Keep Your Closet Clean

Tips For Keeping Your Clothing Closet Organized

By
Relationship Advice Expert April Masini

Q: Dear April Masini,

My closet is a complete mess and something needs to be done! I just have so much stuff in there and half of it is lying on the ground. Between all of my clothing, purses, shoes, scarves, and more, it's just a big disorganized mess. Do you have any tips for how I can better organize my closet?

Sincerely,

Closet Conundrum

A:

Dear Closet Conundrum,

Here are two excerpts from my book, Think & Date Like A Man, that have to do specifically with organizing your closet.

Consider your closet. Treat it like a sacred space, or treat it with the same TLC that men treat their coveted cars and garages. Your closet is a place you go to several times a day to choose what you’re going to put on your body, yet it is often a space that is disregarded. As a result, you often enter or look into your closet with a lack of energy. It should be a space that inspires you, not sucks the life out of you.

Spruce up the space and you’ll notice how much more you enjoy going to the closet and how much more creative you’ll be at choosing your clothes. Organize your closet with care. Arrange your closet by seasons, and then by colors. Keep the pants in one area, and the skirts in another. Invest in good hangars. Padded hangars for delicate garments and pant and skirt hangars with clips that won’t bunch your clothing while it’s hanging as well as hangars that accommodate pants and a jacket, and have a tier to hang another garment, like a blouse on it also, so you can create outfits that will save you time choosing.

Keep matching accessories (belts, scarves, jewelry, and gloves) on the same hangars or nearby the clothes they’re worn with. Hang a rack on your closet wall that you can hang belts, scarves and hats on. Decide if you’d rather have your shoes in a hung shoe bag, or on a multi-tiered rack that sits on the floor. Clear plastic shoe boxes are also great space savers as long as you tape a photo of the shoes onto the end of the box, so you don’t have to open each box to see what’s inside every time you’re choosing shoes.

Only after you’ve organized what you own and actually wear can you decide if, and what, you need to buy. Mentally review the routine of your life and see what items of clothing you really lack. Compose a clear picture in your mind. Always keep the basic questions in mind: What do you really need? How much can you spend for it?

Remember these rules of the closet:

1. Never wear dirty clothes. If you spill red wine or an item of clothing, and are able to rinse it in club soda or cold water and salt, do so immediately. If you can’t attend to the stain immediately, take the clothes to the dry cleaners as soon as possible. You may not wear clothes with stains on them. Sorry. It looks like you don’t care about your clothes, your appearance, and ultimately other things. Whether or not it’s true that is the impression dirty clothes telegraph.

2. Wrinkled clothing is not acceptable. Have your clothes professionally pressed or iron them yourself. Again, they project the impression that you don’t care. A quick fix for wrinkles is a steamy, hot shower — not for you, for your clothes. If your clothes are wrinkled and you’re in a pinch, turn your shower on as hot as it will go, leave the shower door open, and hang your item of clothing in the bathroom, far enough away from the open shower door so that it won’t get wet, but close enough so that it will get steamed. Shut the bathroom door and leave your clothing in the steamy bathroom with the hot shower running for as long as you can, or as long as the hot water holds out. This will steam wrinkles out.

3. Maintain your wardrobe. Fix holes. Fix hems that un-raveled. If clothes are worn at the knees or the butt, give them to Goodwill. Spend one hour a month doing maintenance on your wardrobe. Treat it the same way you would a garden — with care.

April Masini -- nicknamed "the new millennium's Dear Abby" by the media, is author of the best-selling books Date Out Of Your League and Think & Date Like A Man, the two (just released) step-by-step dating and relationship manuals, Ideas for a Fun Date and Romantic Date Ideas, and the critically acclaimed dating and relationship online magazine www.AskApril.com.

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