So you’ve used high-end and high-street nail polishes, you’ve used crèmes, jellies, and the occasional glitter topcoat. But you’re ready to venture out farther, and discover different polishes. Well my friend, you’re ready to enter the realm of indie nail polishes.

Introduction to indie nail polishes

I discovered indie nail polishes circa 2013, thanks to a beauty board where I met likeminded nail polish nuts. While now you’ll find brands that’ve nearly crossed the line into the mass market, then it was a lot of people selling unusual polishes they mixed and bottled in their free time and sold them in their Etsy shops. The benefits of course were and still are a very close contact to customers and total independence from mainstream tastes. Because we were bored with mainstream. And there were a lot of polish makers willing to try new things. What’s more, indie polish makers are often nail bloggers. A lot of them began their career as nail polish addicts and wanted more, and better, and different polishes, making them the most passionate nail polish makers around – a far cry from big brands and companies. (Not to say that those companies may not have passionate people working there. You know what I mean.)

The first trend that emerged back then was glitter. Every polish addict was crazy for glitter polishes. Then it went on: the biggest trends included holo finishes, duochromes and multi-chromes, holographic multi-chromes, and then flakies. Nowadays, brands rarely still has old-school glitters in their line-up, while you still can find all other finishes mentioned above. Over the years, some brands have evolved, some have closed shop, and there’re still millions of part-time polish makers out there on Etsy.

indie polishes for beginners
A selection of some of favourite indie nail polishes. Are you tempted yet?

 

Why indie polishes?

Generally speaking, trends are slow to trickle down to the mass market. Indie polish makers though are usually very quick in developing unusual products while big companies take a long time in developing and testing products. Also, big brands are out to appeal to the masses, while small businesses like indie polish brands cater to a small group of people – the nail polish junkies that’re not only open for new things, but demanding them. In short, small businesses are driving innovation forward – to an extent that even mass market and high-end companies started to leave the beaten path lately (YSL is a good example for that, their LE nail polishes tend to be pretty unusual for a mass market brand).

The downside? From time to time you’ll encounter an indie polish that’ve changed – their pigments have faded, glitter has bled out. Every polish maker I ever known handled something like that with uttermost grace (replacements, refunds). (Disasters like the story of Mentality Polish are rare – in fact, that’s the only instance where an indie polish brand crossed a line and was forced, in the end, to close their shop.) Also, you won’t have the chance to actually go into a physical shop to swatch and test, because we’re talking of online-distributed brands here.

A point in favour of indie polishes – they’re usually three- or even five-free (meaning they don’t include any toxic nasties in their formula), cruelty free and some are even vegan. If one of these points is important to you, you’ll likely find a brand that ticks all the boxes on the indie market.

Favourite indie nail polish brands
Ok, now tempted? Hmmmm?

 

Finishes

For an overview (with pics), have a look here and here.

For the indie polishes I’m talking about in this and the following post, the most important finishes are:

  • Holographic (a pigment that displays a ‘rainbow’ spectrum of colours when the light hits it)
  • Duochrome (a pigment that change between two colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel),
  • Multichrome (pigments that changes between more than two colours, depending how the light hits them),
  • Flakies (very thin and small metallic flakes that are either included in a clear base or in any different base like holo or glitter. Flakes are often multichromes.),
  • Shimmers (tiny particles in any base, often in jellies or crèmes. Often metallic.),
  • Thermals (heat reactive pigments that react with body heat, cold water etc. and create an ombre effect on the nail).

 

Where to buy

When I started to get into indie polishes, I was totally overwhelmed. Where to start? Where to buy? Of course, there’s still Etsy, and a lot of brands have their own webshops. But there’re also stockists that carry a lot of brands making testing out some brands and reducing shipping fees at the same time a bit easier. Shops I can personally recommend are (with the exception of lakodom and nil nails – haven’t ordered from them yet) especially MeiMei Signatures and Hypnotic Polish – I’ve ordered from them countless times. Thankfully, it has become rather easy to order indie polishes – you’ll definitely find a webshop that’ll deliver to your country (a lot of shops mentioned will ship to other countries as well).

Europe:

Netherlands: Hypnotic Polish

UK: Rainbow Connection

Hungary: The Nailista Shop

Sweden: Edgy Polish

France: Pshiiit Boutique

 

US: Color4Nails, Live Love Polish

Russia: LakoDom

Canada: Harlow & Co.

Asia: MeiMei Signatures, Beauty So Fly, Nil Nails

Australia: Femme Fatale Cosmetics

 

Look out for part 2 on Thursday in which I’ll cover the best indie nail polish brands!