Decluttering My Nail Polish Collection

If you're a regular round Dainty Ditsy, you'll most likely have seen my fair few posts I've done over the two years (TWO YEARS?!) I've been posting round these parts about storing, decluttering and generally what's inside my nail polish collection. If you haven't - you can find them here, here, here and here - but today I wanted to drop in with yet another episode of 'April attempts to streamline her nail polish stash - but doesn't do a very good job of it'. Recently, my nail polish collection has got rather out of hand (but really, when wasn't it?) so I wanted to do a well-overdue sort through everything and see just whether I can downsize it a little. I also thought it'd make for a good opportunity to show you lovely lot just what my current display is comprised of - and give the whole thing a good clean in the process. But don't worry, I won't show you that...

As you can see in the 'Before' section of the above photo - things were starting to get rather cramped in my nail polish storage system and I knew that if I didn't have a good ol' clear-out pretty soon, there would be no more room left at the inn. I knew that it wouldn't be too much of a drastic thing as generally, the majority of my shades are completely unique to each other - whether that be in colour, formula or finish - but there were some I felt I could say goodbye to. I also wanted to get rid of some of my older Barry M lacquers. I know - but hear me out on this one. While I love the shades, the old style of brush that the brand used to use (as did many others back in the day) isn't the type which I can fully get along with anymore. Somehow I used to manage but now, having been exposed to so many polishes with that wide, flat, curved at the edges style of applicator - it just ain't happening. After so many months of keeping these polishes in my stash simply due to my love of the shades, I've resolved to put them to a side for now, get into Boots as soon as possible and hope and pray that they've changed the brush style across their whole range. If so, I'll repurchase all of them (if not, at least my favourites) - great news for me, not so much for my bank balance. If not - maybe I might just have to reintroduce them into my collection and try to become better friends with the old school applicator once more. True #FirstWorldProblems right there. I also parted ways with a couple of other polishes which just aren't up my street - for good. It sounds like a pitiful amount, but when I was getting all serious about it, there were no others which stood out to me as being either past-it formulas, dupes of one another or simply not to my taste anymore. I've left the Barry M Mani Mask in 'Birthday Suit' go, as while I really wanted to love this product when I got it a fair few months ago - promising both an intense treatment and a hit of unifying colour - the matte finish and wishy-washy pigment just doesn't do it for me. I've also said goodbye to the Barry M Silver Glitter as I've actually got another in my collection which fits the 'silver shimmer' bill, while being a lot more opaque and textured and so I can't really see a use for this anymore.

So, as it stands, my current collection is looking a lot more streamlined and decluttered than it was - even though some of those banished lacquers may end up re-entering my stash at some point in the near future. Who knows, eh?