With spring around the corner, I have been wanting to simplify my closet, my makeup & beauty collection, and even my polishes. Basically, I’m on a decluttering kick! I’m sure you have a ton of nail polish in our collection too. I want to share some tips to help you declutter your polish collection, as well.

When I first started the process, I quickly realized that I had several duplicates of certain colors, just different brands. This was creating clutter. I knew I had to do a major polish purge, only keeping what wasn’t expired, what I truly love, and what I actually wear. I followed 3 simple steps that allowed me to get the full declutter done in under an hour. My little guy even chipped in to help me 🙂 .  

Nail Polish Decluttering Tips

Step 1:

Dump all polishes out on a white towel, quilt, or blanket and begin sorting by color family. I made a category for nail treatments and top coats, a nudes and neutrals category, and others for my blues, greens, pinks, pale purples, reds, neons, glitters, whites, blacks, and grays. This is the step where you’ll see what you buy most, helping you see a pattern for what you like – hints to what your style is. It also helps you see clearly what you have that is too similar to others in your collection.

For example, doing this helps me to notice that I have very few light purple/lilac-y shades, but tons of colors in the pink family. Probably because I don’t particularly care for the way most of the lilacs look on my skin tone. The few I do have are more muted down, not so much pastel. This tells me that next time I’m shopping for polish, maybe I should skip this type of color all together. I can see that by only having 3 of these shades, compared to a bunch of another category, obviously I don’t gravitate towards them when shopping (or use them that much for that matter), so they aren’t truly reflective of my style.

***Here is what my color families looked like. I started out making my color family categories using my faux fur throw, and then switched to a white comforter to make it easier to decipher what colors I want to keep. The white helps you to see each color, reading its true hue, allowing you to accurately compare.

Step 2:

After sorting by color, take a look and see what looks pretty much the same in your stash. We want to downsize the amount of duplicates in the collection. Bare nails during this step is best, in case you want to actually apply some side by side to compare. Keep only your favorites and push any of the duplicate colors you have and don’t need to the side for the next step.

Step 3:

After sifting through the polishes you want and don’t want, make 3 piles:

• A pile for what you are keeping in your collection
• A pile for what you can donate or offer to family and friends
• A pile for what needs to be thrown out because it is expired

This is the hard part! Just try to be really honest with yourself: if you haven’t worn it in at least a year, time to toss it or give it away!

I was able to see that I had lots of shades that were similar in this color family, so I gave away some and kept only what I loved. Here’s what I kept. China Glaze Lubu Heels is one of my faves during the colder months! No way was this going to leave my collection! A lot of these may look really similar in the bottle but once on nails, they aren’t 🙂 .

Sticking to the rule, I trashed the expired bottles and made a baggie full of the polishes the are still good but aren’t for me anymore. These can be given away to family and friends who want to look through it and maybe find some new shades to try.

Taking an honest look at your collection and clearing out what no longer fits your style, what you have a ton of, what has expired, or you’ve hardly worn really helps eliminate clutter and help you to refine your style. You will even see the gaps in your collection clearly, now able to know what shades you want to add to it.

Decluttering really cuts down on the time it takes to get ready because you are left with only the things you love! Whether its clothes, shoes, polishes, or makeup and beauty products you’ll cut down on the amount of time shopping for new things because you now have a clear picture of what all you actually need.

I hope you got some good decluttering tips from this post! What are some of your decluttering tips?

I’m on the hunt for a good polish organizer for my more refined collection. If anyone knows of a good one, please share!