How I Organized My Nail Polishes
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
Attack of the nail polish!
How I Organized My Nail Polishes
Earlier this week, I asked readers how they organize their nail polish to get some input on how to organize mine! Surprisingly, the majority of these polishes are from awhile ago – I go in phases with nail polish; I buy bottle after bottle for a few weeks, but then nothing for months.
Anyway, I’ve always just stored them upright in plastic “shoe box” containers from The Container Store, but there’s never been any organization within that method beyond keeping them in one place! (Sometimes, I hate The Container Store, and sometimes, I love it…)
The stash was kind of growing out of control, so I figured it was time to think about actually organizing it with some method to the madness — I ended up going for by brand, and then by color. I don’t have enough polishes to start micro-organizing (e.g. further organizing by finish) quite yet. Even with what seemed like a healthy amount of polishes, I ended up mixing brands within the same container!
I love, love The Container Store’s Clear Storage Boxes – I use them for EVERYTHING. I have like 20 shoe-box sized containers, lots of the sweater boxes… They’re just really affordable, easy-to-use, and they all stack together, which is something I like. I like the shoe-box size for polishes because they’re just high enough to fit even the taller polishes (I think Dolce & Gabbana is the tallest brand I have), but not so tall that you feel like you’re wasting space.
One thing I noticed is that usually there is a little gap of space on the side, since the polishes don’t fit perfectly snug in them. I’m going to have to pick up a few rolls of non-skid material to lay underneath the polishes so they stay in place better. In the meanwhile, I put some bubblewrap in the gaps to keep everything in place ’til I get the non-skid stuff in. Otherwise, I’m satisfied with the solution!
P.S. - I know others enjoy Ikea’s Helmers, but I just found it so cheap-feeling, way too wobbly, and doesn’t really go with anything in my house, so that just wasn’t a viable option for me. (But trust, I love me some Ikea — a TON of my furniture is from there–huge fan of the Expedit series! This particular piece just wasn’t for me.)
See how it all turned out…
YAY, organization!
All Zoya
All China Glaze
All China Glaze
All China Glaze
Various high-end: Dior, Chanel, MAC, Lippmann, Estee Lauder, Dolce & Gabbana; then Borghese
A few more China Glazes, mostly OPI
Barielle, Dashing Diva, Duri, Essie
Orly, SpaRitual
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wow thats a wonderful collection. I always loved owning many, but dint as they may get old. Could u tel me how long can we store nail polishes without getting dry, and do u change ur nail paint every week
OMG!!! Nail polish heaven! So organised now! :D
U have a lot of nail polishes... I envy you noble!
Super jealous with ur makeup and nail polish collection.. wish they were mine
this is some serious nail polish collection!!
Hi Christine, someone's using your photo from this post here to try to sell nail polish: http://letsfocuson.blogspot.com/2010/01/2.html (It's in Russian but Google Translate can help a bit).
Thanks for letting me know, Rose!
Holy cow, that's a lot of nail polishes! I'm like you; I buy loads of polishes for a while, then none for quite some time. I used to go and have my nails done, but I've recently discovered the joy of doing my own!
I am too impatient to get my nails done, LOL!
I store my nailpoishes in two train cases from Baby Phat perfume They are almost all OPI, MAC and Zoya
it looks like you hAVE ROWS of the same color but its like this is light pink & this is medium light pink, hot pink etc lol
Drool...
Damn, Christine, you have a LOT of nail polish. I'm jealous! :)
how long do you find the polishes last for before they start getting goopy?? I only have one box full because I got rid of a lot that went too thick or sticky. I barely ever wear them, so I stopped buying them.
Hmm, years? I don't know. I haven't had any polish turn on me yet, lol!
Giiirrrrlll... you and me, like I've been saying for years, we could open our own salon! The make-up was one thing, but now the polish between us, damn.
