My girly thing

I rarely wear dresses, or skirts, or heels. Not that I don’t like them on occasion, but they are not me in general. I rarely wear makeup. I don’t wear pink or ruffles or lace or pastels. I wash my hair, put in some argan oil to control the frizz and let it dry how it pleases. I cannot imagine spending an hour on my hair, or even 10 minutes really unless it is a special occasion.

The one and only really girly type thing that I consistently do is paint my nails

Just a few of my manicures this year. I don’t always remember to take photos.

As a result I have a lot of nail polish

Or at least what seems to me to be a lot of nail polish, though I know people who would consider this collection a mere sample of their own polish collections.

Large or not, it’s hard to keep track of 50 things of nail polish.

Actually this isn’t all the polish. This is the ‘regular use’ polish. I have a drawer with another dozen or so ‘special occasion’ polish in it. Things like a mix of red, green & sliver glitter polish for the Xmas holidays or a frosty red with blue glitter for July 4th. Or that one shade I don’t like from the 4 pack that I bought because I loved the other 3 & who knows it might be good as an accent color for nail art.

So call it 65 bottles of polish I need to keep track of for when I go shopping for more polish.

These 3 bottles of red polish are why I need to keep track of the polish better.

The one on the left is a plum toned red and the one on the right is red with brownish tones and the one in the middle is a burgundy red with brownish tones. Now, while I can see the slight color variations and make a somewhat convincing argument for why a person might need all of them, though in truth the one on the right doesn’t look that good with my skin tone, I would have to agree with the premise that perhaps there is a bit of duplication there.

I take photos of every one of my polishes and I also keep a list of them by brand.

Pure Ice’s French Kiss

I keep them all in Evernote, which is an organizing software that ties into your browser, email, stands on it’s own and has a phone app as well. I use it to clip nail art I see on the web, then I can go to the store & look for colors that are close or identical and when I spot this really pretty greyish blue from Sally Hanson that is nothing to do with the nail art I can check my Sally Hanson list to see if I already have it and then scroll through my blue nail polish photos to see how close it compares to what I already have.

It’s important I keep the duplication or near duplication to a minimum.

This box sits on a shelf of some low bookshelves that we have in the bathroom in clear view of anyone I am married to whenever he goes in there. And he does rifle through them while brushing his teeth, etc. He’s never actually come out and said “Why do you need 3 near identical shades of dark red?” or even “Why do you need so damn much nail polish”, either of which would be perfectly legitimate questions, I admit. But I don’t want to give him reason to either.

Because if he starts questioning the polish it will only be a matter for time before he starts looking at my purse & bag collection.

And that is a lot harder to explain away.

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