Hi Goddesses
THIS is where it gets sexy. The Best Indie category is highly coveted and extremely competitive. There are now so many good indies out there that it is almost impossible to form a consensus.
You nominated 87 brands in total ! And I bet that's not even a quarter of what's out there. In the end, only a handful of them scored serious votes, but before we check them out, here are last year's results.
3. Girly Bits
2. Pretty and Polished
1. KBShimmer
And the results are -
In joint 3rd Place we have ILNP and Elevation Polish, 2 very different brands.
ILNP has made a huge splash in 2013. Superb branding and packaging, product that was so on the pulse it hurt, and a great pre-ordering system - it's hard to deny ILNP this position.
Thanks to Sheila from Pointless Cafe for the use of her gorgeous swatches.
Elevation is a brand I have fallen hard for this year. In my year of glitter-apathy, I have been quietly seduced by the unpretentious nature of Lulu's polishes. Unfortunately, I've bought about a dozen and swatched (I think) 2 - otherwise I am sure Elevation would have featured in more of my Best Of posts.
We also have joint winners for 2nd place - A-England and Mentality Nail Polish.
This thrills me for 2 reasons - I love Adina and her vision, her passion for colour - there is a real warmth and love to her brand that is so captivating.
Mentality, on the other hand, are just at the start of their journey. They have *almost* produced more new polishes this year than I have had Chinese meals (takes a LOTTA doing), and again, they've appealed to my glitter-apathy with their cremes, mattes and holos. I'm so delighted you've admired that in a brand too.
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And our winner - by a LANDSLIDE - KBShimmer again. What can I say? You must all REALLY love KBShimmer for Christy to have won twice, and by significant margins both times.
Of course, it's not hard to see why she has won. Awesome colours, pretty much every type of finish you could want, and - significantly - between herself and Harlow and Co, almost always in stock, and I think that is starting to matter more and more.
So well done Christy for 2 in a row - what an incredible achievement in the most competitive area of the polish world, and where competition currently knows no bounds.
Only 51 weeks to go to see if she can make it a hat trick :)
