, I don’t want to just toss them and I’m not in a huge hurry to get them out of the house. I keep them in a storage basket under the sink and don’t really clutter anything else up. But, I also want to be intentional about having a purpose for the things in our home and I don’t want to save them just for the sake of saving them.
4 Practical Ways to Use Travel Size Toiletries
If you’re in the same boat as us with lots of these products laying around, this post is for you. Here are four simple things that you can do to make sure you get the most out of your travel size toiletries.
Use travel size toiletries before replacing full sized products
This is the one that I am focusing on for our family this year. We have some travel coming up this year, but for the most part won’t be flying so we don’t have a huge need to have travel size toiletries for those trips. Take inventory of what products you have in your stash and start to use up those that you would otherwise buy in full size before making a full size purchase. This will help you stretch your budget and use up the good products that you already have at home.
Create welcome kits for guests in your home as an added touch of hospitality
Another idea is to create welcome kits for guests in your home. These could be friends from out of town, parents coming to visit, anyone who will be spending the night. This is a great way to help your guests feel welcome, cared for, and at home. Plus, it is really helpful in case they forgot any of the essentials for their stay!
Gather travel size toiletries together in “blessing bags” to help those in need
This third idea is really great if you have a lot of samples or toiletries that are unopened. Why not gather them together to create blessing bags to help those in need. Toiletries can be placed in simple gallon sized zipper bags
and given to others. These bags can be taken to homeless shelters, given to people you see asking for help, or many other local charities. This is an excellent project to involve your kids in to teach about helping others. Let them help you stuff the bags, have conversations with them about the importance of helping, and let them go with you to distribute them.
Toss out any opened products that you aren’t going to use
Finally, toss out any products that you aren’t going to use. This sounds self-explanatory, but I am always surprised at the things I’ve saved thinking I would use it eventually. Before you save any opened products, you should thoughtfully consider whether or not you will actually use them. If yes, save them (and make sure to use them). If not, toss them. Or give them to a friend who will use them. Just don’t let them stay in your house if they aren’t going to serve a purpose.
So tell me. How do you use travel size toiletries? How do you keep them organized in your home?
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Love the idea of using them in blessing bags. It’s always good to give back, and this is such an easy way to do it!
I agree! And it’s an easy way to get the kids involved, too!
One of my favorite YouTubers suggested once to use them as welcome kits for guests and I thought that was such a cute idea! I love your other ideas too!
Thank you!! We have definitely used them for welcome kits!
Great ideas! I personally don’t care for travel sizes (although they are somehow inevitable at times) because they tend to become more ‘stuff’ to figure out what to do with. You don’t want to waste it but you will most likely never use it…oh the quandary of it all! I love love love the idea of blessing bags.
Great tips. Thanks for sharing.
I agree it can be easy to allow them to just become more “stuff”! I am trying to be really intentional about using what’s been opened and finding something positive to do with the unopened – whether that’s save it for travel, or give to guests or in blessing bags!
These are really great tips!! I never know what to do with all the mini sized toiletries
Thank you! Hopefully these tips are helpful!
I love these ideas! I particularly like the idea of making a “blessing bag”. There are so many people who would be thrilled to receive these!
I agree! And you can make them with friends and family for a fun little project!
I need to be better at actually just USING the toiletries. Like you mentioned, it saves money, and they’re just sitting there, so why not. We do have groups that make blessing bags or send them overseas to the troops, and I’ve done that, but it’s been a while.
Same! That’s part of what inspired this post. Several of my travel sizes have been opened and used, and I want to be able to use them completely before they get so old!
These are great ideas! My husband is a pilot and we have tons of travel size toiletries in our bathroom. I love the little note for guests!
Thank you!! I think the travel sizes are great, but I don’t want to be wasteful either!
Each of these suggestions are totally practical and I love it! I’m the same way with travel size stuff and I hate to throw it out, but I need to be better about being intentional. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks!! I hate to waste it, but I also don’t love the clutter so it has become important to me to be careful what I bring in and how I use it!
Oooh I love all of these! Especially the little guest packets, then it encourages you to actually have guests more often! Haha. I recently threw out most of our because they were pretty ancient..but I do need to go through the bathroom things again.
I have to go through and throw some out from time to time for the same reason! I’m trying to be better about using them up before they get there!
I have SO many toiletries under my sink! What a good idea to put together blessing bags, why didn’t I think of that?!
It’s a fun project to do with kids, too! And Thanksgiving is right around the corner – so perfect timing!
Love these ideas! I used to save them for house guests too and they were so great to have on hand. I love the idea to use them before the big sizes!
They are really nice to have on hand! I think we just accumulated so many that I wanted to use them up before continuing to buy full size things to help get rid of some of the clutter!
Great tips! We also use ours for guests and they came in very handy for our Blessing Bags we made with the Girl Scouts. I recently just purged a ton of sample sizes because they were old and probably out of date. My latest thing is that I won’t take them from a hotel unless I really think I will be using them.
