Sunday 6 October 2013

Indie Nailpolish Shopping Guide - where to start - e-tailers

My dear blogger friend Nati from the Polished Polygot got my brain into spinning mood by suggesting a list of must-have indies. Nati, I tell you I was racking my brain how I should come up with some decent suggestions. So rather than listing and showing simply some polishes, I composed some suggestions of how and where to go looking for Indies.

First things first - this post will be for those of my dear readers who might not have dived head-first into the indie nailpolish universe yet and might find themselves a tad overwhelmed by the flood of e-shops, polishes, posts and what have you. Of course I do not only buy the brands I listed in those shops but I listed those that I order exclusively with the respective e-tailer.

Now let's say you haven't yet started on buying Indies the current amount of shopping options must be overwhelming. There are the e-tailers, there is etsy and bigcartel - where to start? As a newbie I would suggest to have a look first with e-tailers. When I started buying Indies I went to

Llarowe

Leah Ann is offering an immense variety of Indie Brands and Exotic Brands and surfing through Llarowe's site gave me an impression of the vastness of the "land I was about to conquer". It gave me an idea of what's available out there with regard to sort of polish (glitter, holo, flakies, etc) and price ranges. The site is excellently maintained with accurate availability of products and I find it easy to navigate. One of the brands I ALWAYS get through Llarowe is Crows Toes.



Shipping might take up to two weeks but I so far NEVER experienced a damaged package or polish or that the shipment got lost - well this is certainly also due to the excellent Swiss Post ;-)!

Another very frequently visited e-shop of mine is the Candada based

Harlow & Co

- the official watering hole for all international KBShimmer fans. Katie from Harlow & Co offers a smaller range of brands than Llarowe but I really like her balance of cheaper and pricier brands. Katie's customer service is legendary and shopping with her pure pleasure. Up to today I always received my orders within the week - most of the time even within five days!!!!!!



And then of course I cannot skip

Pshiiit Boutique

which is based in France. Camille doesn't ship widely but luckily Switzerland is on her list. Pshiiit is where I get my Nfu Oh's and Butter London polishes from. The range of brands is a bit smaller than with Harlow & Co but Camille doesn't only offer polishes but also nail art tools and nail tattoos or nail wraps.


Last but certainly not least I also order from Singapore based

Mei Mei's Signatures

another huge range of brands and lots and lots more than nail polish but I sofar only ordered nail polish, so I cannot judge on any of the other offered products. I usually get Emily de Molly polishes from there. Delivery is awesomely fast if you consider Singapore being on the other side of the globe - my orders usually arrive within a week after placing the order.


These are the four e-tailers I use on a regular basis. There are others of course like Overall Beauty or Ninja Polish that also ship internationally. I have never ordered from them before but haven't heard anything negative about these two but only positive responses. The only reasons I never ordered there was an attempt at keeping my ordering habits under control. My Blogger friend Liesl from Liesl Loves Pretty Things has added in the comments another internationally operating e-tailer - I copy/paste that part of her comment here: That being said, may I add another name to the etailer list? Color4Nails is US based and fairly young, but ships internationally and offers a nice variety of Aussie and Brazilian indies as well as exotic brands... She also might be a good option to check for OPI and Essie. She sells both for $5.50 apiece USD.

I am living in Switzerland and this was influencing my preference for ordering from e-tailers from scratch. Switzerland is not member of the EU and therefore shipping fees might vary from the rest of Europe. Another reason why I am not so shy of paying the shipping fees are the generally very high retail prices of brands like Opi, Essie or China Glaze in Switzerland. Even if you pay up to USD 4 per bottle shipping fee, you still would pay less for a bottle of Indie nail polish than for a bottle of Opi which currently retails for about USD 25.00 in the stores. Essie and China Glaze are about as expensive.

I hope you found my introduction helpful - and if you know of any other excellent shops - well, I am always keen to learn about them ;-)!!!

6 comments:

  1. Oh gosh, I can't believe OPI and Essie and China Glaze are that expensive! I've been looking into indie polishes and been feeling a little overwhelmed, this was a very helpful post! Now I just need to figure out which ones to order... there are SO MANY gorgeous ones!

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    1. I am sooooo glad you found my post helpful!!!! I have planned some more of those coming in the next weeks - thank you so much for your supportive comment!!! And yes, it is quite outrageous what those Opis and pals cost here :-S

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  2. I totally enjoyed reading that, what an awesome idea to demystify the indie craze to the masses, especially for those of us feeling overwhelmed by the whole scene. I'm a little less than a year into my own exploration and I have to admit, ine international indie scene is even more appealing to me than the plethora of brands available in my own country (US). That being said, may I add another name to the etailer list? Color4Nails is US based and fairly young, but ships internationally and offers a nice variety of Aussie and Brazilian indies as well as exotic brands... She also might be a good option to check for OPI and Essie. She sells both for $5.50 apiece USD.

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    1. Hi sis - thank you so very much!!!! Oh wow - somehow I feel sooo tempted by all that stuff from the US - so much more variety than here….. or at least it seems so ;-)!!! But then there are those great Brazilian and Aussie brands….. I have copy/pasted your reference to Color4Nails into my post, knowing that many might not read the comments - I hope you don't mind…. xxx

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  3. This is a great post :) I like www.beautysofly.com, if you don't know about this shop, I would check it out :D

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    1. Thank you so much for your supportive comment - I will check out the shop and copy your suggestion into my post - OK? :-)

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