Thursday 26 December 2013

Polished Marvels Review of 2013 Part II - Indie Brands

On to Part II of the review of my nail polish year 2013 (Part I you can see here). Today's post is all about Indie Brands. Over the course of this year, I gradually started to buy more and more Indies and less and less polishes from the fab four (Opi, Essie, China Glaze, Zoya) or Drug Store brands. My favorites crystalized throughout the year as I found myself being on the tip of my toes for their restocks and launches. Again, I listed them in alphabetical order, I honestly cannot decide on one brand as my favorite - picking one leaves me with regret for others. OK so here are my favorite Indie Brands of 2013:

Cirque - the New York based Indie Brand that just recently had the nail polish world at awe with their Alchemy Collection.

Cirque Coronation original post 

Next up Crows Toes - for me this is the punkiest of all Indies, edgy, unexpected - it reminds of the spirit of the Japanese Designers in Paris like Yamamoto. The polishes of Crows Toes are not within any trend boundaries, yet they are always avantgarde and spot on. Crows Toes fans are also called Minions so you may take an educated guess which of their gems I am showing you here:

 Crows Toes Minion original post 

Isn't it funny that mostly the name of a polish made me start buying Elevation Polish which morphed into one of my most favorite and most worn brands? Since I am Swiss, living in Switzerland, you surely have an inkling which polish I choose to represent Elevation Polish here:

Elevation Polish Jungfrau original post 

I bet none of you are surprised to see Australian based Emily de Molly here listed as well, among the spectacular polishes released this year is the Force-trio holding circular glitters: Cosmic Force, Oceanic Force, Dark Force but what really made me hold my breath is the range of holos. 

Emily de Molly Indigo Flow original post 

KBShimmer is what I would call THE Indie Polish starter brand: versatile glitters, shimmers and as of late also multi chromes with excellent formula at affordable prices. You can be sure that each collection holds something for everyone from neutral to statement creations. This year I liked their shimmers best:

KBShimmer Teal Another Tail original post 

My dear Blogger friend Melissa from Lacquer Reverie is called to responsibility for my excitement about Pahlish. After the first shy dip into the range of Pahlish polishes I quickly turned into a loyal fan for their small sized glitters, monthly Duos, jelly glitters and as of late holos. Now the polish I show here was not released this year but founded my collection of Pahlish polishes after having seen this on Melissa's nails:

Pahlish Continually Smoldering original post 

Let's talk formula: all of the above Indie brands developed sort of a signature character also formula wise which are overall excellent. We are used to sometimes thicker consistencies with glitter (dabbing it on the nail is the way to go there), or thin (just slap on another coat) or longer dry times (well the only thing helping here is time). But the overall similarities are that they are easy to apply and frankly, often show better results than polishes from main stream brands (which is still a mystery to me - hand mixed polishes show consistent performance and those biggies manage again and again to throw streaky, runny or gluey polishes at their customers?)

I am sure my regular readers of my blog are not surprised by my list of favorite Indie Brands - they popped up all over the year at Polished Marvels ;-) - stay tuned for the third part of my review of 2013, favorite nail polishes of 2013…

Thanks for dropping by - I am happy to read your comments!!!
Christine


10 comments:

  1. Awesome! I don't have any Cirque yet, but have been planning to get some. I have a few of CrowsToes (I have Minion but haven't worn it), Elevation and Emily de Molly, and I believe one or two KB Shimmer and Pahlish. These are all great brands. This is my first year of finding out what has been going on in nail polish, and I collected a TON. I shopped a lot on Llarowe, so I have a lot of Colors by Llarowe, and I love them, because I am super nuts for holos. Smooth Criminal was the best! (I am creme-phobic b/c it shows all my application flaws, but maybe I will make a "resolution" to work on that in 2014!) :D Some others I purchased many of this year/liked were Lilypad Lacquer and I Love Nail Polish; Etsy sellers like Darling Diva and Different Dimension.... I also super-love textures so I have several Zoya PixieDusts, OPI Liquid Sands, Nicole OPI and JulieG (both use "gum drops" term)....that was my 2013. I was very bad and bought a lot at the end of the year in clearance sales, so I have A LOT of untrieds....and I better get to work on them! :D

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    1. Thank you so much Arathael <3! Oh my, you got into serious nail polish business from scratch, quite addictive, isn't it? LOL about you being cream-phobic - it is all about practice, at least this was the case with me. And in case this might help: I always paint my Cinderella hand first, I start painting on my ring finger rather than pinkie to get a better feel for the formula and the brush - the pinkies get flooded so quickly, I start with a thin coat and most of the time apply the second coat a bit thicker. For example Isadora has some excellent creams for a start. Illamasqua has also a very reliable formula in creams. I realized by now (you so sweetly comment regularly to my posts) that you must be a big fan of CbLs!!! - As me ;-)!!! I also got some Lilypads but most of my lemmings usually were gone by the time I got "through" - oh well……! Enjoy playing with your untrieds and expanding your stash <3

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  2. Ahhhh, you flatter me, my dear Christine! <3 I really love your Pahlish reviews too. And Your Cirque reviews always make me want AWL of them. :D I currently have about 15 or so untrieds that I have purchased within the last month, including some Different Dimensions that are just magical on my nail wheel. <3

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    1. Hi Melissa, well - the honor really goes to you and IF I got a chance to deflect my addiction to a certain brand, well I got to grab it, got plenty of others totally homemade ;-)! You only have 15 untrieds? You are so good, and aren't Different Dimension just awesome? So curious what you got…… xxx

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  3. Holy awesome! I need that Cirque Polish ASAP!!! Great roundup :)

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    1. Hi Essie, hahaha, I remember your comment when I posted it first ;-), it remains such an eye-catcher and clearly goes unmatched to date <3

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  4. Such a great list Christine!! I love Coronation (I should get it ASAP) and I'm not surprised at all that it made it to your favorite indies of 2013! I should also get more Crows Toes! Minion looks fantastic!

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    1. Thank you Ina xxx!!!! You will love Coronation, I promise, and - well I am probably the wrong person to comment - you SHOULD get more Crows Toes, they will look awesome on you <3

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  5. Oh my gosh, Coronation... I can't get over the similarities to Fantasy Fire but I feel this consuming neeeed to get this one on my nails, as well... just not for the price of the ring (which overrides the price of being fickle). Awesome roundup! The EdM Forces trio was indeed one of the coolest collections I saw this year... but, yeah, those holos... and furthermore, those Aussie indies! So many fun and exciting things coming out of Australia these days. And I totally agree that this was the year of character development for many of these indies-- so many of them set themselves apart in more ways than one, proving there is room for everyone. Very cool :)

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    1. Thank you so much sis <3! And YAY for the Aussie brands, I think I did not pay it enough credit for the influence the gained on the trends in the nail polish world. And as you stated in your review, those "eye of Sauron" holos are spectacular though flat and dull out of the sun and the more pigmented and saturated holos just hold so much more vivacity (and your pick is my favorite of the China Glaze holo collection too).

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