Indies, part 2

First of all, it occurs to me looking at yesterday's entry that everybody in the world probably does not know what nail people mean, exactly, when they talk about indies. So here's a little bit of explanation (and if you don't want to read it, then skip down past the jump & the picture for the continuation from yesterday). The short answer is, indies are polishes that people mix up at home, in their basement or wherever. A few years back, you'd hear people who were into nails talking about "frankens" all the time, and it mystified me for a while, but I finally figured out that it meant home-mixed nail polish. (I guess the term comes from "Frankenstein"?) The most common franken, I think, was that you just took some glitter and poured it into a bottle of clear nail polish, to see what you'd come up with. So indie polishes are (at their simplest, anyway) just a refinement on that: some people got good enough at it to start making nail polish for their friends, and then they put up little stores for their polishes on Etsy, and voila! before you know it there's a whole industry of these things.

I saw an estimate one time a year or so ago that there were 1000 brands of indie polish, and if anything I'd guess that that's conservative. I wouldn't recommend going out and starting your own indie polish business now if all you want is to get famous and rich, because the market is pretty saturated. But it became an industry because people will buy these polishes, because the women making these polishes (as with most things nail-polish-related, it's almost all women) were doing far more interesting things playing with nail polish at home than what the big polish companies were doing. I suppose the secret, to some extent, is that the makers here are also the consumer, so they know what the consumer wants, where the big companies didn't. And a few of them have gotten fairly famous - I'm not so sure about rich. But there are definitely at least a few people who make their living at it!

(back to specific indies after the jump)

So, if this picture looks familiar, that's because it's a cut-down version of the one from yesterday. I was going to cut it down to the bottom two rows, and then I realized I never got around to talking about half the row above that, either. I'm trying to be a bit more organized, and I have the links all nicely lined up by company. (Let's see how long my fit of organization lasts!) Many of these polishes are still available, so I used the website links if I could find one, or googled for something else, if not.

(Perhaps I should say here that none of these links are affiliate links and none of these people gave me free stuff. These are just the ones that I have tried and liked!)

Pipe Dream Polish - Etsy - Big Cartel
In Through the Out Door (the one in the top left corner)(still available on Etsy)
Believe in Believing (pink mini on bottom row, above)
In Through the Out Door is really beautiful - dark pink and gold glitter. Believe in Believing is still untried, but hopefully I will rectify that soon. Pink glitterbomb.

Nail Pattern Boldness
Elderberry
I was just sure I said something about Elderberry at the bottom of the entry yesterday, but if I did I deleted it, somehow. Elderberry is a mixed microglitter with cool colors, blue-red-purple, and predictably, I am crazy about it. Cool colors are totally my thing.
Also see the basecoat entry from a week or so ago for the other thing NPB I own: Glitter A-Peel

Nostalgic Nail Lacquer
As If! (and a pendant!)
Girls on Film
F*ck and Run
Rid of Me
Patricia
Girls on Film seems to be the only one of these that's not still available, as of the 24th when I'm writing this, although it still has a page on the website. All the others were on the clearance page, so grab 'em while you can! I especially adore Patricia, out of that bunch. But let's take them in order: As If! (here over On a Trip) is a black and white confetti with pink bits. Girls On Film is a creamy confetti-ish glitter in a pink base. I still haven't worn it, since as I keep saying, I've been on the outs with all shades of pink lately. Maybe for Valentine's. I have worn F*ck and Run (which, like Girls On Film, is named after a song - in this case, Liz Phair) several times (see picture at bottom), and I love it. In fact it's probably the one that inspired me to go back and buy more Nostalgics. In any case, the link in the list above is quite reliable as far as matching my experience of it - a red jelly packed with shimmery stuff. Rid of Me, in fact, seems to be its bright-blue cousin. Same idea. And Patricia is pretty much a full-on glitterbomb, with green glitters and a tiny sprinkling of purple.

Chiralty - Etsy - Big Cartel
Convergence
The Symbiote
Kale
Chirality was my first indie, and also my first holos, and I still think they're great. All three I bought were holos, and they have a new line of holos out now, but you can still get these, too, it appears. I've seen pictures of Chirality holo skittles and I've always wanted to buy a couple more so I could do that, but I've never gotten around it. (I especially still covet the blue one, from the old ones - I think it's CU2.) The ones I have are all very similar except for color - they have a good formula. Convergence is plummy, Symbiote is steely-gray, and Kale is dark green.


Totally random note: I was talking about how there were lots of indies, but I was reminded today that there are also tons of nail blogs. I was totally unaware until today that there was somebody who's basically my opposite number: Horrendous Color. (I love that name; I really think it's a far better name than mine, as names go - but then I arrived at my name from my old jewelry blog and from my nickname, so it evolved rather than happening because I was just sitting around trying to think up a name. Which I'm always terrible at, anyway.)

And I'm putting this picture down at the bottom because I'm not sure you can tell much from it. It's F*ck and Run over Hard As Nails Unforgettable Heart, I think. But I think the camera picked up the base red more than it did the jelly, unfortunately.

In person I thought it added a lot of interest to an otherwise fairly bog-standard red. But here, you just can't really see it.