My nail polish stash, storage and work space - a guided tour

Welcome to a picture heavy guided tour in my polish drawers and workspace...!
I feel like a child waiting for Christmas LOL - I have looked SO much forward to showing you this post and I put in at least 8 hours of work in it trying to remember everything and to make all photos and text as perfect and as easy to understand as possible!
I have become one more chest of drawers for my nail polishes - and it's two and a half years ago since I last showed you my nail polish workspace - click HERE - and a lot have happened since then!

First two overview photos showing the storage and the workspace before we dive into the drawers...!
Remember you can click on the photos to enlarge them!

The cushion on top of the smallest of the chest of drawers is mainly used by Ivan, the youngest of our 4 cats.

As you can see I often sit with my laptop right behind the "half-wall", so it's quite cozy. And if the "cozy-level" isn't high enough, Ivan jumps on the table and demands to be cuddled <3

Everything in my workspace is within reach and I even have a sink, very practical both when swatching and painting nail art with acrylic craft colors!
And in case you wonder, this is NOT our kitchen, it's my workspace and noting else, but it is a separate part of your long L-shaped kitchen....

My photo set-up is only a few steps away (if I don't stumble over any cat toys) and I can open doors to get in fresh air if I want to.
Another favorite cat cushion is found on the top of our extra refrigerator.

Ok, enough small talk - let's dive into the drawers. I took photos of all of them except two, that aren't (yet) used for nail polish/related stuff!

Do you remember my many, many untried polishes - click HERE?
Well I have been swatching a lot, so now the drawer looks like this, so that is quite an improvement:

BUT - there always seem to be a but somewhere, doesn't there..?

My drawer of untried Chanel's is way fuller now:

AND there is a new drawer of untried Indies & Co.

AND the acrylic shelves with the "next up" untrieds aren't exactly empty either, are they, tsk, tsk...

So let's move away from the untried polishes to all the swatched/tried ones, all the keepers - most are sorted by color, Chanel and Dance Legend are sorted by brand.

This drawer houses the already swatched Chanel polishes from 2007 and onwards. The empty spaces are for not yet swatched and missing polishes from the year in question.

And this drawer houses the already swatched Chanel polishes older than 2007.

A few swatched orange and yellow - a LOT of swatched pastel yellows - and my so far swatched Dance Legends...

My so far swatched pink and reds.

My swatched pink, red and purple holos.

My swatched holos in other colors.

My swatched greens going from dark til light mint.

My swatched blues going from dark til light pastel blue.

My so far swatched purples going from pastel to dark - I see the need for more room for the darker purples soon...

My glitters.

My so far swatched Diors - a few others and special finish polishes like glow in the dark, magnetics, crackle etc. - a drawer that that is open for other polishes, maybe the darker purples as before mentioned...

My refills, a few gifts and polishes looking for new homes...

- but what is this? MORE polishes looking for new homes + a shelf somewhere else in the house, tsk, tsk, tsk...

A drawer with a few extra acrylic craft colors, most stand ready in my workspace, a little glitters etc.

Extra nail wheels, swatch sticks and a lot of "this and that"...

Re-use of boxes, bubble wrap etc. for shipping polishes to friends...

And finally a closer look at my workspace:

I have all I need in one place - always ready to use.
Because of surgery in the neck and shoulders it's best for me to stand while polishing and painting, so one arm is supported by the clear acrylic box, the other by the metal suitcase.
On the clear acrylic box you see my old eyes secret weapon and helper: OptiVisor (5), that enlarges everything 2½ times (but gives a very short focal depth); I use it when I paint nail art and do a clean up.

The top drawer under the metal suitcase - messy and chaotic, but I can find most things in it without looking - and...

- I chose not to tidy up before the photos, so what might look chaotic to you is very practical for me ;)

Did you like the guided tour in my polish world?
Useful links to my: Indies & Co. -  Chanel polishes - Stash list - DIY Tips & Tricks - or use the menu at the top of the page to see even more pages.
Current giveaway - click HERE!

Fading nail polish - 18 months in a window

This is a completely useless and admittedly somewhat nerdy post about fading in polishes when subjected to light.

Maybe it isn’t completely useless, because it does tell us that dark storage is the best because light also affect our bottled polishes…

March 26th 2013 – 1½ years ago – I decided to do a nail polish color fading test.

I chose blue and red because in paper those colors easily fade – but much to my surprise it turned out that a completely different nail polish color range fades much worse even if it’s not subjected to direct sun light…

I painted two sets of false nails: one side in red and one in blue, and one set was left in a dark drawer – and the other set was placed in a south facing window for 18 months.

Click on photos to enlarge…

Upper row kept in a dark drawer – lower row kept in a south facing window for 18 months, right half of each nail has been top coated with Seche Vite at the beginning of the experiment.

