Ten Favourite Polishes

Hello!

Today I'm taking part in a bloggers' link-up, and we're all posting about our top 10 polishes. Like everyone else, I've found this quite difficult! I have loooads of polishes I love for different reasons - ones that are good as base coats, ones that are glitter or texture, bright colours, plain colours, holographic, indie, etc etc. They're all fab for different manicures.

So for my top ten, I tried to pick one or two from each 'type' of polish I love. They're also my favourite polishes at the moment. Next month they'd probably be different again!
Here they are...
 

 Left to right,
Nail Envy by OPI
Insta-Dri by Sally Hansen
Passion Fruit &
Greenberry by Barry M
Sweetie Belle &
I Will Rainbow On You by Nail Lacquer UK
Charm Bracelet by Seventeen
Dorian Grey by Sally Hansen
Utopia by Models Own
Cinerella by Sinful Colors.

Here's a more detailed break-down of why I picked these, two polishes at a time.

Nail Envy (OPI) & Insta-Dri (Sally Hansen)
I had to pick these, because I use them in every manicure I do and I think they really improve the look of my nails. I use Nail Envy as a base coat, to prevent staining, and to try and keep my nails strong. I use Insta-Dri as a topcoat. This is about my 5th bottle- I love it! It dries so quickly which is fab for me cos I am so clumsy and usually smudge my designs straight away. It also gives a beautiful shine, which makes a lot of people think my nails are either falsies or professionally done!

Greenberry & Passion Fruit (Barry M)
These two polishes were kind of picked to represent the whole Barry M gelly polish range. They are all fab colours, especially the newer, brighter ones, and I have lots! They're so vibrant, and fab for a full manicure or for nail art. These are my favourite two colours, but I use all of them lots depending on what designs I am doing. Here they are in a few past manicures:

Next we have:

Sweetie Belle & I Will Rainbow On You by Nail Lacquer UK
These two polishes were the first indie (handmade) polishes I bought, and I'm totally hooked! AJ creates Nail Lacquer UK polishes and they're all SO pretty. It was hard to choose just two to feature here, but I eventually settled with Sweetie Belle due to the different shades of delicate pink, which is my favourite colour, and I Will Rainbow On You, an amazing multi-coloured glitter. I don't know what it is that makes it so special, but I adore the mix of glitters. Here they are on my fingers looking beautiful:

And then...

 Dorien Grey by Sally Hansen & Utopia by Models Own
Firstly, sorry about the state of these bottles! Shows they're well-used though! These are my current favourite nude/neutral shades. Firstly, Dorien Grey (pound shop buy!!!) is a beautiful creamy pale grey. It applies beautifully, helped with Sally Hansen's big fat brush. I've used it as a base in loads of manicures. I love it. Next, there's Utopia, a beautiful pale nude. It's overtaken Barry M's Lychee as my go-to nude shade for plain nails or as a base for other things. Utopia is a recent buy, but I adore it. Here they are in action:

Finally we have ...

Cinderella by Sinful Colors and Charm Bracelet by Seventeen

I picked Cinderella because I've recently bought it, it's a beautiful pale blue with a shimmer and I've used it a lot recently as a base for stuff. It does need white underneath it though I find. I'm already regretting picking this for the top 10 as I'm not sure it deserves to be here, but it is pretty!

Charm Bracelet is my favourite textured polish ever! I didn't like the pastel textured polishes that were out over summer, but glittery texture is fab. This gold is just SO deep and sparkly. Everyone should have it! Pics:

So that's my 10! I actually store my polish in three boxes, two are just random and stored down the side of the sofa, but one box lives under my coffee table and stores all my current favourites/most used. This changes regularly as I buy new polishes and my preferences change. This is my 'favourites' box at the moment - lots of Barry M Gelly and Models Own. The two on the top are brand new purchases - I'm actually wearing the Kiko polish today and looove it - I think that should have made it into the top 10 but I already sorted these photographs yesterday, haha. The Maybelline Brocades looks lush too, still got to try that out.

There's no Indies in here, because they are special and beautiful and get to live on my hearth so I can see them. These are all so pretty and individual <3

So there we go - 10 favourites and a few additional pretties that were too nice not to be photographed!

