In your opinion, what are the good colors?

July 17, 2023 1:23 PM

Please join me in overthinking a hoard of nail polish.

Obsessively cataloging my nail polish collection is a thing I do for fun. I've got a spreadsheet and everything. That said, I've gone from about 200 to 300 bottles in the last year, and my (lack of a) color naming scheme has become intractable.

What I would like is to have a set list of colors and chunk everything into one of those so I can sort easily.

I'm currently using things like "mint" and "olive" but I think I would be better served by something like "green (light)" and "green (muted)" so I can alpha sort and get all of my greens at once.

A complexity is that so many of my polishes are shifties that I'm capturing primary, secondary, and tertiary color story for a lot of them. So having separate columns for color and tone wouldn't work.

I assume this is a problem that's already been solved by artists/color theorists (I've looked at the coding convention for, for example, copic markers, etc), but I haven't found something that vibes with me yet. (By the way, what even is pink???)

I have polishes in every color, in every tone, and basically I'm looking for a way to simplify my color categories as much as possible.

If YOU were doing this, how would you do it?

(I am already tracking the polish effect(s), this is about color only, but if you have a Grand Unifying Theory of All Polish I would love to hear it.)

Thanks!

posted by phunniemee to Grab Bag (33 answers total)

I'm a nerd, but I'd probably use RGB hex codes. Pantone might also be helpful, although is it proprietary? I don't know.
posted by kevinbelt at 1:49 PM on July 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

Can you concatenate primary, secondary and tertiary so that itself is the label?

Is there any other factor that matters to you, like seasonality or vibe or mood that you could use to help sort them into useful buckets?

Like 'professional vibe' or 'vacation' or 'pure unrelenting nihilism'?

I know math is the answer and people will come by with RGB etc. but I guess it would help to know - is the scientific aspect what you are looking for, or is it the use case? Prescriptive or descriptive?

Is this just for the spreadsheet or does it also apply to storage?
posted by A Terrible Llama at 1:50 PM on July 17, 2023

I think Pantone's proprietary but there are calculators where if you know the RGB value you can return the Pantone number. Or the hex. Think you can do the same with paints, like Sherwin Williams.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 1:51 PM on July 17, 2023

If it were me, I would buy nix color sensor and use that to code each color. But do keep in mind that I have been looking for an excuse to buy a nix color sensor for some time. But that' won't help you with the shifties.
posted by OrangeDisk at 1:53 PM on July 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

Fountain Pen Companion (a site for cataloging fountain pen and ink collections) has a certain adjacent quality to this request, and I think they use hex codes by default.
posted by zamboni at 1:53 PM on July 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: but I guess it would help to know

What I think I want is a few (maybe ~10?) plain English word descriptions for color families (red, blue, yellow, teal(?), fuchsia(???), ??????) to pair with a few plain English word descriptions for tone (light, dark, bright(?), ????) so I can easily sort and group all my pastels or all my neons or all my oranges. I just don't know what these words are, and I want an all-encompassing set to choose from since I'm going to recategorize everything from scratch.

I definitely don't want number/letter codes.

...I may have to add a new (unrelated to color) column for vibe 😎
posted by phunniemee at 1:59 PM on July 17, 2023 [6 favorites]

I would borrow the color categories that a nail polish manufacturer uses - Essie, OPI. Looks like that could get you in the range of 10-15 categories.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:04 PM on July 17, 2023 [4 favorites]

the Crayola Explore Color page starts with the hues of black, blue, brown, green, orange, red, purple, and yellow and then offers specific crayon-specific names that relate to those.
posted by zachxman at 2:07 PM on July 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

As a consumer, I find Zoya's filters really helpful, although it sounds like something along the lines of "pastel, muted, neon, bright" might work better for you for tone than their "cool, warm, neutral."
posted by EvaDestruction at 2:22 PM on July 17, 2023

With the caveat that my wife and I own a nail art salon/e-comm site, and so we have significantly more product to deal with, but I suggest first sorting by brand and then collection before you even get to color. Knowing you are grabbing a Chanel La Vernis lacquer vs a Kokoist soak-off soft gel vs a ICEGEL sparkly gel is more of a consideration than looking at all your "oranges" in one place.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 2:22 PM on July 17, 2023 [7 favorites]

Buy a pocket color wheel (you can buy this at most art and/or craft stores - doesn't have to be this particular version but this happens to be the one I like and use most) - use the names on the color wheel.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 2:34 PM on July 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

Old school? Fountain pen ink collectors buy/make swatch cards that go on a key ring. Brand-Type-Color and then a blob of color. The advantage is that you can spread them out on the table, easily sort and resort by category, and see at a glance where your gaps are. And making swatch cards is immensely satisfying.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 2:35 PM on July 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

I've got my polishes (about 400 of them) sorted into regular or gel, then by color family.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 2:36 PM on July 17, 2023

Response by poster: then by color family

Right, I guess my question is what are the color families that would be most useful, if the obvious ones don't feel like they work for me.