Red going from large to small describing the change:

China Glaze Snap My Dragon, light fading (more visible in person), the top coated part is less faded.

Vogue Manzana Fatal, has become darker and slightly more purple toned in the sun.

Seche Smitten, a light fading (more visible in person), the top coated part is less faded.

China Glaze Poinsettia, no change, maybe a slight fading in the non top coated side.

China Glaze Velvet Bow, no change.

Seche Red, no change, maybe a slight fading in the non top coated side. 


and the blue polishes:

Upper row kept in a dark drawer – lower row kept in a south facing window for 18 months, left half of each nail has been top coated with Seche Vite at the beginning of the experiment. Blue going from large to small:

Barielle Berry Blue, no change.

Jesses Girl Girls Night Out, no change.

Essie Butler Please, no change.

Zoya Song, no change.

Nubar Indigo Ocean, no change.

Sinful Why Not, faded completely after 2-3 weeks – less than a month.

And now to the shades that really, really fade - even if they are kept out of direct sun light....
Do you remember I used to organiz my swatch sticks like this?

Until I got this drawer cabinet - click HERE to read more!

I had noticed that several of my swatch sticks in mint, "Tiffany box" and other colors in a mix of green and blue faded dramatically from just hanging on their chains - even if they never were subjected to direct sunlight, and I had to re-swatch a lot of them when I reorganized them.

Just a few examples, the newly swatched to the left, the fade ones of the same polish on the right:

Do you have any experiences with fading polish??

Contest: How many polishes? - Konkurrence: Hvor mange neglelakker?

Dansk, se længere nede.

Several of you have asked me: - How many polishes do you have? And I have truthfully answered that I didn't really know...
But the chains for my swatch sticks, were the first step in registering my polishes, and when my good friend Lydia from Purple Castle made me a kick ass nice spreadsheet I finally had the tools I dreamed of...
But then I thought to myself, why not make a fun contest (open Internationally) - and here it is, the rules are very simple:
01. You need to be a visible reader through Google Friend Connect (right upper corner: "Become a reader..."), make sure that your email is visible (or that I have it).
02. You can make one guess only based on the photos in this thread, (please note that it's the same polishes - differently placed on the table - on all photos) and you write your guess in this thread. If you later regret your guess, you can delete the first and guess again, but only once.
03. The winner who either is spot on - or is closest to the number, can chose one of 5-10 polishes, that I will select during my registration, and I'll add small surprises. If more than one have guessed right, I have to ask random.org to help...
04. You can guess the rest of May month, and by then even I will know how many polishes I have (of course not counting new purchases after the photos in this thread)!!
05. The winner has 48 hours to reply to the email I send on June 1st. I also will blog about it, showing my nail polishes closer up...
Hint: you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them...

Mange af jer har spurgt: - Hvor mange lakker har du? og jeg har helt sandfærdigt svaret, at det vidste jeg ikke rigtigt...
Men da jeg satte mine swatch sticks på kæder, var det startskuddet til en registrering af mine lakker, og da min gode veninde Lydia fra Purple Castle lavede at supersmart regneark til mig, havde jeg endelig alle de redskaber, jeg havde drømt om...
Og så tænkte jeg: hvorfor ikke lave en sjov konkurrence - og her er den, reglerne er meget enkle:
01. Du skal være synlig læser via Google Friend Connect (øverste højre hjørne: "Become a reader..."). Din email skal være synlig i din profil, eller også skal du på anden måde give mig den.
02. Du kan baseret på billederne (bemærk venligst at det er 3 fotos af de samme lakker, blot placeret forskelligt på bordet) her i tråden gætte en gang og skrive antallet her i tråden, hvis du senere fortryder dit gæt, kan du slette det første og gætte igen, men kun EN gang.
03. Den der gætter antallet, eller kommer det nærmest, kan vælge en af mellem 5-10 lakker, som jeg vil vælge under registreringen, og jeg har også et par små overraskelser. Hvis flere gætter rigtigt, må jeg tage random.org til hjælp...
04. Du kan gætte resten af maj måned, og til den tid ved selv jeg, hvor mange lakker jeg har (naturligvis uden at tælle nyindkøb efter disse fotos med)!!
05. Vinderen har 48 timer til at svare på den mail jeg sender den 01. juni. Jeg laver også et indlæg om det og viser mine lakker lidt tættere på...
Hint: billederne kan forstørres hvis du klikker på dem...

 

 

Seriously massive haul – 488 new bottles!!!!!

488 bottles of new nail polish, is a dream for any nail polish blogger, right ? Please read on...
During my recent blog break my husband and I went to Germany, the very southern part on a beer hunting trip. The weather was amazing most days, 28-32 degrees Celsius – and a lot of the time we drove along mountains with snow, it was surreal and stunning.

