Hello 2017! I can’t wait for this year honestly. I’ll be graduating college, traveling Europe with my 2 best friends, and then moving to Chicago to find a real adult job. It’s going to be crazy, but I can’t wait! Bring on 2017!

So I figured since it’s the start of a new year, it’s only fitting to make my first post of 2017 my nail story! This is the story of how I’ve gotten to the crazy nail polish hoarder I am today. I wasn’t always like this, I swear.

Now as a young child, I always like playing with nail polish. I honestly have no idea where that came from, as my mom never wore it. She’s a nurse, so the constant hand-washing all day every day just wears polish off her hands like no other. So my nail polish was just probably me finding one bottle and just going nuts.

I remember 2 colors I used to have for sure. I have no idea what brand they’re from, and I’m sure they’re long gone by now. But one was a sheer milky pink color, while the other was a bright pink fuchsia. They were in the weirdest shaped bottles, but whatever. I also had a singular OPI, back before I even knew how hyped OPI was. It was just a pretty silver color to me. So my nail polish collection back then was pretty standard – random 6 bottles of polish that I would randomly grab and use every so often.

I remember always wanting to paint my cousin’s nails too – hey there Ellen. So it was obvious that I had a polish hoarder hidden away deep down inside me from birth.

I don’t remember that much after that – until college. My freshmen year, I met my friend Molly. Now Molly had the nail polish stash that everyone wanted. She had a container full of all the colors you could ever want, and I would often go to her room to paint my nails. Maybe I should blame Molly for this?

I also got a job at Starbucks at the end of the year, and would work there for my entire sophomore year and summer after. Now during this time, I couldn’t wear nail polish on my hands because there’s a chance of it chipping in the drinks. So I couldn’t really wear nail polish that often. My friend Sam would tell me she could tell when I wasn’t working for a couple days because I would paint my nails.

But then, before Thanksgiving of my junior year I got my current job in the Marketing department, where I could paint my nails freely as I wanted.

And then I went nuts.

I had my final shift at Starbucks, and went home for Christmas break, and I WENT HAM. Oh my god I bought so many nail polishes.

I think there was something in me that just clicked and I was like, I need to buy everything and put it on my nails. I went to my Rite-aid and just found every discount nail polish I could. I think that was when I started watching nail polish videos? Who knows. But I packed up all my nail polish and headed back to school.

I tried to start a makeup blog a couple of times, and each time it just dropped off. I would honestly try to do it in “secret”, which cracks me up when I think about it now. I would quick take photos of products when my roommates weren’t home, and hurry and put everything back when I saw them coming home. Weird.

I would post nail swatches on Snupps every so often, even before I started my blog. I saw nail blogs and I loved the idea. I just didn’t know how to start, or rather, how to keep up a blog.

From my Snupps:

Pre-clean up era.

From January 16, 2016 to January 3, 2017.

Oh my gosh look at those lil’ stubs. The rough cuticles, the uneven nails, and awkward hand positions. I love looking and seeing how far I’ve come. It was weird that the day I decided to do this, before I started, I just put on the same polish. Maybe it’s my January polish.

Fast forward to the summer before my senior year. I moved into a new apartment with my best friend Sam and I’m just livin’ life. I don’t exactly remember what spurred me to do it, I think because I got the L’Oreal gold dust polishes and all of a sudden I realized I could do a nail polish blog. So I made that first post.

And 6 months, and 300+ polishes later, here I am. I can’t wait to see where this goes, and I’ve loved every second of it.

I’ve learned that no matter what, you just gotta start. It might be scary, but you never learn anything until you just start. Can’t wait to see what 2017 has in store for me.

What’s your nail polish story?