Swatching, Swatching, Swatching

Over the long weekend, I didn't leave the house much.  But that was perfectly okay with me.  After waiting over five weeks for them to be delivered, my swatch sticks had finally arrived and I couldn't wait to start swatching my stash.

I started by labelling all of my swatch sticks.  Five weeks ago, I had ordered 250 swatch sticks.  Unfortunately, it was not enough - I am about 20 short for my current stash and about 50 short for my incoming nail mail...  Ooops!

Thankfully, my awesome sister owns a label maker, so the labelling part was easy.  For those who are looking at using a label maker for their swatch sticks, I highly recommend you get 9mm wide labels.  I was working with 12mm wide labels at first and they were a bit too big so I had to trim them.  When I ran out of labels I bought the 9mm ones and they were PERFECT.

At first I was also stressing that my labels were white, not clear.  Well, white is the best.  It looks neat, is easy to read and I can write on the back how many coats were used without it showing through.  Gee, I stress about the silliest things!

I started by swatching my untrieds.  This way I can see what I have and decide better if I want to use it or not.  I only got through swatching my untrieds over the long weekend and plan on swatching the rest of my stash over the week long school holidays.

I am temporarily storing my swatch sticks in coffee cups.  I have bought some glasses that I will be storing them in.  I thought long and hard about how I would store/display them.  I didn't want to hang them off a ring or store them in a drawer.  I want them to be a part of my nail desk.  Part of the 'decoration'.  So I will be storing them in little glasses by colour.

After reading how other polish enthusiasts paint their swatch sticks, I decided to paint the underside of the swatch.  This way you can see how it would look with top coat without wasting heaps of top coat (the shine of the clear swatch).  I was a bit disappointed with some of them as the swatch seemed to not be as 'shiny' once painted.  Oh well.  First world problems. For some of the glitters in a milky/creamy base I ended up painting the top of the swatch as well as the underside.

I have ordered 250 more swatch sticks.  Hopefully they will last me the rest of the year!  I was reluctant to order from the same place I ordered from last time due to the long wait.  But I was worried if I ordered from else where that they swatch sticks wouldn't be the same.  So I ordered 150 from the same mob and 100 from a local mob from SA, just to see if their swatch sticks are the same.

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