Why You Need a Cake Stand in Your Bathroom (It’s Ingenious Organizing!)

Organizing experts often suggest tossing single-purpose items that aren’t used very often. I recently heeded that advice with a cake stand. As much as I love a good dessert display, I never even took the stand out of the box it came in as a bridal shower gift, so off it went with other items to a friend’s garage sale. 

I was feeling good about my decluttering decision until I was recently scoping out clever ways to organize the bathroom. Imagine my surprise — and regret! — when I dug up this Instagram video, where designer Mona B. of @designbyinspiration showed how a cake stand could be used to display soaps by the bathroom sink.

It’s quite simple: Place the cake stand in a corner of your vanity and arrange soap, lotion, or anything else you see fit to add to it. The beauty of it is that while the cake stand is wide — usually around 10–12 inches — the base is not, so you could totally slip something under or behind the stand without taking up more surface area. 

A pretty soap display isn’t only relegated to the bathroom, of course. In this video, TikToker @lovethatforyou styles it by her kitchen sink. While the kitchen is much more likely a place to spy a cake stand, it’s still a clever and attractive way to decorate.

Soap isn’t the only way to go with cake stand organization. In this Instagram video, I spotted @stylemyplace_with_dnm fashion a cake stand in the kitchen as well, but to display other items, including candles, oil bottles, and even a vase. So yes, a cake stand could work in any room of the home.

But let’s go back to bathroom organization. If either of my bathroom vanities were large enough to accommodate a cake stand — I love this glam mirrored cake stand — you bet I’d be missing the one I decluttered. But then I stumbled across a cupcake stand on Amazon — same premise, but inches smaller. Sure, it’s smaller, but that’s the point — it’s perfect for smaller spaces.

By now, I was craving a sweet treat. But it also got me thinking: Could other dessert serveware be used in bathroom organization, like a three-tier dessert tray? Perhaps that could work for bathrooms already short on surface area. Designers usually recommend going vertical with storage, and this would be an attractive way to add a smidge more room in the bathroom.

I’m about to go on another decluttering binge rather soon. But before I get rid of any single-purpose items, I’ll give it what I now call “the cake stand test” to see if I can reuse it anywhere else, either for storage or decor. And in the meantime, I’ll be scoping out cute cupcake stands that fit on my vanities.