*Before we begin, I need to state that this post is not sponsored in any way or form. I just really like this app and wanted to share it with anyone else who may need it in their life!

Any avid collector of nail polish knows what the struggle it is to maintain their nail polish collections. The more nail polish you own, the harder it is to keep track of what polishes you already have. I'll go shopping and find a nail polish that I like, bring it home, and realize that it's a shade that I already own. I used to take pictures of my swatch boards back when my collection was manageable, which helped when I was trying to figure out if I owned similar shades. But now that I own somewhere between 250-300 polishes, I'm apprehensive to buy a lot of polishes because I don't remember if I already own them or not.

So I decided to browse the internet for an app that would help me keep track of what I own. I mean sure, I can keep a list of all the polishes and shades that I own in the notes app on my phone. But I'm a visual. I also wanted to be able to search my polishes by colours, finish, textures, etc as well.

I found two apps that seemed to be what I was searching for. The first is Nail Polish Book and the second is Glossy.

At first, Nail Polish Book seemed okay, but I wasn't able to add subcategories to search by. So I downloaded Glossy instead, which started to be love at first site... until I realized the app was free with "in app purchases". The purchases honestly aren't that expensive, but I don't like having to pay to use a full app. Without the in app purchases you can only store 5 polishes... and when you have 250+ polishes that isn't very helpful. I did like the features in Glossy though. You are able to store four images for each polish which made it extremely helpful to view the polish, the swatch, and any nail art that you've created with the polish. To increase the lookbook and add more pictures, the price is $2.79USD to unlock. The price to add unlimited polishes to your collection (which is 100% necessary if you own more than 5 polishes) is also $2.79. However, if you wanted to fully unlock all the features, the price is a mere $3.99 (which saves you $1.59). Honestly, for $4, that's a pretty good deal to keep track of your excessive nail polish collection!

Screen shots of the Glossy app from the App Store for iOS

But what if you don't want to pay money at all for in app purchases? What if you want to use an app that is entirely free?

After I realized that Glossy wasn't a completely free app, I went back to Nail Polish Book. After playing around with it for a bit, I realized that there is no need for subcategories. The app allows you to add certain features about each polish: the shade, brand, and collection. It also allows you to add comments for each polish, and you can use the comments section as a search tool! So let's say I want to add Sidewalk Psychic by Color Club to my collection and I want to be able to search it by two key words: "red" and "holographic". I make the shade "red" and add the word "holographic" to the comments section. Then voila! When I search either word, the polish will come up in my search results. The only thing that I wish I could change about Nail Polish Book would be the ability to add more than one picture for each polish, which means that Glossy is more helpful in that aspect. But I'd rather go for Nail Polish Book because it's completely free.

Screen shots of the Nail Polish Book app from the App Store for iOS

The one thing I'll note is that if you have giant collections of nail polish, compiling your inventory is going to be extremely time consuming ⎼ especially if you hate typing things out on your phone. And while I could just take pictures of my polishes myself, I want the images to look uniform. So I've been scouring the internet for stock photos of the polishes I own. This has been proving to be a difficult task as a lot of the polishes that I own are old, discontinued, indie, or not sold online (or the images that I find online are terribly pixelated). Another downfall is that both apps are only available for iOS devices, so they won't be compatible for anyone with Samsung, Huawei, Sony, or other non-Apple devices.

I'm extremely grateful to have found the Nail Polish Book app. The next time I go shopping and I'm unsure of if I already own a polish or not, I can consult my app! This is going to be so helpful. I'm never going to have to call my fiancé while I'm shopping again, and be like, "Babe. Do me a favour and go to the nail polish shelf. Go to the Color Club section on the top shelf. Go through them all and let me know if I already own Cherubic. It's a holo. Kinda browny-gold. Yes this is important. No, it can't wait. Babe, please. I need to know if I should buy this polish while it's here at Winners for $4 or if I should just come home. Ugh, it's not that hard. I only have like 10 of these holos for you to go through. You know what, fine. I'll just buy it anyways. Thanks for the help." Click. And trust me, I have had this conversation with him. He puts up with my nail polish nonsense so much! This app is going to be a life saver.