Show Me Your Nails 2.0

[Tamara76]

Due to some technical glitches with the original Show Me Your Nails Thread, I am starting a new thread with @vegchililover78's blessing (She says "hello," by the way!).

Please share your nail looks, nail art and manicures!

...And don't forget to check out @Beadshopgirl's Nail Stamping Thread for stamping inspiration! ❤️  

https://community.sephora.com/t5/Nailed-It/The-Nail-Stamping-Thread/m-p/3328865

[itsfi]

@RGbrown, this just makes me want to shop your collection even more. 😍 Love how you are aiming to display all your swatch sticks - they look great in the jars. 

[Samtian]

@RGbrown That is like therapeutic to look at. 

[itsfi]

@Samtian, that is so well said. 100% agree. @RGbrown 

[CookieGirl1]

Whoa, @RGbrown, I knew you had an impressive collection but that's AMAZING!!!

[ather]

@RGbrown  Omg! I’m at a loss for words!!! 

[WinglessOne]

@RGbrown  Thanks for sharing your swatch stick storage! I like your envelopes, even if they're an in-between solution for you. 🙂 Neat idea to keep unused polishes separate. 

Your ultimate goal is what I wanted to do when I first began swatching everything. I decided to wait til I was done, or mostly done, before ditching those dang rings. Flipping through them is awkward and annoying and I hate it. Plus, keeping my swatches on rings or screws will compel me to arrange them more precisely by color, and that'll frustrate the heck outta me as I add (or ditch) polishes. Cannot tell you how long it took me to arrange and rearrange all my blues in tint/shade order. I'd rather have 'em all loose in a container so I don't have to think about color order. Plus, the only way I can easily pick polishes by swatch stick is to have super quick and easy access to sticks from multiple color/function/finish families so I can compare color stories—and for that, I need all the sticks loose in containers. 

I especially like your candle jars! I might use magnetic cubbies I can stick on metal tiles, either on the side of my vanity or on the wall. (I currently use them to hold eyeliners, shadow sticks, mascaras, and a few other things.) Or I might go the tabletop cup/jar route. Just gotta make sure my swatches and polish bottles are arranged the same way (by color/function/finish), or I'll go nuts trying to find the polish I want. 🤪 

[RGbrown]

@WinglessOne 

The envelopes were honestly just my first idea for cheap and easy...I have a huge box of them just sitting around from an old job, and no other use for them, so it's been nice to repurpose at least a few, and they've lasted way longer than I thought they would. They're easy to label and they help me bring a little order to the chaos, so all in all, they've been very nice to have!

"Plus, keeping my swatches on rings or screws will compel me to arrange them more precisely by color, and that'll frustrate the heck outta me as I add (or ditch) polishes."

This is a big part of why I'm in no hurry to declutter any polishes for now. The headache of pulling the swatch sticks just isn't worth it, and I don't want to keep sticks of polishes I don't have anymore. And I definitely have to be in the right mood to add newly-used sticks to the screws...it's a task that can go from "a fun way to kill some time" to "gee, I feel like killing someone" in a flash 🤣 Who knew putting swatches in color order could be so difficult? 

I do leave my unused sticks loose though, for that exact reason...they're so much easier to play with when they aren't bundled together. My used ones though mostly just get looked at for color comparisons and such, and I like having them together and in order for that task. I am considering getting a bunch of shorter screws and just doing up sets of "so close they're almost dupes" polishes and leaving everything else loose whenever I do get a full display set up. I think that would be a good hybrid solution for me...easy to compare those half a dozen pale lavender creams or bright red glitters without having to fish them all out individually, but still leaving the bulk of my sticks separate for ease of use in other ways.

I'm digging on your idea of wall mounted cups for your sticks. Whenever I do my closet and get a full polish display set up, wall space will be at a premium on the polish side, but I might be able to set something up on the other wall across from there (though at the rate I'm going, that wall might have to have more polish racks 😅) Will definitely have to add this to the mix of ideas I have rolling around in my head! 

