A bathroom is a working room and ,  to my mind, anything that slows down the bathroom processes  should not be in there .  I recently went to work  decluttering  our bathroom and here  are my top tips .  

This is not the first step   to a decluttered bathroom  

I learnt an important lesson early on in my journey towards the efficient bathroom.  T he first step is not to go on Pinterest and look for bathroom storage ideas. I was still scrolling  an   hour  later, and   was contemplating the purchase of  a  massive glass  jar   to store the  miniature  bottles   of hotel hand   cream that tumble d   out of our medicine cabinet every time it  was   opened .  

This is the first step towards a decluttered bathroom  

The first step is simply ‘ begin ’. Take a bin bag, and a recycling box, and make a start. I  attacked the   medicine cabinet   first : I reasoned that once it was done, I’d have somewhere to store items that should  definitely not   be out on the counters.   

Straight in the bin  

I was shocked by the  amount of rubbish we’d kept :   hair products that had gone solid,  perished   hair bobbles,  a leaking bottle of bath oil, magazines so old they’d fossilised.   

I was planning to rinse the product bottles out and recycle them, but I  found out   that tipping large quantities of soap, shampoo or moisturiser down the drain puts undue pressure on the waste water system.  They went in the bin, bottles and all : not ideal, but I plan to do better in future .  

That doesn’t belong in the bathroom  

I had to grab another  box , because there were a  few  items that   I wanted   to keep   but that did not belong in the bathroom at all. Dog medicines, for a start. He’s not even allowed upstairs, so why would we be administering his eyedrops in the bathroom?    

Get rid of u nwanted smellies  

When I got to the back of the cupboard, I started to pull out the unwanted gifts. I’m pretty sure some of these  bath sets   get regifted   again and again and again , because no-one in their right mind would  jump into   a bath that smells of Mrs Gloop’s Chocolate Factory, or Peppy  Peptime   Mint… would they?  It happened that the village fair committee was looking for bottle tombola prizes, so I passed these along.  

I also discovered, through the website  Toiletries Amnesty , a local  charity supporting homeless people   that wanted those hotel  miniatures.  

From now on, we’re going to have a plan for unwanted smellies   and it   will go into action as soon as they enter the house .  I now know which of our local c harity shops   take  as - new cosmetics and   bath products , and  I’ll check the  foodbank , too, as they   sometimes put out a request for  toiletries .   

My last bit of advice   for a tidy bathroom  

It was my wife who pointed out that my winter raincoat should not be hanging on the back of the bathroom door. I suppose I’d thought (after getting caught in a rainstorm ,   I think ,   back in February) ‘It’s wet, and so is the bathroom’ and then never moved it. I’ve put  the raincoat   in storage with the rest of  my  out-of-season   clothes.   I do like that moment when you spot clutter lurking in plain sight: it’s always an easy  win.