For example, pink isn't on the color wheel. I am overrun with colors I would call fuchsia and teal, which the color wheel would probably call red-violet and blue-green. Nail polish companies seem to believe nudes and corals are statistically distinct, but in my personal taste/collection they'd probably make more sense as a subset of a broader color family, but what, I don't know. "Orange (warm)"?? ..?

I am seeking words.

Here's the situation, which I'm mostly happy with, and here's a glimpse at the spreadsheet, which I'm mostly happy with except my current words for colors aren't being useful to me right now. (I have also decided I will be adding "vibe" because that's going to be a very good use of my recreational time.)
posted by phunniemee at 2:57 PM on July 17, 2023 [7 favorites]

I use the names on the outside of the color wheel: blue, blue-violet, violet, red-violet, red, red-orange, orange, yellow-orange, yellow, yellow-green, green, blue-green.

If I can't figure out where something goes I spin the inner wheel around to find the closest match and group it there. So I have pinks that fall under red and red-violet. If I wanted more exact names for a spreadsheet I'd use something like this crayola crayon color names chart (with hex and rgb)

In the case of nudes I have a ton that get filed under red, red-orange, orange, yellow-orange, yellow and red-violet.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 3:27 PM on July 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

Maybe "Color Me Beautiful" style color seasons would help? Or at least, the words people use to describe the colors. This paper has some charts that list some common terms (light, clear, muted) with a description in terms of hue, saturation, and value.
posted by Baethan at 4:21 PM on July 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Here's my super simplistic color charting - blues (the best color) summer. Oranges for fall. Bloody monkey toes (any shade of red/thus named for my sloppy painting skills) for winter/spring. Ta da!

(I love this ask)
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 4:26 PM on July 17, 2023 [3 favorites]

Maybe something like "opalescent" or "multi" for your "can't pin it down" bottles?
posted by DebetEsse at 4:42 PM on July 17, 2023

There are really common pigments used for commercial colors, and they are referred to by color index number so the users can definitively match ratios. The most common coal tar pigments used for nail polish would probably be: Phthalocyanine Blue, Quinacridone Red, Dioxazine Violet, Phthalocyanine Green, Azo Yellow, Titanium White, Zinc White. All of these will have a consistent color index numbers that you can look up fairly easily.

What is pink? Your pink is likely a Quinacridone Red mixed with either Titanium White or Zinc White. Titanium is very opaque and used in a lot of cosmetics from face powders to sun screens to nail polish.

Your nail polish could have a list of pigments and index numbers on the manufacturer's web site.

Consider which colors look good with your skin tone. For example, there is a Yellow Shade Red (Quinacridone Red and Azo Yellow) that I do not like with my skin tone and a Blue Shade Red (Quinacridone Red naturally reflects in the blue spectral Range) that I prefer much more. Pyrrole Red is another coal tar red pigment that naturally reflects as a Yellow Shade Red and I would not choose it for a lipstick or nail polish.

Color Index numbers and ratios would be a standardized way to organize the colors according to shade position on the color wheel and bypass all of the obscure and vague marketing names.Pink will be on a standard color wheel under tints of red.

Facial powders use earth based pigments rather than coal tar pigments. Garments are dyed with coal tar pigments. It's a really worth learning a few of these pigments because they are used industrially for a lot of applications. I hope this is helpful.
posted by effluvia at 5:28 PM on July 17, 2023 [4 favorites]

Maybe take a look at a few different color space models and see if any of them jibe with you and/or your collection? RGB is a lot more difficult than something like HSL. Of course, it’s hard to compare computer screen RGB colors to real world colors.

Usually folks attack clustering problems using labels that provide maximum separation between categories. Like as a toy example, “warm” vs “cool” is a good separator when there’s a range from red to blue, but less so when everything is green.