We drove from place to place buying beer and we slept at a new Brauerei Gaststätte each night.

But I also found a little time to visit a few DM drugstores, they carry a wide range of nail polish.

So the final result was 458 different bottles of beers that I have not yet tasted & rated on RateBeer + some we already know, see my RateBeer profile HERE – and 30 new colors of nail polish!!!

The price is so much lower in Germany (on both beer and nail polish), so I also bought colors that I normally do not wear, mainly nudes or kind-of-nudes and of course colors that I simply fell in love with. And another yellow sooo close to the ones I have, I really must have my head examined, there must be a yellow filter, that doesn’t work LOL

I'll show the colors with names soon, starting tomorrow - and I have started using the colors for nail art, a new each day...

OK – without further ado photos, and DID you think I had gotten 488 new bottles of polish, my inner child wants to know, if she fooled you for a brief moment ;)

488 nye flasker neglelak, ville være en drøm for enhver neglelaksblogger, ikke? Læs venligst videre...

Mens jeg hold blogfri for nylig tog min mand og jeg til det allersydligste Tyskland på øljagt. Vejret var forrygende, 28-32 grader de fleste dage, og meget af tiden kørte vi lang sneklædte bjergkæder – det var surrealistisk og smukt!

Vi kørte fra sted til sted for at købe øl, og vi overnattede på forskellige Brauerei Gaststätte hver nat. Men jeg fik også lidt tid til at besøge et par DM (i stil med matas), som fører et kæmpe udvalg af neglelak. Så slut resultatet blev forskellige 458 flasker øl, som jeg endnu ikke har smagt og anmeldt på RateBeer + nogle gamle kendinge, se min RateBeer profil HER – og 30 nye farver neglelak!!!

Prisen på neglelak (og øl) er som bekendt meget lavere i Tyskland end herhjemme, så jeg købte også farver, som jeg normalt ikke bruger, mest nudes og næsten-nudes, men naturligvis også en masse farver, som jeg bare forelskede mig i. OG endnu en gul, der er SÅ tæt på de gule jeg i forvejen har, jeg må virkelige se at få mit hoved undersøgt, der må være et gult filter, der ikke virker hahaha

Jeg lover at vise farverne med navne snart, de første allerede i morgen - ligesom jeg er gået igang med at lave nail art på farverne, en ny hver dag....

OK, uden yderlig snak – fotos, men forresten troede du at jeg havde fået 488 nye lakker, mit indre barn vil gerne vide om hun narrede dig et kort øjeblik ;)

 

 

 

 

The beers are all different ones except a few "oldies but goodies"

Quite pretty, right??

Swatch Saturday: My kitchen in the early 70'ties + China Glaze Chocodisiac swatches & review

This post is from the end of January, but now it has to break it or make it - hopefully this is a slow Saturday LOL - tomorrow and Monday I promise you flower mani's!!
In the early 70'ties brown combined with yellow or orange was SOOOO trendy, and dark colors in kitchens and bathrooms were new & hot. And basically everything in my first own kitchen was brown and yellow - I guess that massive brown period (in clothes and furniture too) is the reason why I got SO fed up with most brown colors.
When I swatched (see further below) China Glaze Chocodisiac, that is a great color for several kinds of animal print, I wanted to do some very simple nail art - and it brought it all back...
Dette indlæg er fra slutningen af januar, men nu små det briste eller bære, det er forhåbentlig en stille lørdag ;) - i morgen og mandag kommer der blomster igen!
I begyndelsen af 70'erne var brun og gul eller orange virkelig HOT, dengang var man ikke vant til farver i badeværelser og køkkener, men pludslig kunne alle hvidevarer fås i brun og andre farver. Og næsten alt i mit første køkken var brunt og gult, foruden at brunt også prægede moden i møbler og tøj, så det er klart en medvirkende årsag til, at jeg i dag er SÅ færdig med de fleste brune farver.
Da jeg swatchede (se længere nede) China Glaze Chocodisiac, der passer superfint til mange slags dyreprint, ville jeg lave lidt let nail art på den - men det bragte alle minder tilbage...

 

China Glaze Chocodisiac, is from the Guilty Pleasures Coll. 2006. It’s a warm red-toned chocolate cream color. It’s applies well, dries quickly and is opaque in 2 coats. Here you see it without a top coat.

China Glaze Chocodisiac, er fra Guilty Pleasures Coll. 2006. Den er en rødtonet chokoladefarvet creme lak. Den er let at påføre, tørrer hurtigt og dækker fint ved 2 lag. Den vises her uden toplak.

 

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