Five Useless Organizing Products Your Closet Doesn’t Need
There’s no shortage of useless organizing products clamoring for our attention on the internet. When I say useless, what I mean is that the product is a complete and utter waste of your time and money. If you’ll allow me to use a completely random metaphor, these products are like using a knife to remove a banana peel instead of using your hands. In no particular order, here are the most useless organizing tools that annoy me and might also annoy you too (with some more helpful alternatives along the way):
The Bamboo Shoe Rack. I’m going to wager a guess that you own at least one pair of heels. Heels like support. They like to be confronted with a smooth surface on which to perch their spindly stilettos. Which is why, for the life of me, I can’t understand why Bamboo Shoe Racks are a thing. The heels (and even whole flats) invariably fall through the slats and the result is a tangle of flats and heels stuck in your shoe rack. No fun! The solution: Flat before slat! Instead of turning your shoes into an abstract sculpture, simply opt for a smooth surface when it comes to your shoe racks. You could even go rogue and switch things up with shoe cubbies.
The Multiple Tiered Hanger. In theory, this seems like a nifty solution, but how many times have you actually been excited to whisk a pair of pants off this unwieldy hanger maze? Not me! It’s always a pain to hang these pants properly, and in the end, you just end up avoiding the hanger altogether. The solution: don’t try and reinvent the wheel here! Use some single hangers and call it a day. And if you’re low on space, I bet there are a few pants hanging around that you could pass along to a friend, sell or donate.
The Scarf Hanger. Similar to the Multiple Pants Hanger, The Scarf Hanger attempts to save space by cramming an insane amount of scarves into one dinky little apparatus. The scarves ended up draping themselves on top of other scarves, leading to one big mono-scarf that takes up a huge chunk of closet space. The solution: why not keep scarves neatly folded in a drawer, and if you don’t have extra drawer space, why not tuck them in a large bin. This allows you to see all your scarves overhead in one fell swoop. Also, folding scarves is very easy and looks nice and satisfying when stacked side by side.
The Shoe Slot. While these shoe stackers have the best of intentions (i.e. maximizing space to accommodate the maximum pair of shoes), they end up being impractical and unwieldy. Just the sight of those topsy turvy heels stacked on top of another gives me a headache. Plus, they may be space-saving, but in order to access the bottom shoe you basically have to rotate the whole thing. This is far too many mind games for me to play at 8 am even with a cup of coffee in hand. The solution: don’t try to reinvent the shoe rack wheel. Invest in an expandable shoe rack like this one and call it a day.
The Double Closet Rod. In theory, this double closet rod is giving your closet an extra life line in the form of an extra dangly closet rod. In practice, this tightrope walker situation ends up causing more problems than solutions. The whole rod ends up swaying around while you’re trying to access your clothing, and picking an outfit can sometimes be hard enough! And even more frustrating, its hanging wires are a fixed distance apart, so if your actual closet rod is wider than the width of the extra closet rod, you’re outta luck. The solution: if you’re hellbent on having an extra closet rod in your life, consider a tension rod instead. The tension rod is definitely the superior option because it stays firmly in place and can conform to the exact width of your closet. That’s a win for me.