I guess practically I’d do something like forcing myself to perceptually divide them in two groups of roughly equal size. Look at each group and say: “can I put one all-encompassing label on this group? Is that label sufficiently specific for my uses?” Maybe for you that’s shifty and non-shifty, or warm and cool, or neutral and saturated. If you can’t a clear and specific label on each group, divide each group again. Or maybe shift some from one group to another when you start putting names to the groups.

In other words, I’d do this bottom-up instead of top-down; I think the perfect color system will be more influenced by the diversity/distribution of your polishes than anything else.

Categorization of colors is fascinating and super culturally relative. Perception and naming of colors influence each other on an anthropological level. Maybe the Berinmo 5 color model speaks to you, or the Tsimane “black, white, red”.
posted by supercres at 5:44 PM on July 17, 2023

I start with the caveat that I know nothing about nail polish other than my daughter used to ask me to paint her nails when she was young(er). She provided the polish. Great fun, lots of giggling, but no knowledge of colors or color schemes, etc. Having said that and having taken a glance at your spreadsheet screenshot, there does not seem to be an expiration date column. Do nail polishes expire or separate or dry up over time? If so, if it is between two reds, maybe using the older one first might be a consideration.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 5:57 PM on July 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

Might be interesting to use Werner’s Nomenclature of Colors and fancy yourself a naturalist.
posted by oomny at 5:57 PM on July 17, 2023

Response by poster: Do nail polishes expire

nope
posted by phunniemee at 6:00 PM on July 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

On my NP spreadsheet, I use the following terms in the 'color' field: white, black, grey, pink, red, blue, green, white, nude, purple, yellow, orange, multi, taupe, bronze, gold, silver, brown. I then use the 'description' field for things like 'dusty medium pink' (I have a separate field for finish) or 'pale sparkly champagne gold'.

If I can identify a primary color in a duo-/multichrome, I call it that; if I really can't, I go with multi. It doesn't matter much to me what color I end up putting in the spreadsheet, since I have pretty much never used the 'color' field for anything. If I'm trying to decide on something to wear by color, I'll generally pull out my swatch wheels, which are organized by color, instead of the spreadsheet. The colors from the spreadsheet do more or less correspond to my swatch wheels, although those combine a few of those such as white/black/grey, yellow/orange/brown, metallic, toppers, while I separate pinks into light and dark (because I have so many).
posted by lysimache at 6:31 PM on July 17, 2023

In my brief time in oil painting, I've learned you can pretty much organize any color into the color wheel. Red [warm/cool], yellow [warm/cool], orange [warm/cool], green [warm/cool], blue [warm/cool], purple [warm/cool]. And then a white-black scale. E.g., warm red - mostly white. warm red - high saturation. warm red - mostly black.

Since this is nail color, I would add in a category for something like metallics [gold, silver, copper, brass] or something like clear with glitter and such.
posted by ellerhodes at 7:00 PM on July 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

Squint at the polish. What color stands out? That’s your base/main color. Don’t go crazy — keep the options limited (both fuchsia and lavender fall under “purple.”) You could use the points around the color wheel as your categories. Then from there either assign secondary and tertiary colors. Or you could start with the main color then classify it with a vibe—like bright, murky, neon, pastel. Then you could have a category for special properties like glitter, iridescent, holographic, etc. Another category could be type of polish (e.g. jelly). It wouldn’t hurt to look at your favorite/top 5 polish companies and get inspiration from their categories and systems because your polishes will probably mainly be from them.

Here’s a historic color classification that you may find inspiring.
posted by Bunglegirl at 7:46 PM on July 17, 2023

Ah, now I see your comment with the screenshot. I don’t see a “favorite” or rating system. You could rate them 1-5 stars for example.

what are the color families that would be most useful
I personally would arrange them physically in a rainbow corresponding to the color wheel. But what it most useful to you is how you use them. When you think of it that way, maybe your favorites are grouped together. Or every day vs special occasion. A category for “next up” or want to try. I often think of polish colors as going with a particular season. A bright pink reads summer and a pale less saturated pink might read as autumn. How do you use them?
posted by Bunglegirl at 7:55 PM on July 17, 2023

Best answer: I think it would be ok to have three columns for primarily, secondary, tertiary hues. Then you can do stuff like search for green undertones that are not primarily green!

As you know, color theory is bonkers, both because it's so complex and also because it's sort of 'unsolved' and there are many competing schemes.

