Top 10 of 2017

Last year was another year of not wearing as many new polishes as I had in previous years. I did a lot of travelling, including a lot of working with my brother to clear my mom's house, so most of my manicures were of the strips or fakes variety, since those are easy to do on the road (so easy, I've taken to doing them at home, too). Thus instead of doing a traditional to 20 list, it's just a Top 10 list for me, same as I did for 2016. Below are my favorite polishes I wore for the first time in 2017.

Wet 'n' Wild I Dream of Jean Genie, a dusty blue with gold microglitter. Ah, rememember when Wet 'n' Wild did seasonal LE nail polish displays? I miss those.



SinfulColors Queen of Green, a deep green shimmer.



Morgan Taylor The Last Petal, a deep berry shimmer.



Sally Hansen Color Therapy Bamboost, a greyed green creme.



SinfulColors Namaste the Night, a plummy purple with flakies.



Girly Bits Lost in the PATH, a purple microglitter/shimmer.



SinfulColors If You've Got It Haunt It, a glitter topper with light purple hex glitter, larger copper hex glitter, and smaller gold holo glitter in a clear base.

Over SinfulColors Nut Cracker:



Over SinfulColors Sugar Pumpkin:



China Glaze Sin-derella, a grey with pink shimmer.



Pahlish Twelve Drummers Drumming, the purple jelly with shifting flakies and purple microglitter which you just saw from me earlier this week.



And Dreamland Lacquer Fairytale of New York, the purple/pink multichrome I paired with the Pahlish.



I still haven't made my 2018 resolutions, but I'm thinking one should have something to do with swatching and wearing enough polish shades that I'll have ample material for a Top 20 list. I have no shortage of untrieds to accomplish that, that's for sure.

Top 10 of 2016

I've done a Top 20 list every year I've been writing this blog, but 2016 was such a messed up year for me with all the travel and moving and my mom dying that I wasn't even sure if I wore 20 different polishes, so I'd decided to skip it. Then my friend Mel did a series of posts about her favorites in her blog Delicious Color, and I reconsidered. As it turned out, I had worn more than 20 polishes last year, but it was definitely a much smaller pool than prior years, so I decided to do a top 10 this go round.

Rimmel Mind the Gap Victoria, a light cornflower blue creme.



Kiko Velvet Satin Midnight Blue, a very deep navy matte shimmer.



SinfulShine Illusion, a blue shimmer.



Studio M Cherry Blossom, a pale pink shimmer topper, swatched here over Studio M By Design, a vampy berry creme.



LA Colors Color Craze Gel Magical, a lilac with gold and pink shimmer that can be worn alone or as a topper.



Orly Frenemy, a black jelly with silver holo microglitter and flakies, swatched here over Orly Makeup to Breakup, a dark teal blue creme.



Orly Color Blast Multicolored Gloss Glitter, a mulitcolored hex glitter topper, shown here in a jelly sandwich with Essence Nail Candies Peachy Keen:



Revlon Magnetic, blue glitter in a purple/blue duochrome shimmer base.



Lit NYC Power and Lovergirl, the former a blue/purple duochrome shimmer and the lattter a multicolored glitter topper, swatched together here.



I've pretty much gone back to my drugstore roots with this list. That makes sense, since I was on the road so much and dealing with other things, paying attention to indie releases was not a priority (and even if it had been, I wasn't home for weeks at a time, so getting them shipped to me would have been a challenge). I'm not sure what 2017 will bring. I have plenty of older indies in my untrieds, so I may start working through those as a supplement to the things I've been buying off the shelf recently.

Top 20 of 2015

I know many nail bloggers have long since compiled and published their lists of top polishes for 2015, but compared to when I did my 2014 list, I'm getting this one up way early. As in previous years, my list isn't necessarily all polishes that were released in 2015, just my favorites of the ones I wore during the year. Given my distraction away from nail polish in the last half of the year, and my strong leaning toward wearing strips when I did do a mani, there were fewer polishes in the running this time, which made it ever so slightly easier to narrow them down.