[Saradestin]

I was so curious about your entire collection @RGbrown , but I was not feeling entitled to ask so I am so happy that you have shared these pictures and explanations with us so it calms down my curiosity 😁. WOW! It is so impressive! And it looks so beautiful organized so perfectly. All those sticks will look amazing in the candle jars, like colorful flowers in a vase. 💐

[RGbrown]

@Saradestin 

Ahhhhh, always feel free to ask me about it! (I love talking about it lol, though I rarely think to bring much of anything up other than posting my current mani or a sale 😛 ) With as many as I have, once I decided to do swatch sticks, I knew I'd have to stay on top of organization, or they'd be completely useless, so I do my best to keep them in an order that works for me. It's a bit of a process to get that done, but I'm super happy with the end result ❣️

[Saradestin]

You have to feel very proud @RGbrown ! And thank you for being that open and willing to share your beautiful treasure with us! 🤗🤗🤗

[Titian06]

@RGbrown - I agree with @Saradestin .  I knew you swatched all your polishes, but I always wondered how you stored all those swatch sticks.  Thanks for sharing! 😘

[Saradestin]

I am sad that you were thinking on removing this mani because of how annoying Elusive is, because it looks so beautiful! 💙💙💙 Wow @WinglessOne ! 250 nail swatch sticks! 😵😵 That’s impressive! 

[WinglessOne]

Aw, thanks @Saradestin ! I'm trying to convince myself to strip down just my right ring nail tonight and keep the other 9 as is for another day or 2. 🙂 

And heh, my polish collection's probably just 1/4 of @RGbrown's, if even that much. 😉  It's fun to see how much of each color I really have. I knew I didn't have a ton of yellows (distinguishing them from golds), but the lack of reds surprised me. I do have plenty of berries and not-quite-red rosy/red violet shades, though. Lots of purples. More greens than I thought. Fewer oranges than I expected. More silvers and golds than necessary. 😄 But the dominant color family is blue. That didn't surprise me, but the number of blues kinda did. And some shades are near-dupes. Swatching everything has certainly been eye opening. 

[RGbrown]

@WinglessOne @Saradestin 

1395 😱

Purple is my biggest offender...I had to break down my shimmer/glitter ones by cooler and warmer ones and separate them into two envelopes. Pinks and blues are getting close to overwhelming the envelopes they're currently occupying, but I've still got some time on figuring out how to divide those. Meanwhile orange and yellow occupy one envelope together because I don't have all that many, especially yellows (though I've been trying hard to rectify that lately 😋)

Meant to stick this pic in my other post instead of the one with an envelope on top, so I'll just stick it here instead...here are all of the swatch sticks for my used polishes 😲

You'd think this would help me stop buying so many, especially when I discover dupes as I file them away, but nope, it doesn't really 😅

[WinglessOne]

@RGbrown  Impressive! Also, this makes me feel better about my lipstick hoard. 🤣 I'm not surprised you have more purples than anything else. 💜 

[RGbrown]

@WinglessOne 

Ah lipstick, my other "I have way too much" collection (ok, eyeshadow too lol). I almost got motivated to go through them all a few months ago and declutter a bunch, and I was looking forward to doing it, but then my motivation just went poof and I never got around to it 🤣 One day though! 

[WinglessOne]

@RGbrown  I've been trying to do a 2nd major lipstick declutter for 2 years. 🤣 It... hasn’t gone well. 

I'm not at the eyeshadow declutter stage yet; eh, I don’t have that much... it helps that several palettes are minis or quads. And I'm not about to declutter any Motherships. I could probably purge some singles, though. I'm confident I have far less eyeshadow than nail polish, which itself is far less than the amount of lipstick I have. This reminds me to take another pass through all my eyeliners though. 

[Saradestin]

Wow @RGbrown ! I only have one word to describe your collection: IMPRESSIVE! 😍😍😍😍😍😍 And.... there is always room for a new polish here and there 😁

[RGbrown]

@Saradestin 

A new polish here or there isn't the trouble...I'm more likely to buy 20+ at a time 🤣

[Saradestin]

Well, relatively speaking, 20 at a time is not that much @RGbrown 😁

[Titian06]

OMGosh, @RGbrown !  This is amazing! 😯  Of course my eyes went immediately to the purples at the bottom right! 😂💜