Things to do when your baby finally goes to sleep for an hour, number 2,134: sort out your nail polish collection. Obviously when you are slightly sleep-deprived the best thing to do when your baby sleeps is to try and get some sleep yourself,  but life doesn’t always work out that way. Either there are things that have to be done (cooking, bathing, basic grooming, essential admin) or there are things that don’t have to be done – ever – but suddenly seem really important. Such as arranging your lipsticks into little groups according to shade and/or finish, and sorting out your nail polish collection.

Four gorgeous, newly-discovered polishes here; from left to right in the photograph above there’s the pinky-nude, imaginatively-named “EX-11” from Suqqu, a gorgeous yellow-toned nude from Deborah Lippmann called Shifting Sands, the exclusive Nile polish from Kure Bazaar and She Said Yeah from new brand Smith & Cult.

I photographed the nail polish bottles the wrong way around (should have taken the nap!) so we now need to go from right to left. Everyone, about turn!

On the first finger, EX-11 from Suqqu. This looks to be sold out at Selfridges.com but I must say that I was incredibly impressed with the polish formula and finish. Glossy, easy to apply and relatively quick to dry. You can find Suqqu polishes online here.

On the second, the brilliant Shifting Sands from Deborah Lippmann. This was my favourite polish of the summer, but I was too preoccupied to get around to writing about it. Very different to the glut of lilac-y nudes that seem to dominate the polish market, this has a distinctly yellow undertone that I think is very chic and flattering. On my hands at least! It’s a top pick, for me, and though I think that it may be a limited edition for the summer, you can still find it online here – it’s £16. Applies like a dream, great longevity.

The Kure and Smith & Cult shades here are probably rather unexpected, if you’re a regular reader: I tend to balk at “colourful” nail polishes, preferring nudes and perhaps the odd red every now and then. (Much the same as my lipsticks, I suppose.) But as it’s the end of the summer – pessimists would say autumn – my skin has the slightest hint of a bronzed tint and so I was irresistibly drawn to these tan enhancing shades.

I really rate Kure Bazaar nail polishes – the formula is touted as being 85% natural, free of nasties, with a wood pulp, wheat, cotton, potato and corn base. This is the brand I used throughout my pregnancy if I needed to groom up my nails a bit. Though I still used it pretty infrequently – nail-painting fumes didn’t mix with nausea. Nile, the shade I have here, is a special edition for Fortnum & Mason.

Finally, a beautiful – and very Instagrammable – polish from new brand Smith & Cult. This shade She Said Yeah is the kind of perfect purpley-grey-blue I’d paint my front door if I lived in a cottage in Devon. It also happens to work a treat on fingernails. If the humungous lid makes you question how easy this is to apply, then fear not – it pulls off to reveal a smaller lid beneath it, which is far more practical for holding on to. You can find the Smith & Cult polishes, which all have the most brilliant names, at Net-a-Porter here – £19 each.