I
have something different for you all today. But hopefully something you’ll love!
This is a post about how I organise my nail polishes… Not the actual bottles
themselves, but my way of keeping them all in one place so I can choose and
compare my polish colours. This is a post about my swatch sticks!!
I
got my swatch sticks from eBay. They come in sets of 50 with a long screw that
you use to arrange the sticks on and in a clear zip lock bag that you can store
your unused sticks in. The price is between $1-$5 for a set with postage which
I think is a great price. I initially ordered 10 sets because my collection was
already growing quite large and I wanted to keep some spare for when new
polishes arrived, but I have since gone back and ordered another 12 sets over
the last year.
I
have had several annoying orders, however, where the ends were round and
different to the square ones I needed, even though I messaged the seller and
asked if they were square and was told they were. LIES! So make sure you are
aware that some sellers are not aware of what they are selling (or don’t completely
understand English). I tried to get refunds for them but would have had to send
the sticks back to China and therefore lost money on postage prices so I am
stuck with 400 sticks I cannot use… Grrr!
This
is how my sticks (that I use) look. They are made of clear plastic and I know
some girls paint under the plastic so it looks like they have a ‘top coat’ on,
but I painted mine on over the stick. I prefer to see the ‘true colour’ of the
polish and how it will look on my nail since some of my holo’s and shimmers
look warped when painted underneath.
There
is plenty of room to write the name of the polish. I write the brand, name and
how many coats are applied to the stick on them, as sometimes I just don’t have
time for that 4-5 coater purple. No matter how pretty it may be! I originally printed
out tags and attached them with tape, but the tape has started peeling up on
corners and edges with the constant rubbing from the sticks in front and behind
it. So I abandoned that idea and now just write them on with an extra fine
point sharpie. It doesn’t rub off easily from the plastic and looks just as
nice as the labels. If you do go the label route, I’d suggest getting adhesive paper
so you don’t need to add tape.
I
organised my collection by colour and then added my duo-chromes and mixed
glitters at the end since they’re technically more than one colour. I know some
people group them by brand but the reason I got swatch sticks was to compare
colours to each other so a ‘rainbow swatch collection’ suits my needs better. I
used the screw to attach them and have 50-55 on each stick as some sticks are
thicker thanks to the paper label and tape addition on some of them. I know
some people like to use the rings to sort them also but I want to keep mine
upright in a box so I can easily see what colours are where so the screw suits
me better. Hehe. Screw.
The screws that come with the swatch sticks to connect them together
How I store my swatch sticks. Upright and in a basket for easy access
My other favourite thing about the swatch sticks is that you can lay them over your nail to see how colours suit your skin/look over a certain colour. So I can have my nail painted dark green and see how that certain silver glitter looks over the top of it without having to paint it onto my nails. That’s the reason I ordered the clear sticks and not the frosted ‘natural’ coloured ones.
Black - Dark Grey
Dark Grey - Silver - White
White - Nude - Brown
Brown - Dusty Colours - Light Pink
Light Pink - Medium Pink
Medium Pink - Dark Pink
Dark Pink - Raspberry Purple
Light Raspberry Purple - Violet
Blue Based Purple - Dark Blue - Light Blue
Light Blue - Teal
Teal - Light Teal - Light Green
Light Green - Dark Green - Yellow
Peach - Light Orange - Red
Red - Dark Red - Maroon
Maroon - Assorted Glitters & Duo-chromes (sorted by brand)
So that's my collection and how I sort my swatch sticks :) Some of the colours might look out of place but that's because of my camera is making the colour show up wrong. On the sticks, in natural light they look beautifully rainbow.
Some of my bigger colours (pink/blue/purple) are sorted by undertones or they look strange all mixed in so I separate them to make them look more organised. It's also a lot easier when looking for a red based purple, for example.
I hope you liked seeing all my swatches, and this inspired you to order some sticks and start your own. Trust me, it's a lot easier to start now than have to do 500 at once like I did!!

Wow! Thanks so much for sharing this! I am definitely going to have to start organizing my nail polish like this, so much easier :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing! I was searching on the internet for different storage solutions (will soon switch from the interchangeable swatch table to swatch sticks with 1000+ polishes) yours definitely is in my top 3:)!
ReplyDeleteYou are a God send..lol I wish we had spoken yesterday (that really wouldn't have happened, as #1, you don't even know me and #2, I live in the states). So anywho, I literally spent about 12 hrs. typing in: organized OPI polish swatches grouped by color, I was on pintrest, I Even popped on insta, but, figured it would take forever to find with all the nailies that I have grouped around. Any who around 3am this morning I finally gave in to defeat. As, I am a nail tech and am extremely organized, I have also done this same thing with my polishes. I just wanted to have another opinion on color ranges and made sure I was getting it pretty spot on. As you know one color can look almost exact as the next. I used to write on mine, but then I saw a post with labels done and it looked so clean, so I decided to use a P-Touch label maker. It's a wonderful little machine. I buy the tape from Amazon, as it is much cheaper than in office supply chains and our gets to me on no time. It's laminated I get the 6mm or 1/4 in. White with black print. They look perfect. I also polished mine on top but I daw yesterday, they painted under the nail so you could see shiny or matte. What do you like best, as I am redoing all of Mt swatches for my salon. Ugggghhh. I'm also going to put small round labels behind to number them add it helps to keep them in the same place each time. And if they discontinue a color I can remove and just rewrite the new number not have to redo all the polishes. My insta name is Rockel7, I follow your posts sorry you got hacked. That's terrible. If you have a lady of your names typed out as well, that is helpful just look for the color and it will have the number right beside it. If you do on this most recent batch, would you mind emailing to me. How they are grouped? If not no worries. Thank you again. Love your work.
ReplyDelete