Help Me Out Ok?

Okay, so this week I was playing around with polish, and I got to thinking, maybe those of you who read could give me advice on the best way to swatch! I mean, I know what I like to see, but what about you? I have to say, my favorite swatches are those done by Crystal over at Valentine Kisses (Like, click here to see one of her nail polish swatch posts - SO AWESOME!). She also has a couple of giveaways, so you should go enter those before they end on the 31st and next month on the 14th, I think. Anyway, thing is, I'm not sure I can DO such a great job, I'm kinda limited on how much time I have (no really, it must take her HOURS to do those!!!), and I'm not that great with the camera. So I thought I'd show you the two methods I'm most likely to use, and ask you to tell me which you like better.

Okay, the top of each picture is my original way of swatching, which involves doing one coat on the pinky, two on the ring finger, three on the middle finger, and four on the index finger. Then, if it's a sheer polish, I'll do a coat over black on my thumb. The bottom is basically a regular manicure type of swatch, and I'll tell you how many coats etc. This first picture is of my thumbs in both cases, one coat over black like my older method, and three coats over white just because. And it's side by side, but the rest will be top and bottom. Go me for being confusing, right? Muahaha! Oh yeah, this is LA Girls Zesty Citrus, and it does smell like citrus.

So, there are three pictures for you to compare, seeing them at different angles etc. Please don't forget you can click to embiggen the pictures so you can see them better.

I would like you to know for reference that in the bottom picture, it took me SIX coats to get that level of opacity, and as you can see, there is still plenty of VNL (visible nail line). Now, I'm pretty dead set against VNL on my own nails, so this is almost certainly only going to be a layering color for me (which is fine, as I love yellows and have tons of them to use as a base). But other people don't mind it, and in fact some folks LIKE it, so there you have it.

All of these pictures are taken under my OTT light, simply at different angles. These were taken the same night, but sometimes swatches are taken days apart, and using my OTT light seems to be the best way to keep things as uniform as possible so that you can see the "true" color. Of course, monitors vary and all that stuff. But in general, I think my pictures are fairly accurate in showing the color of things - and I tend to avoid tweaking in PaintShop as far as color goes. I'll always say if I've done anything like that.

Also, you might note that the swatches are in general 'messier' than the manicure type, because I try not to get even close to the cuticle with those so I don't have any cleanup to speak of. So, in terms of time spent, the top ones do go faster (especially when I need to use SO MANY COATS of the polish, like I had to with this).

So, do tell me please, which one do you think is better? I like the top ones for seeing how sheer or opaque a color is, but the bottom ones look more 'complete', so those are kinda equal in my head. The top ones definitely take less time overall, but not so much that it's a huge issue. And now, I'm going to grab the puppers, and crawl into bed. Hope you're having a wonderful weekend!