Hahaha! Tell me about it :D
OMG I could go and buy some nail polish at your place, probably you have a widest selection than many stores LOL I envy that LOL You did a great job, really neat and easy to use now!!! I think I would only need 1 box LOL
Outstanding collection! Охуенно!
yesssss i would love to see a list of all of them...what is that gorgeous lippmann purple?!
Im surprised at how little OPIs u have!
WOW! that is a lot. I only have a few, around 20, and it fits perfectly in a drawer standing up. Anyway, I think you should organize it in color scheme instead of brand. It would make it easier to search for specific colors. When I do my nails, I don't think what brand I feel like wearing today, I just think what color I feel like today.
I like it by brand, because everything looks more uniform, since the bottles match. I also like to compare within a brand, and *then* compare against other brands myself :D Thanks for the suggestion, though!
Christine - tell me these aren't ALL your personal polishes! If they are I am going to assume you're running a salon:) Love the organisation and will be doing the same myself.
LOL! No salon here. Let's say they're Temptalia's!
W O W . how do you even begin to pick a color you want to wear?!
LOL! I usually go with what's new :)
dang gurl!! you could set up shop with all those!
*flails about wildly* AHHHHHHhhhhhhhh! Attack of the nail polish
I aam so bloody jealous of you chica, your polishes all look so amazing....
That is WAY too much polish :| I have like, less than 10 lol. But then again I don't wear nail polish that often anymore. Too drying on my nails.
HOLEY MOLEY!!!! That is such a huge nail polish collection, But Im liking it! :D
Holy cow! I wish I had your collection but I barely use the ones I have.
Oooh, so many nail polishes. I'm jealous!
woah now thats A LOT! great work christine! I guess I need to start on my own too.
Looks great - I did something similar with mine but with bigger containers (which was a mistake as they are almost too heavy to carry lol). I had mine organized by brand, but recently I changed it to by color instead - it's easier for me if I want to wear blue - pull out the blue bin and look through it to pick a shade, rather than have to go through each brand bin. :)
Nice :) I think for me, I'm usually going back to look for dupes within a brand, and then go looking for other brands, so I guess this works better for my purposes, lol!
OMG!!! christine...i cant belieive how many u have LOL
ohmigod, that collection is awesome, and the packaging is amazing. I have similar love/hate feelings about the container store. Right now my biggest storage nightmare is my closet though - I can never find anything!
Aww!! One day, when I'm actually living in my own *house* (aka not an apt!), I want to hire a super closet organizer to build me the most amazing storage system EVER.
Exactly, with the amount of makeup you and I have we need a pro making a costom made organizer like on stackable thing with all pink lipglosses in one thing, reds in the other and so on. I am seriously thinking of getting one soon like an interior designer. Whoa I dream too mcuh hah.
Join the ranks of dreamers ;)
Hi! That's an excellent way of organizing your nail polish! I've been using those office supply floppy plastic cases, and not only do they not fit, they're unstable. I'm so glad you did this blog, but I just have one question. How many shoe boxes did you end up filling, and how do you store them? On top of each other? I can't think of where I would put them all!
Hey! I ended up filling 8, and one thing I really, really like about this method is as I need to get more, it's not a big deal ($1.49 per container) - and I don't have to reinvent my storage solution to expand! I do just store them on top of each other, in a corner, next to a piece of furniture that I use to store makeup stuff :) 8 of them stack about hip high, I think.
My good!!
Wow! That looks so awesome! Love the pictures hahaha, so colorful. I'm going to have to check out these boxes at the Container Store - they really look perfect!
LOVE them! Seriously! I use them everywhere and for everything... computer wires, makeup, shoes... haha.
Wow this post made me a little too excited! The polishes look sooo good all arranged in the boxes! I'm gonna need to do something like this soon!
OMG, tell me about it! My fave box is the Zoya box, 'cause they fit PERFECT! Plus, the bottle shows a lot of the color itself, so it's so purty.
WOAH. i need to show this to my partner who is always complaining about my nailpolish, even though i only have less than 20!! do you ever use all of these?!?!
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