For the first few years of cohabitation, I tried to mind my own space and not force organizing on Chad. I’ve always been super aware that not everyone does things the way I do, and THAT’S OK! But sometimes I notice that Chad is doing something… inefficiently… and I keep quiet about it to the point that I want to kill someone. Because I lied, it’s not ok that people do things the wrong way, it just isn’t.

For instance, and purposes of the point of this post; Chad didn’t know about toiletries. I mean, he knew about them, but it was never really high up on his “to-do list” when getting ready for a trip. Every time we were packing bags, he would take all of his normal giant sized bathroom potions and put them into gallon sized Ziploc bags and hope that nothing exploded.

Then his giant sized bathroom potions would take up every nook and cranny of the tiny shower shelf in hotel bathrooms and my tiny little toiletries would be relegated to the floor. Um… ew.

Then, he would pack up his giant sized potions, hope for the best, again, and repeat the same process for every trip we’ve ever taken.

I’m sure he is not the only person out there that participates in travel this way, but so help me APPLE, he wasn’t going to be a person who traveled this way anymore.

Fortunately, Chad was more than happy to accept my overbearing tendencies need to control everything willingness to help him get his travel toiletries organized.

First, I made a list of all the potions and bathroom accessories that Chad would need to bring with him on any given trip. The list was very small, compared to my own list of potions, and also, compared to the quantity of stuff he was previously packing. Costco sizes, people!

His list included:

• Shampoo
• Body Wash
• Lotion
• Face Wash

Other items like deodorant and contact lens solution come in travel sizes, so he agreed to STOP USING THE TRAVEL SIZES WHEN HE RUNS OUT OF REGULAR SIZES AND USE THEM ONLY FOR TRAVEL. Sorry, I blacked out for a minute.

Then, I purchased some toiletry containers and a toiletry bag from, where else, The Container Store.

Finally, I assembled the pieces, got out the trusty label maker, and got to work:

Everything fits into his toiletry bag, which is washable BTW, and there is still room for travel sized potions. You guys, as you can probably imagine, it is SO MUCH SMALLER than two gallon sized Ziploc bags with the giant sized version of each of those bottles. I’m very excited about this – and all the space I have gained (for my own toiletries) in our future hotel rooms.

To his credit, Chad pretended to be excited as well.