It's time for my personal list of favourite polishes from 2014. Last year I had a hard time narrowing it down and ended up listing a top 27. This year I've been far more picky and narrowed it down to my top 14 for 2014. I didn't really buy many commercial brands this year, and the few I did get during
the year were ones from PR company's. This pretty much shows me that
nothing wowed me from commercial brands this year. Only two in my top 14 are commercial brand polishes. Also, over the last year I've changed the focus of my blog to be far more nail art focused rather than swatch focused, therefore I just didn't accrue as many polishes this year compared to previous years.
I love looking at other people's top polishes lists. I love seeing what sorts of colours they are drawn to and often I look at them and think - 'oh really, that would never be in my top polishes list'. Other times I look at their lists and think, 'crap, I don't even own any of those polishes'. I know my list of polishes really reflects what I love, cool tones with blues and greens and of course gold!
This is how I came up with my top polishes. I went through my blog archive a month at a time, looking at the names of blog posts to see if I could remember what polishes were in them. If something stuck in my head as a memorable polish, without even looking at the blog post pictures, then I added it to my list.
Here's an example. One of the first polishes I added to my list this year, was A Stripper has been sleeping in my bed from Girly Bits. I posted about it in early January, and even with blog post title of 'Girly bits spam', I still remembered this polish. But then as I was reviewing my top polishes from 2013, I discovered that I posted in last years list. I had to cross that one off and find another.
In no particular order, here are my favourite 14 polishes from 2014.
Dance Legend - Knight. It was a toss up between this one and DL Protuberance, which is the same colour shift but with added scattered holo. This one polish combines two polish colour loves in one polish - gold and cool tones (blue)
Picture Polish - Swagger. I have basically used up nearly an entire bottle of Swagger, I use it so much in nail art. This is such a perfect colour, and actually one I requested the girls at Picture Polish make. I told them their range was missing a cornflower blue toned polish, and I even sent them a Pantone colour of what I thought it should be. This is the
colour I suggested, and didn't they nail it perfectly.
OPI - I can't cope-acabana. From the OPI Brazil collection, this yellow creme was a standout for me. It's absolutely become my go to yellow for nail art, and pretty much everything else. Such a great formula for a yellow polish.
Lacquistry - Amazeballz Your so Extra Fine. So Amazeballz original made my list last year, but this year Jenna released several new versions, including this extra finely ground version. It turns out I never swatched this on it's own, but I've worn it countless times in nail art and it is now the polish that has replaced Orly Luxe on my toes.
Sally Hansen - Liquid Gold. This whole collection was a standout for me. Horrible formula except if you used a special base or buffed your nails smooth, but the range of colours in this magical metallic chrome finish was just superb.
Dance Legend - Anthem. Oh wow, this one blew my socks off for sure. A rich purple that has both linear and scattered holographic particles. Plus it's actually a different shade purple to the linear and scattered holos on their own, so I love that it's not just the same base with different holo bits mixed in.
Enchanted Polish - Flashing Lights. Purchasing this polish was my one and only foray into the Enchanted polish buy frenzy. This super gold holo polish is right up my alley, and although lots of other brands have now come out with nearly identical polishes (several of which I have bought - I'm looking at you FUN Lacquer) this was my first one, and therefore gets the spot in the top 14 list.
Emily de Molly - Splendid Vision. Haley made some gorgeous polishes this year, including a bunch of stunning holos, but with the saturation of holos in the market this year, they didn't jump out at me as much as this polish did. In a stunning dark teal blue base, the holo glitters in this are magical.
Dance Legend - Anna Gorelova Gold Fish. Come on, it's gold and has a very strong scattered holo finish. It's right up there with Ozotic 604 and Picture Polish Majesty as an all time favourite.
Dance Legend - High Hopes. There were so many polishes from the Dance Legend WOW prisms range that I could have added to my list, such as the dark green Poison, or the bright dark blue Night Ranger. I loved the overload of scattered holo in these. So over the top and wonderful.
Colours by Llarowe - Blonde Ambition. Purchased on the recommendation of another blogger, this one did not disappoint. Super strong holo in a pale fleshy pink nude base.
Orly - Mirrorball. Sliding in with a holiday collection polish, Orly has really pulled off something special with this polish. It might not be a blindly holo with a strong flame like Blonde Ambition we just looked at, but from a commercial brand, it was a bright shining light in a rather boring collection of polishes from all the big brands this year.
I Love Nail Polish - Ultrachrome flakie - Gaia. So I've only worn three of these multichrome flakie polishes from ILNP, but I had to include at least one on my list. I'm sure by the time I finish wearing them all, there will be a few more to add to my list. In fact, because I never got to wear all these polishes because they only just arrived right before Christmas, then I think it would still be fair for me to include one (or more) in next year's list.
Picture Polish - Forget me not. It's funny that they two picture polish shades I chose for this list were blues. To me, this polish was my favourite from a very diverse range of picture polish collaboration shades this year.
After I had chosen my polishes for this year, I went back and looked at my
top polishes from last year. What really made me chuckle was the number of very similar polishes I had included this year, compared to last year.
- Take Dance Legend Cosmic Rainbow last year, Jade -Fasicinio Violeta the year before that and Dance Legend Anthem this year - all purple holos.
- Another example, Picture Polish Majesty last year and Dance Legend Gold Fish this year - both scattered holo golds.
- Another example, Picture Polish Freya's Cats last year, Picture Polish Cosmos the year before that and Picture Polish Forget me not this year - all rich blue scattered holos.
I'm disappointed to see that there were no Ulta3 polishes in my favourite polishes this year. They released pretty standard cremes this year, and compared to some of the amazing polishes they released in the previous two years, I wasn't able to find anything that really blew me away.
A very clear favourite brand for me this year was Dance Legend, with four of the top 14 polishes. Picture Polish was the only other brand to score more than one spot in my list.
I also noticed that there were no Lynnderella polishes in my list this year. As it turns out I didn't add a single bottle of Lynnderella polish to my stash this last year! How sad.
Man - these sorts of posts are exhausting to put together, but they sure are fun to look back on (especially to see if I've worn any of these again!) If you are interested, here are my lists from:
Happy New Year Everyone!