My Faves!

Quick post tonight because I don't have new nails to show - my Rainbow On You nails are still going strong <3

So I decided I'd share a quick pic of my "faves" box. I keep my nail varnish in three boxes and my tools (glequins, studs, brushes etc) in another. I don't sort the varnishes by colour or brand, I just sort them according to how much I use them, and this changes ALL the time. The other two boxes live down the side of the sofa, but the "favourites" box lives under my coffee table so I can get to it more easily. Here it is at the moment...

Quick run-down of what's in there... at the top there's all my Barry M gellys that I use all the time, along with my 2 LE Barry M's and my 3 glitters. In the middle are my sparkly Revlons and my Sally Hansens, including my much-used Dorien Grey and Lavender Cloud. The green I might have to move out of the box - I don't use that too much, but I only have three bottles of Sally Hansen and like to keep them all together! 

There's my w7 pastel green to the left of the Sally Hansens and I keep this here as I do a lot of mixed colour pastel designs and there's not a pale green gelly yet... There's my cheap neon orange to the left and my Model's Own neon green at the bottom, because they're summery!

Scattered about are my Claire's glitters, my Born Pretty Yogurt polishes and my new Nail Lacquer polishes, as well as a Lac Attack on the left. Lastly there's the Models Own discoball collection at the bottom - got these for my birthday and they're too beautiful not to belong in this box!

My Stash! (Ask A British Nail Blogger)

 Ask A British Nail Blogger: How do you store your polish?

I thought I would take a few quick pictures to answer this question! Firstly, I don't have loaaads of polishes, although since I began this blog my collection has been expanding rapidly, with new bottles bought more or less every week. By following other blogs I'm constantly learning about new brands, tools or accessories that I should look out for, and I'm trying not to let myself spend too much. I don't like spending more than about £3 on one bottle of polish - I'm cheap! I like 3-for-2 deals where I can get more for my money, unless it's something really special (like my new Sally Hansen Big Money!!)

I used to keep all my polish and tools in one box. I then acquired some polishes from a friend, meaning one more box, which I also started to fill up. Soon I had three boxes full, and more.... here is my stash:

This is what you're seeing left to right...
1. My 'boxed' kits. I've had these bought for me as people know my love for nail stuff! I don't buy expensive brands for myself so it's nice to get them as gifts. There's the Bling It On Feather set by Nails Inc and the Ciate Caviar set, both from my boyfriend. At the back there's a Rio Nail Art kit I got for christmas with a few useful bits in depending on what I'm doing!
2. This is my toolbox(/old biscuit tin)! I decided at the beginning of the year that I needed a separate box just for tools and 'extras'. In here I'll find my brushes, nail art pens, studs, rhinestones, striping tape, glequins, sequins, loose glitter, stickers, sponges and nail files, scissors, clippers etc. At the top are my base/topcoats which also live in this box at the moment due to there being no room in the other 2 boxes. And now I always know where to find them!
3. The pink plastic box used to be my only box! I now use it as a box for my favourite/most-used polishes. In it at the moment are all my new Barry M gellys, my Sally Hansen's, Seventeen, a few Accessorize polishes, and quite a lot of my glitters.
4. This is my over-flow box, containing polishes I'm not currently obsessed with. They're all useful colours and I use them occasionally in different art, but don't use them regularly. I've used the lid as an over-flow in this pic, these are usually just piled on the top when the box is closed.

So that's about it! I don't sort by colour or brand (although I like keeping my Barry M's all together cos they look nice!) because I don't have the room, and I also have so many different brands it'd be difficult to use that to sort them by.

^ I keep the toolbox and the box with my 'most-used' polishes under the coffee table in our living room so they're always to hand. The over-flow box is hidden behind the sofa, and the kits are in the bookshelf. Our house isn't massive and I'm aware that my boyfriend doesn't want my nail stuff everywhere, so I try my best to keep it neat and tidied away!

There are definitely some polishes in the 'rarely used' box that are exactly that - but I daren't throw them away in case they might come in handy in the future! I am going to try to be ruthless though - I don't really have the space to expand to a fourth box!

Have a look how other British Nail Bloggers store their stash (probably a lot more organised and neater than mine...)