Lab Muffin's Top 13 Polishes of 2013 Part 2: Indies

A few days ago I posted my favourite mainstream and boutique polishes that I discovered last year. I'm back now with my favourite indies! The indie market grew exponentially in 2013, especially in Australia. In 2012, I'd only heard of about 4 Aussie indie brands - now, according to the Lacquerheads of Oz Indie Directory there are almost 30! So it's no surprise that the indies crowded the mainstream polishes out of my top 13, and I had to split hairs and move the boutique polishes to the mainstream section because it looked too lonely.

Now, I realise most of the Polish or Perish audience aren't Australian, and you therefore thought your wallet would be safe - think again! International stockists now have a metric shitton of Australian indie brands (I know, I've seen photos of some of the makers' shipments). For specifics of where to get what you can look at the Lacquerheads of Oz Indie Directory, but some of the stockists that ship overseas and have a few brands include Femme Fatale Cosmetics, Color4Nails, Harlow & Co, Norway Nails, Llarowe, Mei Mei's Signatures and Ninja Polish.


So here are my top 8 indies of 2013...

Gloss 'n Sparkle The Huntress is a new find of mine - I've always been a sucker for deep, complex jellies, and this is in one of my favourite polish colours, green. It's also included in my 2nd anniversary giveaway.

Alanna Renee Reptar is an incredibly cool, unique shade. I love these out-of-left-field shades - they're so satisfyingly interesting even without nail art.

Celestial Highgarden was my favourite from the Game of Thrones-themed collaboration between Color4Nails and Celestial. I love a special effects shade, and this has both holo and thermal colour change effects! This shade inspired me to write this sciencey article on how thermochromic colour change pigments work.

Brown and green is such a pretty colour combination in my books, but so few polishes contain this colour combination. Sayuri Mori has this rare foresty look, and is lovely over a golden base.

Arcane Lacquer Erudite Dreams is a pretty blurple creme with pinkish gold shimmer. I really love Arcane's elegant but pretty polishes - very work-safe and wearable for all occasions, without being plain.

Powder Perfect Decorate a Palm Tree is a very shimmery dense microglitter in a fetching shade of grass green. I especially love how the green jelly base means that the glitter in the lower layers are a deeper colour.

I posted Loki's Lacquer Omicron Persei 8 here in April, but it deserves revisiting! It's the most amazingly unexpected smorgasbord of sparkles, and jaw-droppingly stunning in the sun.

This one's a bit of a copout - I'm nominating the entire Mckfresh Sunnydale Collection as my #13! The Buffy-inspired vampy collection just looks so good together. But if I had to pick one polish, it would probably be Xander (top right hand corner) - the blue-green duochrome is so pretty, even though Xander is a bloody irritating character.

There you have it - the best indies I tried this year! I'm sure there are some glaring omissions I'll kick myself for a bit later, but I've agonised over this list long enough that I really just needed to hit the "post" button and walk the hell away. 

I realise that this list is ridiculously biased towards Australian indies, and that's simply because I had enough to try within Australia that I didn't feel the need to pay premium shipping prices for overseas polishes! I will endeavour to try out more overseas brands in 2014, but to be honest, given how the Australian indie market is growing, I think I already have my nails full.

OCC: Grandma + Gloss 'n Sparkle: Quote Unquote

Coral is always excellent, not just for summer. It just happened to be summer when I wore this manicure combination, as I'm not one to follow convention on what colors are appropriate for which season anyway :)

I received OCC: Grandma as a gift and I loved it at first sight. I've always wanted OCC polishes but never managed to pull the trigger on them, although I do have a few of their lip tars! Which I love. But I digress.

I saw Gloss 'n Sparkle on sale at Llarowe and I loved the the color scheme. So I got it (I frequently check the sale/clearance section of Llarowe to see if there are any good deals to be had).

Onto pictures!

It's hard to capture the color of Grandma but the formula was great. Quote Unquote was also one of the easiest glitter polishes I've worked with recently. 2 coats, didn't even have to dab or manually place glitters.

Information: Gloss 'n Sparkle Website // Facebook

Purple Use-Up-the-Polish mani number 1

During my Helmer clean out, I discovered that I have an obscene amount of purple polishes I haven't even tried. Obviously, this needed rectifying, so here's the first of my half/half manis where I jam two purple polishes together and try to make them work in a manicure.

First is Gloss 'n Sparkle Purpetual Darkness paired with OPI DS Original (two coats layered over Models Prefer Beam Me Up). DS Original is the most linear holo I own, but it's really sheer. I really liked this mani - it was interesting enough to last me a couple of days, but not too exciting that they'd become a conversation starter. For some reason I hate when talk centres around my nails, it makes me feel really awkward! Do other nail addicts have this problem?

Gloss 'n Sparkle Above Deck and Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure

Like a lot of other people, I tend to gravitate towards the same colours - for polish, it's purple, red and green. But for some reason, the real stunners in my collection that I often unexpectedly fall in love with are blues. Gloss 'n Sparkle Above Deck is the latest blue I've been blown away by. Two coats:

One of the non-glitterbombs in the Gloss 'n Sparkle range, this is a rich teal shimmer with tiny blue and holo glitter. On the nail, the holo glitter is largely tinted teal by the base, but the occasional holo sparkle comes out in the light. It's perfectly named - it really reminds me of the sparkling surface of a Mediterranean sea as seen from the deck of a boat. If you can't tell, I'm just a bit in love with this shade!

I had to fiddle around with it, of course, so I layered my new (after a long period of lemming) Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure, a red/green multichrome flakie on top:

I quite liked this combo - it looked like land masses in the ocean!

I have good news for non-Aussie Gloss 'n Sparkle fans - Shoppe Eclecticco now stock them, and ship worldwide! So you overseas girls can finally get your hands on some of these beauties :)

What unexpected polishes have you fallen in love with?

Gloss 'n Sparkle Goblins Grave

Here's another Aussie indie post - I'll be dangling a lot of these tantalising beauties in front of your eyes, sorry! Gloss 'n Sparkle is an Aussie indie brand made by Angela, and her glitterbombs are gorgeous. Here's Goblins Grave, a mix of green and black glitters in a clear murky green base:

It's hard to tell how many types of glitter there are in this mix, since the jelly base changes the tone of the glitters in the lower layers, and it just turns into a complex myriad of greens. Some of the green glitters are also holographic. I suspect there's only 3 different glitters in it, but this is one of the most interesting glitterbombs I've had the privilege to try, and it doesn't even begin to veer into tacky territory. The nail line is a lot less visible in person than it is in these photos.

It dries pretty smooth, but I've used a layer of Essence Gel Look topcoat followed by Seche Vite on top anyway, which is my new glitter-smoothing combo. It's been working well for me so far!

I've been assured by Angela that she's been looking into ways of getting her polish shipped overseas, but at the moment, these are only available in Australia, on this page. Time to find an Aussie swap buddy! ;)