That’s awesome! I’ve also started being picky about what we bring into the house in the first place!
When I was in school and finances were tight, I always refilled my shampoo and conditioner bottle from travel-sized ones rather than buy new bottles. We also keep a stash of travel-sized things on hand, sorted into those little clear boxes by category. The nicest ones go to refill our “hospitality basket” in our basement laundry room/bathroom (since none of the grandparents are local, and our best friends also live a few hours away now, we have guests staying over at least once a month). The others go into our own travel kits for when we’re the ones visiting all those out-of-town friends, OR into gym bags and swim lesson/camp bags, OR into stockings for the homeless at Christmastime, OR into donation drives for local women’s shelters run by our church or available at the different church conferences and other conventions we attend. So they all get used up eventually!
The gym bags is a great idea! We also try to save some to have on hand for guests or traveling for ourselves!
My friends and I regularly do swaps with things like make up, hair care supplies, jewelry and clothes. A lot of times these little travel packs of toiletries end up in the swap. I’m always grateful for them and I try to keep travel packs like toothpaste and toothbrush is in my car in case I have an emergency.
That is a really great idea!
Great idea! Thanks for joining Home Sweet Home!
Thanks so much; I appreciate you stopping by!
We used to collect these from our travels and ask family and friends to grab them off the plane etc when they visited so we could bag them up and give them away to the gardener, maids etc when we lived in South Africa, since moving to Dubai I sorted out the ones we still collect (though not as much as before) and use them up before replacing with regular sizes
This is a great idea. I love the idea of passing them on to others. I’m also trying to implement your idea of using them to get us through until buying more regular sizes when we don’t have a chance to get to the store!
One of my friends’ daughters does blessing bags – this is a perfect use for all the travel sized toiletries.
I’m currently using all the lotion before I buy a new full sized bottle.
I think it’s a great project for kids to do! I’m doing the same thing with lotion around our house!
I love using travel size stuff~takes up less space in my tiny apartment. Sure, they cost more, but sometimes it’s worth less clutter!
xoxo
A
Less clutter is definitely something to keep in mind when shopping, that’s for sure!
I love these ideas! I have a basket of these in our guest bathroom, and our Bible study made blessings bags last year with some of them. It’s fun to find uses for these cute little items!
Oh fun! I think the blessing bags are a really fun way to use these products!
My next door neighbors are retired and travel to casinos. They dropped off a shopping bag filled with hotel toiletries and I didn’t have the heart to say no!
Another thing they did with them was sell them for 10 cents each at a garage sale. They had a large bin full. I watched a woman driving a Mercedes SUV buy 20 bucks worth of hotel toiletries lol.
Wow. I would have probably had the same response as you though and just taken them. I can’t believe the lady bought so many of them! Maybe she had a good idea for using them!
yes! i love having travel size toiletries in our guest bathroom. such a great touch for welcoming guests!
Yes! It’s a really easy way to show a little extra hospitality!
I love the idea of welcome kits, especially given my family all comes a fair distance to visit and tends to stay for awhile!
Britt | http://alternativelyspeaking.ca/
It can really be a nice touch! Even just to have the essentials on hand in case guests forget something.
I recently discovered another awesome tip to go along with this! Plato’s Closet in Brier Creek will purchase unopened travel size / samples of things like makeup, perfume, etc – and possibly skincare, toothpaste, etc. – I didn’t actually try those. They’ll also purchase toiletries from you that have already been opened as long as they have the cap, are at least 75% full, and are not expired! Who knew, right?? I took in a bundle of stuff I didn’t want and made $14! 🙂
Wow. Who knew?! That is awesome that you were able to get rid of some of your toiletries! I need to keep this in mind. Although I’m currently on a “do not buy anything else until you use what you have” kick. That is such a good tip.
Thank you for this post! My husband used to travel extensively for his job, and brought home a ton of these! Excellent ideas!
Oh, I’m glad you enjoyed it, Kim! I hope you are able to put those toiletries to good use!
These are great ideas! They have come in handy this year when two of my kid had overnight school trips. Also when I run out of something, like toothpaste! Always good to have a travel size available! It’s saved me many times!
Yes! I agree it’s good to have these on hand. I just want to be intentional about having a plan for them rather than just collecting them for the sake of having them! I hope you’re having a good week!
Hey there! I just got your comment on my Friday post! (You always pop up as no-reply so I’m not able to respond) thank you so much and have a fabulous weekend friend!! Xoxo
I commented late, so you got it just on time! That’s on my list to update this week! Thank you for the reminder!
These are awesome ideas! I somehow end up with at least a few of each of these little minis everytime I clean my linen closet. I will definitely be using them for visitors and making a few blessing bags!
Thanks so much! I definitely don’t hate them, but I do want to be intentional about using them because I don’t love when they start to feel like clutter!
This is great! Thanks for sharing and enjoy your Thursday! Xo
Thanks so much! I hope you are having a good week!