How to Feng Shui Your Beauty Cabinet

originally written for mindbodygreen

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

In feng shui, areas and objects in your spaces represent something deeper. Your beauty cabinet, for example, is where you keep skin care products, hair styling tools, makeup and other toiletries, all tools that assist you in showing your best face and your inner radiance to the world. Giving your beauty cabinet the attention it deserves will maximize its potential and can reflect positively in how you view yourself and how you show up in your life. 

Whether you have a beauty cabinet chock full of the latest products, or you just have a few precious bottles that you use daily, here are 3 tricks to give you and your beauty cabinet some radiant energy! 

Toss the expired items

I think it goes without saying, but just in case... be sure to go through and toss any expired items. It may be hard to let go of some of your favorite or most expensive products, but it's important to know that using them past their expiration date can actually negate their effects! Using expired skincare products can essentially mean putting bacteria on your face, which can lead to irritation, inflammation, redness, bumps, rashes, swelling, and even infections.

Keeping them around isn't great feng shui either. The symbolism of a cabinet crammed with expired items is that your body is also cluttered with this similar energy, which is the opposite of radiant. We want to attract freshness and spaciousness instead of outdated, forgotten and spoiled qi.  

Add Citrine to the Center of your cabinet    

When I think of radiance, I immediately think of citrine, a quartz crystal with orange tones. Love is In The Earth, my crystal bible, states that citrine “promotes a radiance from within the self, culminating in a constant happy disposition. It brightens even the darkest corner of one’s perceived reality, and helps one to ‘laugh without restraint’.” I think we could all use some of that!

The reason why it goes in the center is that when we lay the feng shui bagua map on your cabinet, the center area relates to health and overall well-being. It also touches all the other 8 areas of life in the feng shui map, including but not limited to career, abundance, and relationships. The center touches all the aspects of your life! Among the many benefits of this stone include the ability to cleanse negative energy as well as clear itself. It will keep your beauty cabinet filled with bright and positive qi. 

Change out your vanity light

The lighting around your beauty cabinet helps to bring clarity and light to whatever you're doing, whether it’s putting on makeup, washing your face, or brushing your teeth. The light also represents fire energy in feng shui. Fire energy is all about radiance, like the sun at high noon. It's a good idea to clean and dust off the bulb and fixtures periodically.  

Something to consider as you’re choosing a lightbulb for this area is the temperature. If you happen to have a CFL or LED bulb (as opposed to an incandescent), opt for a bulb with temperatures of 2700K or 3000K (kelvin) or higher. The higher the number, the cooler the color of the light. You don't want to go much cooler than 3500K, or it will feel blueish.

by Anjie Cho


If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com

Q&A Sunday: How to Choose a Crystal

Photo by Sarah Brown on Unsplash

Photo by Sarah Brown on Unsplash

Hi Anjie! I have a question about crystals: I’m feeling really drawn to them but not sure where to start. Do you have any suggestions? 

Thank you for your question! I get so many questions about crystals, so this seemed like a good one to answer on the blog.

My suggestion is to trust your intuition. Go to a crystal shop near you, or look online, and see what you’re drawn to. My feng shui teachers always taught me to first go with what you’re attracted to, not just for crystals, but other things as well. For example, when clients and students ask me what the best feng shui color is for a certain area of your home, I always ask what color they’re drawn to. Then you can look at what that indicates. I always recommend the book Love is in the Earth by Melody. It’s a really great resource when it comes to crystals.

For example, I recently bought an amazonite amulet that I was really drawn to. I chose it because I really love the shape and colors. Then I looked it up, and found that amazonite is soothing and is especially good for the heart and throat chakras. I’m working on the lower part of my throat chakra right now, so I love that I chose an amulet that will help me work with that energy. 

What are you attracted to? What do you love? Go with your intuition, and then look up what it means, rather than the other way around. Once you’ve chosen a crystal that you love, you can wear it or place it in an area of your home. Listen to your intuition as you’re deciding where to place it also. Do you feel like you need it with you while you’re sleeping? While you’re working? It’s really important to pay attention to what your intuition is telling you, because that will give you the most meaning. 

I also encourage you to not worry so much about sharing your crystal or making a big deal of it. Just be curious and sit with it.

by Anjie Cho


Thanks for reading our "Q&A Sunday". If you have personal questions, we encourage you to check out Practical Feng Shui or hire one of Anjie's Grads.


If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com

Rearrange Your Daily Patterns with Feng Shui

Photo by Taryn Elliott on Pexels

Photo by Taryn Elliott on Pexels

I had a session with one of my healers recently, and she challenged me to start rearranging my day-in, day-out patterns. This inspired me to share some ways you can start to do this in your home. If you reinvent your patterns and how you live in your space, that translates into reinventing the patterns in your life. You can start to loosen your grip on those patterns, as well as open up opportunities to invite in new energies

One really simple way to reinvent your daily patterns in your home is to rotate the use of your stove burners. Take a moment and think about which of your stove burners is your favorite. Which is the one you always go to? Almost everyone can answer this pretty easily (mine is my front right one!)

From a feng shui perspective, your stove represents your nourishment as well as your career, fame, wealth, and resources. Because of this, it’s important to use your stove every day, even if it’s just to boil water. On top of that, you want to approach how you use your stove with mindfulness. Keep it clean and in working order. Take time to wipe it down daily and check to make sure all the burners are working properly. 

What does this all have to do with your favorite burner? If you mindlessly go to the same one all the time, you’re continuing your day-in, day-out patterns. Instead, being a bit more mindful and using a different burner means you’re living from a more intentional place rather than an automatic response. When it comes to your stove, trying different burners can help open up new opportunities for success in your career, fame, and wealth.

I challenge you to go to the stove at least once each day, and try a different burner than you normally would. This way, you’re intentionally making an effort towards something new every day. 

by Anjie Cho


If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com