How to Organize Hair Accessories {Never Lose Hair Elastics Again!}

Always losing hair elastics? With a house full of little girls, ribbons, hair bands, and elastics are everywhere and nowhere. I find them every time I sweep the floor, and still, I have to go dig one out of the couch when I need one. Now all that’s changed. We found these fantastic ways to organize your hair accessories and keep your bathroom neat and tidy all at once.

Get your hair accessories organized once and for all.

Here are a few ideas to inspire your hair accessories total makeover.

Have you ever noticed the amount of clutter a bathroom counter, drawer, or medicine cabinet can accumulate? Throw in the hair accessories for yourself or your little girl, and they can easily overtake your bathroom. Then there’s the issue of trying to find just the right bow or headband in the mess. It can be a real pain.

Now you can get your hair accessories organized once and for all with these ideas to inspire your hair accessories and bathroom organization makeover.

Hair Accessories Storage Ideas

First, we have to look at storage. This can actually be a lot of fun, especially if you don’t mind doing a little useful crafting. A few scraps can go a long way to beautify your organizing efforts.

1. Use decorative magnets to transform your medicine cabinet.

Decorative magnets are a smart way to organize the back of your medicine cabinet. Or, depending on the type of cabinet, you can stick them on the inside of the door.

Quick ideas:

Use a strip of magnetic tape. It generally comes with a bit of adhesive on one side in case your cabinet isn’t metal. Run a few rows of magnet strips to hold bobby pins or metal clips.
Decorate your larger magnets with a piece of scrap fabric or scrapbooking paper. Just cut to fit and adhere with a dab of mod podge.
Use an empty thread spool to hold hair elastics. Hot glue will hold it in place. Use several to make a pattern and organize by color!

2. Silverware trays make great organizers.

To organize hair accessories in your drawers, try using acrylic trays. Make-up trays and silverware trays also work and are a quick way to separate brushes and combs.

Try putting your bobby pins in a paper clip holder. I’m pretty sure bobby pins are a distant cousin to paper clips, so this little container works like they were made for each other. They’re so easy to grab thanks to the magnetic opening and keeps them from spilling out into your drawer. An extra bonus is that it makes taking them along to put up hair at recitals so much easier.

3. Use shower curtain rings to hold hair elastics.

A shower curtain ring can hold loads of hair elastics with ease. Next time you change out that curtain, save a few of the rings. Or, why not pick up a new set? They can be really fun, try finding your kids’ favorite theme or find some pretty ones to make it match your bathroom. I found some really nice hydrangea rings that I really love.

4. Try empty oatmeal containers to hold a bunch of bows.

Make it pretty! You can make this a fun mother-daughter craft project (I’m big on this—I’ll share more of these ideas in a minute.) Cover an oatmeal container with scrapbook paper or contact paper. It can house lots of hair accessories and you can wrap your headbands around the outside of the container if you like.

All you need:

Empty oatmeal container (the tall round ones).
Modpodge
scissors
12×12 fabric scrap, scrapbook paper, or contact paper

How to Organize Hair Accessories

Now that you have a few ideas for containers, let’s look at some clever ideas to organize your accessories. There are so many ways to keep your pretties in place. Plus, you can also use them to decorate your bathroom or little girl’s bedroom.

5. Organize hair bows and headbands so they are easy to see.

Here are a few ideas that are not only super easy to make but they put your hair accessories on display. Either to decorate with like the bow keeper. After you read these ideas, you might look twice before you throw a container away.

This DIY bow keeper has ribbons to attach bows to, but the hooks on the bottom are perfect for headbands.

6. Bow Hanging Board

So smart! She just attached some pretty ribbon on the back of a decorative board or plaque and you have a lovely hanging bow board to display your little girl’s bows.

7. Borrow from the Kitchen for Bathroom Storage

Use small bowls inside your bathroom drawer to organize hair ties by color. It makes it easier to coordinate them with your child’s outfit each morning. When she can see them all lined up, she’ll love picking out just the right one to complete her outfit.

8. Drawers that Really Work for Hair Accessories Storage

These drawers were made for storing jewelry-making supplies, but this mom realized they were also just perfect to keep little girl hair bows and bands neat and tidy. She kicked it up a notch by using scrapbook paper to color code the hair accessories.

