How to Organise Bathroom Accessories with Italian Design

By ALESSI UK: Italian Design Home Accessories, Kitchenware & Gifts | Published: 2026-10-13

Category: How-to Guides

A practical, step-by-step plan for organising bathroom accessories with Italian design, from decluttering and zoning to choosing designer soap dishes and a toilet brush holder.

Quick answer

Organise a bathroom around what each surface has to do: keep the sink counter for daily hand and face care, the shower for in-use bottles, and the toilet area for a brush and spare rolls. Then choose Italian design pieces that earn their place, such as a designer soap dish, a lidded jar for cotton pads, and a toilet brush holder with a closed, easy-clean housing. Buy fewer, better objects and give each one a fixed home.

Start with a ten-minute declutter, not a shopping list

Empty one surface at a time onto a towel. Group everything into four piles: used daily, used weekly, backup, and expired. Expired means anything past its date, dried out, rusty, or duplicated. Most bathrooms hold three half-used bottles of the same product, and removing those frees more space than any new container will.

Keep only what fits in the space you actually have; a full shelf is not an organised shelf.
Wipe the empty surface before anything goes back, so you can see the real footprint of each item.

Zone the room by task, then assign one product per zone

A bathroom works best when each zone has a single job. The sink counter handles hand wash, soap, and a cup for toothbrushes. The shower holds only what you use in the shower. The toilet area holds the brush and a small reserve of paper. When a zone has one purpose, you stop buying storage for things that should not be there in the first place.

Sink zone: soap dish, toothbrush cup, one hand towel.
Shower zone: two or three bottles maximum, no decorative items.
Toilet zone: brush, holder, and a spare roll within reach.

Choose materials that survive steam and splashes

Bathrooms are hostile to materials. Porous wood, untreated metal, and unsealed stone will mark or swell near a wet sink. Glass, glazed porcelain, and sealed resin cope far better with daily moisture. Before buying, check what the product is actually made from rather than assuming a finish will hold up. If a listing does not state a material or care instruction, treat that as a limitation and ask before you commit.

Prefer glazed porcelain and glass for anything that sits in water.
Dry wooden accessories after use if you keep them near the sink.
Avoid stacking wet items; trapped moisture is what causes most damage.

Use small design objects to solve small daily problems

The best Italian design in a bathroom is functional first. A jar with a hermetic lid keeps cotton pads dry and dust-free, and it looks deliberate on an open shelf rather than hidden in a cabinet. A set of small porcelain cups can hold toothbrushes, hair pins, or rolled flannels, and because they are dishwasher-safe porcelain they are easy to keep clean. Choose pieces in the same material family so the room reads as considered rather than collected.

Group objects in odd numbers of three or five for a calmer shelf.
Keep the tallest item at the back so nothing blocks the mirror.

Make the layout easy to reset in under two minutes

The test of a bathroom organisation system is whether you can restore it quickly. If a guest arrives, you should be able to clear the counter, close the jar, and wipe the sink in two minutes. Anything that cannot be reset that fast is either in the wrong zone or should not be on display. This is also why closed storage for the toilet brush matters: it keeps the room guest-ready without extra effort.

Leave one empty patch of counter as a landing space.
Store backups out of the room if you have the space elsewhere.

Your step-by-step bathroom reset

Step 1: Empty and sort one surface: Clear the sink counter completely, then sort items into daily, weekly, backup, and expired. Common mistake: buying containers before you have removed duplicates, which just organises clutter. Checkpoint: if you have more than one open bottle of the same product, you are not finished.
Step 2: Assign each zone one job: Decide what the sink, shower, and toilet areas are each for, and move anything that does not belong. Common mistake: letting decorative objects drift into the shower zone, where they collect water and soap scum. Checkpoint: every item should have a named zone before you buy anything new.
Step 3: Pick materials for moisture: Choose glazed porcelain, glass, or sealed resin for wet areas, and check the stated material rather than the finish. Common mistake: assuming a wooden accessory is fine beside the sink without drying it. Checkpoint: if the material is not stated, ask before buying.
Step 4: Add one closed container and one small cup: Use a hermetic jar for cotton pads or bath salts, and a small porcelain cup for toothbrushes or pins. Common mistake: overfilling open shelves until nothing can be lifted out easily. Checkpoint: leave one empty patch of counter as a landing space.
Step 5: Give the toilet area a closed solution: Choose a toilet brush holder with a closed housing that wipes clean and keeps the brush out of sight, and keep a spare roll within reach. Common mistake: leaving the brush open beside the bowl, which looks untidy and spreads drips. Checkpoint: the whole room should reset in under two minutes before guests arrive.
Step 6: Set a weekly two-minute reset: Once a week, close the jar, wipe the counter, and return anything that has drifted out of its zone. Common mistake: waiting for a deep clean, by which point the system has already broken down. Next step: replace anything that has become a chore to clean, because you will stop cleaning it.

Design pieces that earn their place

Gianni a little man holding on tight: Gianni a little man holding on tight is a glass jar with a hermetic lid in thermoplastic resin, designed by Mattia Di Rosa. The airtight lid keeps cotton pads, hair ties, or bath salts dry and dust-free on an open shelf, so you can store them in view without them spoiling.
PlateBowlCup: platebowlcup-162917">platebowlcup-162915">platebowlcup-162914">platebowlcup-162913">PlateBowlCup is a set of two white porcelain mocha cups with saucers, each holding 2.7 fl oz (8 cl) with a 6 cm diameter, designed by Jasper Morrison. Small porcelain cups are ideal for rinsing, holding toothbrushes, or corralling hair pins, and the glazed porcelain stands up to a damp bathroom far better than untreated materials.
ES20: ES20 is a nutcracker in beech wood, designed by Ettore Sottsass, built around contrasting colours and geometric shapes. It is a reminder that not every design object belongs in a wet room; if you keep wooden pieces near a sink, dry them after use or place them on a dry shelf away from splashes.