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.

Loki's Lacquer Omicron Persei 8

A quick one today: I recently came across this swatch of Loki's Lacquer Omicron Persei 8 again in my files, which I originally posted in my swatchathon of the Futurama collection from Loki's Lacquer. It's probably my favourite swatch of the whole collection, even though the polish in the bottle didn't wow me - but over black, it's a stunner!

Unfortunately Loki's Lacquer isn't widely available outside of Australia, but you can ask nicely and see if there's any way of getting it to you on their Etsy store here.

Loki's Lacquer 3 Wise Men

Today I've got swatches of my favourite polish from the Christmas Collection by Loki's Lacquer (swatched in full here) - 3 Wise Men. It's absolutely gorgeous: gold, brown and blue/green/purple shifting translucent glitter in a clear base. This is over Darling Fifty, a taupe creme that's both edgy and subdued, and actually works with my skin tone:

And (of course) with matte topcoat:

I'm in love! The little iridescent glitters remind me of crystals as seen under a polarising microscope, and add a certain something to the otherwise neutral glitter.

Loki's Lacquer is available here, and there's an option for international shipping.

Loki's Lacquer Abby-Lanche and Wolf in Fashion

I'm still quite a newbie when it comes to indie polishes, but I've well and truly broken the seal now, and I can see how it can become addictive! Today I have swatches of two Loki's Lacquers, made by the lovely Aussie lady Tara. I posted a couple of her newer polishes on my blog last week - the two I have today are inspired by Monster High, a show which her adorable daughter is obsessed with. Coolest mum of the year or what? If you Google the character names, you can really see where the inspiration comes from.

Abby-Lanche - inspired by the character Abbey, an abominable snowgirl, this is a milky white base with subtle shimmer containing lots of matte glitter: big purple and pale pink squares (you have to fish a bit for these), big blue hexes, medium pale purple and blue hexes, and little red hexes. This is one of my absolute favourite polishes right now! Two-ish coats over white, using "dabbing" techniques.

Wolf in Fashion - this is inspired by the character Howleen Wolf. It's matte blue glitter in an orange base, with a blue shift where the light hits it. A very unique polish! This is swatched over Sally Hansen Sun Kissed (orange creme).

The formulas of these are great, and these are easy to apply. Abby-Lanche is probably my favourite indie polish so far - I go weak at the knees for milky bases, and the glitter combo is gorgeous! Unfortunately due to Australian shipping restrictions, Loki's Lacquer doesn't ship directly overseas, but if you're lucky enough to live in Australia or have an Aussie swap buddy, they're available here.