For nomenclature past your primary/undertone layer, I suggest reading up on HSV, Hue, saturation, value. Hue is what you'd maybe call the color family, and the others are for dialing it in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSL_and_HSV
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:09 PM on July 17, 2023

Best answer: My grand unifying plan of cataloging nail polish is to use Airtable. It's a relational database, and the free plan is more than sufficient to cover your collection. There are many field types; mine includes photos, multi-select fields for colors, finishes, and special effects. My base includes a table of my polishes and another of stamping plates, but also one of manicures I've done, where I can link which polishes I used and gather fun data like how many times I've used each polish.

You can save views with various sort & filter settings; one of my favorite is a rainbow sort (possible since my color field is set up in rainbow order). You can also have gallery views of photos, with cards you can click on to get more info. I could go on about this forever; it's incredibly customizable.

You can copy/paste an existing spreadsheet in to get started, so it's pretty quick and easy to try out. I'm also happy to send a link to mine if you want to check it out.

Here's my color list, if it helps. I basically use the color names I would use to refer to them, whether I'd
Red
Orange
Peach/neutral
Yellow
Green
Teal
Blue
Purple
Magenta
Pink
Black
Grey
White
Silver
Gold
Copper/Bronze
Clear/sheer
Rainbow
posted by ktkt at 8:32 PM on July 17, 2023 [6 favorites]

Check out the nail polish categories and tags at Pretty Woman NYC.
Main categories are: Pinks & Reds; Blue, Green & Purples; Black, Gray & Whites; Yellow, Gold, & Oranges; Nude Shades.

On the "Yellow, Gold, & Oranges" page, additional sorting by Brown (1); Gold (4); Orange (6); Pink (2); Yellow (3)

The three yellows:
I Speak French... Fries, "A pale yellow pantone nail polish" (tags include: bright yellow; pale yellow; pantone; PW0947; yellow)
Overrated, "A bright neon yellow nail polish" (tags include: bright yellow; bright yellow neon; hot yellow; neon)
Private Jet, "A bright yellow shimmer nail polish" (tags include: bright yellow; bright yellow neon; hot yellow; neon; lemon; sparkle; yellow shimmer)
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:46 PM on July 17, 2023

I own a lot of polish and I'd do what ktkt suggested, with or without Airtable.

Shifters and flakies I'd just categorize as shifters and flakies, probably, but you could make notes in a list of names like "Temptation (r/g/b)." That would go under the Flakies category. Other than that I'd just do green, red, pink, blue, etc. Your needs to break this down into more granular color categories may be different than mine: I'd stick mint and forest into the same category.
posted by verbminx at 2:15 PM on July 18, 2023

My experience has been that old polish lasts decades (and counting). But the new formulations, without the toxins in them, last less than a year before they get harder to apply. Am I doing something wrong?
posted by equipoise at 11:38 PM on July 19, 2023

Hey equipoise, if your polishes are getting harder to apply because they are thickening, try this two-pronged approach. (Though I personally have not really noticed a difference on this front between my few old polishes and those in the stupidly large collection I have amassed in the last 3 years or so.)

1) Prevent thickening by cleaning the bottle neck after using a polish and make sure the cap is on tight. Bits of dried-on polish can prevent a good seal, and then the solvents in the polish can gradually evaporate, leaving the polish much thicker and goopier. If one is really bad, you may also need to carefully clean out inside the bottle cap as well. I used a pointed cotton swap or a lint-free wrap around an orangewood stick.

I'm pretty careful with my own polishes, but a) some need cleaning on arrival, if a bottle was filled super full, and b) if I do nails with friends, especially multiple people at once, I always make sure to do a round of bottle cleanups before putting away everything we used. People who aren't down my deep nail polish rabbit hole are typically not as meticulous as I am, and they'll frequently get a bit of polish on the lip of the bottle. It's no big deal, just needs a quick cleanup wipe.

2) Almost every polish can be saved after thickening happens by gradually adding nail polish thinner. A solid bet is one containing only butyl acetate and ethyl acetate, since these two ingredients are in virtually every nail polish, so you don't risk messing with the formulation much.

--

A final note that you are probably already paying attention to, but just in case: make sure to give polishes a good shake to mix them up before using. Some pigments and bases tend to separate easily, but a vigorous shake should whip it back into shape if that's the only issue.
posted by ktkt at 1:17 PM on July 25, 2023