9 Reasons To Swatch Your Nail Polish Collection
Photo of white and pink nail polish swatch sticks by Lots of Lacquer Team
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Swatch sticks are a perfect solution for easier and faster color selection.
You can swatch multiple nail colors at once by lining up bottles to be swatched in a row and your swatch sticks in front of the bottle. Do one coat of color.
By the time you get to the last bottle in the row, the first bottle in the row will be dry. Do your second coat. Repeat for a third coat if necessary.
There’s usually no need for a base or top coat on your swatch sticks, unless you are swatching gel colors. Some, not all, gel colors are sticky without a top coat; in which case, finish with a top coat on your swatch.
We use a brand / color name labeling system, however, some people assign a number, which corresponds to the matching line item in their inventory spreadsheet.
The choice is yours for labeling method.
Swatching your nail polish collection goes quickly, but if you have a larger collection, you’ll want to plan to dedicate several evenings to the project until your collection is fully swatched.
Because there is a time and monetary investment in swatching your collection and in acquiring the sticks, you may be wondering what the benefits of swatching your collection are.
Below, find 9 benefits of swatching your nail polish collection on swatch sticks:
Photo of white and pink nail polish swatch sticks by Lots of Lacquer Team with text overlay 9 Reasons To Swatch Your Nail Polish Collection
1 - Get To Know Your Collection
You use swatch sticks to showcase your collection one plastic fingernail per bottle, which allows you to really see what you have in one small space.
Seeing your swatches in a small space can show you immediately what colors you have an abundance of, where your color gaps are, which brands you prefer and where you may want to thin things out.
2 - Quality Control
Weed out the duds. When you swatch your entire collection with swatch sticks, you can easily identify which bottles have gone past their prime and need to be tossed due to the polish’s texture when it is applied.
It gives you the opportunity to tend to the bottles you want to save and for those you don’t, declutter your collection in one go.
3 - Improve Your Color Selection & Offering Efficiency
When you use swatch sticks to organize your polish collection by color, you can easily identify any identical colors you have - these may be favorites as you bought them more than once.
Simply look at your side-by-side colors.
If you’re a collector, knowing what your comparable colors are is pinpointing your favorites and showing you where to hold off on buying for a while.
If you’re a nail professional, you can use your color matches for showcasing color comparisons or offering your guests similar shades to branch into.
4 - Organize Your Inventory
When you swatch your nail polish collection on swatch sticks, you may also be motivated to organize your collection, by color, season, or which ones you’ve tried.
5 - Easily Search What You Have
Rather than opening every drawer in every corner of your nail polish storage system, when you have swatch sticks, you can go to your swatch rings to see what you have.
This is great for identifying potential seasonal nail art color options and planning your upcoming color buying.
6 - Management Of Your Untrieds
Get through your backlog.
If you have a significant number of untried colors, swatching them officially turns them into trieds. You can find out once and for all if the color looks as good on the nail as it does in the bottle.
7 - Better Accounting
When you swatch all your polishes, you can also count how many bottles you have.
This is great for your accounting systems. Knowing what you have in stock can be beneficial for insurance purposes as well as business purposes.
8 - Get Inspiration
As you swatch your collection, you’ll likely get fun ideas for color combinations and nail art that could be cute.
It can release any artist’s block you have, generating new ideas using the raw materials you have on hand.
9 - Sharpen Your Eye For Color
When you swatch your collection, you can immediately differentiate between two shades you may have previously thought very similar.
This can help with comparisons, and as iGel Beauty writes, with immediately identifying contrasting colors for pedicures, nail art or accent nails.
Photo of white and pink nail polish swatch sticks by Lots of Lacquer Team
All in all, nail swatch sticks are beneficial for organizing your nail polish collection, identifying comparable colors, improving your collecting efficiency, weeding out the duds, creative inspiration and more.
To swatch your collection, you’ll need swatching supplies.
Swatch sticks usually come in clear or off-white. We prefer clear swatch sticks to off-white, as clear gives a more accurate depiction of each color’s true opacity and underlying tones.
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