Ask a British Nail Blogger - How do you store your polish?

This is the second "Ask a British Nail Blogger" I have taken part in, and this one is a bit of a cheat on my part, I have to admit.  I did a post on how I stored my polish collection fairly recently so I'm going to use this post as a chance to link to that again and also expand a bit on other storage solutions I have when it comes to my collection.

First up, how I store my actual polish bottles.  Like many other nail bloggers / polish hoarders I use a Helmer from Ikea (two in fact!)

The Helmer is a set of 6 drawers on wheels, although you can easily leave the wheels off to stop them moving around or if you want to stack them.  You can see a detailed post of how I organise my Helmers here.  But basically it's broken down like so:

Helmer 1 - Drawer 1:  Reds, Yellows, Oranges & Golds

Helmer 1 - Drawer 2:  Pinks

Helmer 1 - Drawer 3:  Purples

Helmer 1 - Drawer 4: Blues

Helmer 1 - Drawer 5: Tools, Cotton Wool, Top Coats, Thinner

Helmer 1 - Drawer 6: Nail Art

Helmer 2 - Drawer 1: Greens

Helmer 2 - Drawer 2:  Nude, Brown, Black & Silvers

Helmer 2 - Drawer 3:  Toppers and glitter top coats

Helmer 2 - Drawer 4: New, unswatched polishes

Helmer 2 - Drawer 5: Stamping plates and supplies

Helmer 2 - Drawer 6: Extra removers and moisturisers

You can click through on the link to see photos of what it all looks like in place.

Next up, I thought I would also link back to how I store my stamping plates, keeping them in folders has made life so much easier, and tidier, for me so I thought the post I did on how I organised them was worth linking to again too; you can see it here.

I have two folders now, one slightly larger than the other, which hold all of my stamping plates.

Finally I thought I would also include a bit about my Swatchicles, and a link to the full post about them as I find them invaluable in keeping my stash organised.  The one downside to the Helmers is that you can't see what you have in them without opening the drawers and looking through so having my Swatchicles on hand is a simple way to see exactly what colours I have at a glance.  See the full post on them here.

So, a slightly cheaty post as this is more a selection of links to older posts but I think between the three of them they explain pretty comprehensively how I store my polish collection and accessories.

Perfume Collection

 

Recently I was organising my perfume collection so I thought I would take a few photos for the blog, I have to say I surprised even myself with the amount I've managed to gather.  There are 56 (eek!) different scents pictured.

 

Here is a list of them, most with clickable links to a description:

 

212 VIP (2010) - Carolina Herrera

Acqua Di Parma Iris Nobile (2004) - Acqua di Parma

Alien (2005) - Thierry Mugler

Alien : Les Parfums de Cuir (2012) - Thierry Mugler

Alien Essence Absolue (2012) - Thierry Mugler

Ange ou Démon Le Secret (2009) - Givenchy

Angel Sunessence (2009) - Thierry Mugler

Black Orchid (2006) - Tom Ford

Blue Agava and Cacao (2006) - Jo Malone

C'est La Fête (2007) - Christian Lacroix

Contradiction (1997) - Calvin Klein

Eden (1994) - Cacharel

Féerie (2008) - Van Cleef & Arpels

Floral Collection; Iris – Marks and Spencer

GapBody Coconut Tuberose (2007) - Gap

Gin & Tonic (1997) - Demeter Fragrance Library

Green Tea Lavender (2010) - Elizabeth Arden

In Bloom Honeysuckle & Jasmine – Marks and Spencer

In Bloom Orchid & Vanilla – Marks and Spencer

In Bloom Rose & Amber – Marks and Spencer

Iris (2010) - Crabtree & Evelyn

Lolita Lempicka (1997) - Lolita Lempicka

Lolita Lempicka Fleur Défendue / Forbidden Flower (2008) - Lolita Lempicka

Lyn Harris : La Fleur (2012) - Marks and Spencer

Lyn Harris : La Poudrée (2012) - Marks and Spencer

Lyn Harris : Le Noir (2012) - Marks and Spencer

Midnight Poison (2007) - Christian Dior

Miss Dior Chérie (2005) - Christian Dior

Paul Smith Rose (2007) - Paul Smith

Peonia / Vanilla / Amber / Pear (2011) - Korres

Pepper / Jasmine / Gaiac Wood / Passion Fruit (2011) - Korres

Plaisirs Nature Coconut– Yves Rocher

Plaisirs Nature Solid Perfume Lychee – Yves Rocher

Plaisirs Nature Strawberry – Yves Rocher

Plaisirs Nature Vanilla – Yves Rocher

Ralph (2000) - Ralph Lauren

Rare Gold – Avon

Sensuous (2008) - Estée Lauder

Shalimar Parfum Initial (2011) - Guerlain

Silver Mountain Water (1995) – Creed

Smooth Sandalwood – GAP

Suddenly Madame Glamour – Lidl

Sunflowers (1993) - Elizabeth Arden

Tahitian Holiday (2008) - Avon

Terre de Bois (2000) - Miller Harris

Ultraviolet Summer Pop - Paco Rabanne

Vanilla / Freesia / Lychee (2011) - Korres

Very Irrésistible (2003) - Givenchy

Virgin Island Water – Creed

White Jasmine & Mint (2007) - Jo Malone (30ml & 100ml)

 

A few of my favourites are described below.

