Hey everyone! I'm officially on Spring Break and so NikkisNailFiles as a YouTube channel is now "live" (is that the right word? Probably not...) and I've posted my
first video! Yay! It's kind of boring but it's all about how I store and organize my 300+ bottles of nail polish. If you'd rather watch the video then you can check it out on YouTube, otherwise you can just read through this post and get the same general idea.
What I use to contain my nail polishes is an Ikea
Helmer that the boyfriend bought me either 1 or 2 years ago for Christmas. He knew that I needed a different storage thing than my multiple plastic bins so he surprised me with it and seriously I love it. It's sold at Ikea for $39.99 and it comes in three different color choices. Honestly, it's definitely the best way to store nail polishes if you don't have actual salon rack. The helmer has 6 drawers with spots for labels if you'd like to add them (I did although they aren't in the picture) and the drawers fit every single bottle of polish perfectly. The tallest bottles I own are my Finger Paints polishes but even they fit perfectly. Also, I would definitely recommend purchasing a roll of grip liner from Target or wherever to line the bottom of each drawer so your polishes don't slip and slide all over the place. Liners are super cheap (<$5) and you can even find them at the dollar store. I bought just plain cream with grooves but there are also actual adhesive liners and liners with patterns too.
The drawers can be organized any way that suits you. I've seen other nail bloggers organize theirs by brand, color, finish, collection/year, but I just do mine by color and then by brand within each color. My top drawer contains all random items, my detailer/design brushes, top coats/base coats, nail treatments, nail accessories, paintbrushes, my Konad stamper, some Sally Hanson Salon Effects, and my cuticle lotion.
Ikea unfortunately doesn't make dividers for the Helmer so I had to come up with my own way to separate things. I used a shoe box and separated my top coats, base coats, and nail treatments from my really thin detailer polishes (the detailer brushes ALWAYS would fall down if I left them with the rest of my polishes).
The rest of my polishes stay in the 2nd through 5th drawers. I sort them by color and then by brand within the drawers. There's not much to say about those so I'll just put the pictures.
The last drawer has fresh cotton balls, a pouch with my Konad and BundleMonster plates, and some nail enamel spray. I used to keep my polish remover in the bottom drawer but I ran out of that polish and the new one I bought leaks if it's stored horizontal.
The nail wheels are probably one of my favorite things about my entire collection. It helps with deciding which colors would look nice in a design, what pair of colors work for tips, and just to help me decide what color to paint my nails when no polish is really jumping out at me.
This is how I store my nail polishes! Comment below and tell me how you store yours!
Today's post is a swatch post about Zoya Kristen. This polish might just be my favorite blue. It's like a gray blue, baby blue, gorgeous light blue and I love the way it dries, so glassy and thick and opaque. Zoya is very close to beating out China Glaze for the title of My Favorite Nail Polish Brand...and that's saying something. I feel like all Zoya's polishes dry quickly and are almost unbelievably chip resistant. If I'm in a hurry I will choose Zoya because it dries in five seconds. And I have to say, as a law student who generally has a lack of time, it is nice to still be able to keep my digits polished without losing a ton of time waiting for them to dry!
Next to blue polishes, red is my favorite color of polish to wear. I think there's just something about red nail polish on a woman that screams self-confidence, sexiness, and beauty. I love any and every shade of red and if someone handed me cherry red, fire engine red, burgundy, oxblood, etc, I will wear every single one of them with a smile. Maybe it's because I like the red with my skin tone? Maybe I just like red (two of my formal gowns in high school were red). Maybe I'm just weird. I LOVE red nails though. They're so eye-catching. The particular red I'm wearing now is Sally Handsen Cherry Red. There is something about the Sally Hansen brand that I just like. They have a good formula, a wide variety of colors, and their polishes dry quickly. I also think they're Xtreme wear line bottles are cute. I'm a fan!
Hey everyone! I'm officially on Spring Break and so NikkisNailFiles as a YouTube channel is now "live" (is that the right word? Probably not...) and I've posted my first video! Yay! It's kind of boring but it's all about how I store and organize my 300+ bottles of nail polish. If you'd rather watch the video then you can check it out on YouTube, otherwise you can just read through this post and get the same general idea. 
