Melmer Gives Me Hell

Hey folks. Just editing some pix and trying to catch up.

I found this photo in a batch of pix that I forgot about and thought I'd share:

Not the "happy stash" photo, eh?

Last September I pulled out a drawer full of glitters from my Melmer three-drawer cube that was sitting on top of a Helmer and the drawer slid further down and....Ker-boom!

For anyone who isn't sure of the odd nominclature, a Helmer is a six-drawer cabinet that holds nail polish to perfection. It's made by Ikea and runs $39. Stands about 27" high and is like a skinny filing cabinet. For the footprint it holds a "damn lot" of polish. I rough counted ninety bottles in one drawer. It's made of some sort of steel and painted in a choice of red, white (eggshell), or silver/gray.

The design is true to its Northern European roots: austere, practical, and evocative of short gloomy days under a sunless sky. Unless you adore modernism, then it's got the sniff of military perfunctory about it, which as a military brat always holds about as much charisma as a breezeblock fence.

This, I will admit, is my own aesthetic, which leans toward the baroque.

A Melmer is a three drawer storage made of pressed wood product, meaning resin/glue/wood, and is white with prettily accented drawer pulls. Melmer is a shorthand of "Micheal's Helmer" from the MUA Nail Board, it really is designed to hold paper for scrapbooking. It's easily found at Michaels and often there is a 50% coupon, which means it's roughly the same price per drawer as a Melmer. ($35 regular price)

It holds more bottles per drawer than a Helmer. (In my Helmer, my glitter collection is three drawers, in a Melmer it's two), but it also has another nice feature: it can handle tall-handle nail polish. I admit that I can squeeze my Sally Hansen old bottles with the tall handles and matching caps in a couple at a time, but only a Melmer can handle the tall caps with ease. I think this also goes for some other brands that I can't think of at this writing. One other consideration is that the Melmer will show wear sooner than the Helmer.

So, the cons of the Helmer are design (this is more subjective, I suppose) and the cons of the Melmer are construction (I also suppose if I was more careful...Oh, and the design isn't that fresh, either).

Each, does, however, have it's pros: the Helmer holds a lot, and I mean a lot, of nail polish. I sometimes am amazed at the almost boundless resources of room inside one of those things. Melmers, too, are pretty cavernous.

The break ultimately means that this drawer is their for show only. I did manage to push the nails back in and glue it, but I can feel that it's really not up to even being opened, much less nail polish.

I remember once seeing a 9 drawer Helmer while browsing the internet...I've yet to find it again. Like a mystical creature that loomed in the fog of pixels and was gone, it haunts me. And I still haven't seen it again. Was I hallucinating?
Hmm.

Thanks for reading my nail polish journal!

P.S. I also believe Target has a scrapbooking three-drawer cube. I think it's called a Telmer, but I haven't seen one, nor can I find one online.
:D