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