9. Grab a Small Tin

Small 8 oz. tins are the perfect size for storing bobby pins, tiny hair clips, and hair elastics in your drawers or medicine cabinet. If you’re like me, it’s so hard to throw these away. But, there isn’t a lot of uses for them. This is just perfect.

Organize for beauty and Ease

It’s also a nice benefit to organizing your hair accessories according to how you actually use them. Do you stand in the bathroom in front of a mirror? Or go somewhere more comfortable? When I fix my little girls’ hair, we almost always go into the living room. I like to sit with my girls in front of the television and let them watch their favorite movie when I’m doing their hair.

True confession from a mom of six girls: I let the littlest eat a bowl of ice cream and watch Cinderella while putting french braids in her hair. Don’t judge. It works.

If you’re like me, you’ll love these storage ideas. It’s so easy to grab a container and move it to a comfortable chair when you’re fixing your little girls’ hair—and they are easy to find and use. Score!

10. Repurpose crafting organizers

A desk tray is a simple organizing solution for hair accessories and so much more. The nice thing about this idea is you could put all those larger items in, like combs, pom-pom hair elastics, and bows you don’t want to be scrunched. With this little container, there is a place for every accessory—no matter how small.

11. Make a Kit

Even beginner sewers can tackle this project! Create an updo kit to keep in your bathroom and a smaller version to keep in your car. Perfect in case you’re having a bad hair day and need a simple updo to fix it. I so wish I found this when I had four ballerinas!! How much easier it would have been to stick one of these kits into their dressing basket.

12. Pill Bottle Remedy

Never lose bobby pins and barrettes in your purse again. Put them in an upcycled prescription bottle for safekeeping! A little spray paint and an old prescription bottle and you are golden. When these are decorated it reminds me of the fifties’ styles when all the accessories in a woman’s purse were glamorous.

Organize Your Hair Accessories to Declutter Your Bathroom

This one takes a little more time, but so worth it. You can mount the shelf on the wall and all of your headbands are easy to see and easy to grab. They’re so neat and organized! If you are more into the country look, a little paint, wooden board, and clothespins make a nice addition to your bathroom decor. After all, the only thing better than organized is pretty and organized! Right?!

13. Headband Holder Genius

These can hold clip-filled ribbons or hair bands, This headband holder is functional and beautiful. Make one yourself with a rustic board and some clothespins. Use a nice-looking, well-worn old board for this one. Then spray paint your clothespins to match your bathroom. Wooden clothespins would look best for this, so you might have to do a little searching. Fasten with hot glue and let the ribbons add the color! That’s it!!

14. Use Storage As Decoration

Remember, these cute ideas for organizing little girl hair pretties can also be used to decorate her room. Using her favorite colors, her favorite bows and ribbons are on display.

15. Hair Accessories Treated Like Jewelry when Storing

A jewelry organizer makes a fabulous hair accessories organizer. Bonus: they’re also really cheap! You can buy wooden ones at your favorite craft store. You could decorate a wooden one and keep it on display on your countertop. If you don’t have time or space for that, a cheap plastic one works just as well inside a drawer.

16. Add a Hair Bow Holder for Fun

Add a colorful touch to your daughter’s bedroom with a crocheted flower hair bow golder from Knot Your Nana’s Crochet. How sweet is that? And why stop at just one? These are so easy to make. Why not make several in different colors? Then arrange them on the wall for a colorful bouquet of hair bows and ribbons. There’s a lot of ways you can make these fun and pretty.

17. Travel Organizers Even if You Are Staying Home

Another hair accessory organizing hack is the simplest. Use a travel organizer. They are typically designed to hang in a bathroom and are small enough to fit in a suitcase. What makes them so useful is that they have so many clear plastic pockets. Some also have elastic bands designed for toothbrushes, but you can use them for your clippies. If you are short on wall space, you can hang them over your door.

18. Homemade Hair Accessories for the Win

It’s easy to get caught up in a cleaning frenzy, but why not use this time to have some mommy-daughter time and do some crafts together. Learn how to make your own DIY hairbands from swimsuits or a mix-and-match headband.

I know my girls loved doing anything that seems grown up. So crafting and organizing their hair accessories is one of the best ways to have some fun girly time together. When it’s all done, you have a clean organized bathroom, counter, and drawers. Best of all you and your girl can find the right ribbon, bow— accessories at a glance.

While we’re at it, here are a few more