 

First up my two Creed scents, I love both of these, they were pretty serious investments but I haven't regretted either for a second.  Virgin Island Water smells of summer and holidays and I adore it and Silver Mountain Water is like it's winter cousin; cool, crisp and delicious.  I love wearing both these scents, they really do make me feel better as soon as I put them on.

 

 

Some of my favourite scents are by Thierry Mugler, I adore Alien in almost all it's guises and currently, as well as the original, I have the Absolue and Leather versions too, I think this is probably the one perfume I will always replace in some form or another, it's about as close to a signature scent as I could get.

 

Although I'm not a huge fan of the original Angel I love the lighter summer versions, Sunessence is the one I have currently and although they change year to year they always have a similar sort of scent.

 

Another of my favourites is the Strawberry scent from Yves Rocher, I first started wearing this about 15 years ago when it was avaliable to buy in the UK since then it's become a bit more hard to find and I now stock up when I go to visit my parents in Spain or if I'm on holiday in Europe.  It's a lovely juicy, fresh fruit scent perfect for casual wear, and it reminds me a bit of my younger days which I like too.

 

I have a bit of a thing for Iris scents, mostly because to me they smell a bit like Parma Violets, and this M&S version is the most Parma Violet-y of any I've tried, despite the fact it seems to be aimed at an older market I really love this sweet floral scent.

 

Here's my collection where I store them, in the top drawer of a dresser beside my make up.  I keep them in the cool and dark but I'm far too lazy and messy to put them all back in their boxes, so far it doesn't seem to have done them any harm at all.  You can also see my box of samples in the centre at the top of the picture.

 

In general I do favour the larger bottles when I buy scents, when I mention how many I have people often say that it's a waste as they will go off, particularly the larger sizes, but I've never found this to be the case with decent quality scents and only very occasionally, after several years, with the cheaper ones.

 

I'm also quite lucky in that my perfume application is very much of a 'more is more' nature so I do go through quite a lot, especially since I wear it pretty much all the time; including to the gym and to bed which is apparently not generally the done thing. 

 

Shamefully, since these photos were taken I've added another two bottles (Red Delicious DKNY (because it smells like Parma Violets) & Green Tea Tropical Elizabeth Arden) so the collection is still growing.  I also have a rather long wishlist which currently has several Tom Fords, Jo Malones and the fantastically named Fat Electrician at the top of it.

 

What are your favourite perfumes?  How many do you have, I know I can't be the only blogger with a slightly excessive collection. ;)

New Helmer!

As a little Christmas gift to myself I bought another Helmer to help organise all my nail polish and supplies.  After I built it, which is surprisingly easy thankfully, I set about filling it up with some of the over spill from my original Helmer.

I had quite a lot of assistance...

I took all 12 drawers out and set about splitting up all my products.

I've previously arranged my polish by both colour and brand but now I have plenty of drawers I have decided to go back to organising by colour, so the first job was to lay out ll the polishes:

Then I put them all back into drawers.

Ideally I would have taken pictures of all the polishes to show you all but just sorting them took forever so I'll save the full collection photos for another time, for now here's a quick look at what I've put into each drawer.

In the first drawer are all the polishes which I still need to properly swatch for my swatchicles:

Next; red, orange, yellow and gold.

Pinks:

Purples:

Blue:

Green:

Nude, browns, grey, black and white:

Mixed glitters and toppers:

Stamping plates and supplies:

Removers and moisturisers:

And finally all my top coats and odd accessories and nail art stickers and supplies:

How do you store your polishes?

Stamping Plate Storage - Bundle Monster, Cheeky etc.

I have three full sets of Bundle Monster plates and I'm hoping to add the new Cheeky collection to them as soon as it's released so I have quite a few plates to store.  Initially I kept them in a little pot but now that the collection is mounting that was getting quite awkward and didn't give me a good view of all the plates and images I had.  So I started to look into solutions and that led me to order this little book from Amazon.

There was quite a bit of talk about using a business card holder to store plates and in the end I chose this one because of it's pocket size, 9cm by 6cm, which was slightly larger than some other card holders.  I'd measured my BM plates and they were around 5.5cm across which seemed to be the standard size of a pocket in most holders, this one's 6cm width meant that there would be a little bit of wiggle room for the plates, hopefully making them easier to get in and out.

On to the holder.  The cover is a little dull so I think I might personalise it somehow, ideally I would stamp on it so that it showed some of the images that were on the plates it was storing but I think that might be tricky as any polish would rub off pretty fast.

Inside the book has 60 little pockets, 3 to a page.  If you put the plates in back to back so one shows out each side you can store 120 plates.  The plastic sheets seem pretty tough and should stand up to having the metal plates stored inside them.

As you can see three plates fit neatly into each section.

And once both sides are filled up it's easy to flip through your whole collection, page by page.

There is plenty of room in the book and even now I have 3 full collections (71 plates) in there it doesn't make looking through the selection any more difficult.

The pockets are deep enough that the plates are well secured in them and although they move around a little they haven't yet fallen out when I have been using the holder.

The plates slide in and out easily whenever you want to take them out for a closer look or use them.

The one downside is that my (slightly larger, differently shaped) QA plates don't fit into the business card holder so I am still looking for a way to store them, if you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them.

However for Bundle Monster, and similarly sized, plates this is definitely a great, cost effective solution and makes flipping through your collection so much simpler.