So here we go, in roughly ascending order from neutral but not boring to blingtastic:

Contrary Polish Be Merry is a grey jelly with subtle sparks of microglitter, shown here with Nicole by OPI Seriously Citrus topping an accent nail.



Morgan Taylor Scene Queen is a light silver shimmer, shown here with marbled accents.



Zoya Leslie is a light orchid shimmer, shown here with Zoya Eden as an accent nail.



Orchid Lone Star Blue is a periwinkle-leaning blue shimmer that works alone or layered; the accent nail below is over black creme.



Bonita Royal Wishes is a royal blue shimmer.



Dona Mirelle Matt Color 21 is not only a nice navy matte shimmer, it's a nice reminder of one of my trips to Minsk.



RK Deep Green is a forest green matte shimmer.



Pahlish Madame Leota is a deep plum shimmer with flakies and holo microglitter.



Ellagee Starlight is a black jelly with gold and olive microglitter.



Native War Paints Nifty Shifty is a versatile multichrome flakie, shown here over a black creme.



Revlon Untamed is a brown shimmer with a gold and purple shift.



SinfulColors Ring the Belini is a yellow orange jelly shimmer that's wonderfully buildable. Shown here layered over a Bonita pastel yellow creme (on left alone, then with one, two, and three coats of the Sinful).



Smitten Polish Aer Opal v2 is a bright red violet with shifting flakies.



Funky Fingers Wishes is a purple jelly with purple glitter.



Catrice Plum Fiction is a purple glitter with a metallic shimmer base, shown here with an accent nail of Catrice My Big Green Wedding.



FingerPaints Daubigny's Garden is an glitter topper in oean colors, shown here over some Sally Hansen Triple Shine cremes.



Barielle Angel Dust is an iridescent glitter topper I had great fun playing with. Here it's shown over Barielle Dinner and 8.



L'Oreal Snow Ball is a holo iridescent glitter topper, shown here over L'Oreal Tuxedo Noir.



Ellagee Faith Trust and Pixie Dust is lime green glitter topper with holo and shimmer, shown here over a skintone creme.



Rimmel Disco Fever is a glitter topper with silver holo squares, shown here over Sally Hansen Blue Chip.



So there you have it; no cremes, mostly glitters, and cool tones galore. Yep, that's me. I'm a bit surprised there aren't any holos this year, but maybe my appetite for those is finally sated for a while.

Some of the polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes (you can see which ones by following the links to the individual entries). The content of this entry was not dictated by the providers.

Top 20 for 2014

Like last year, here I am sneaking in my Top 20 list for last year when this year is just about one month gone. These are my favorites of the polishes that I put on my nails and posted in 2014, though not all of them were released in 2014.

I hope holos never disappear from the nail polish world again. A few made my list this year, starting with Beautifully Disney Wish Come True, which is a sky blue holo that I didn't realize was holo when I bought it at Walt Disney World.



MI-NY Holographic Touch Violet (third from top in photo below) makes the list because it is purple-y, super holo, and reminds me of my friend The Holo Queen, without whom I wouldn't have gotten this polish at all.



And then there's Starlight Polish Starlight, a holo topper that makes rainbows on any color.



Wet Paint Nails Voice of Raisin is the plainest polish on my list. It's just so nicely squishy, wearable on its own or layered in jelly sandwiches, and in a subdued color that's not typically seen in this type of formula.



Finger Paints Winter Chill is a brown texture with pops of color that I like wearing shiny, shiny, shiny with topcoat.



OPI Green on the Runway was my favorite from the Coca Cola collection. Such a nice shift from brown to green.



Smitten Figgy Pudding is a squishy purple with shimmer and subtle color-shifting flakies.



Pahlish Sugar Plum Marshmallow is another pretty purple indie, this one a very greyed lilac with flakies and holo shimmer.



The rest of my list is all glitter. So much glitter. So much pretty.

Revlon Nude Graffiti made the list to acknowledge that mainstream brands are stepping up their game. I like that there's a lot going on here shape and size wise but the restrained color palette makes it less intimidating to people who might be scared away by something more flashy. If everyone is comfortable wearing glitter, more glitter will be in stores, making it easier for me to feed my appetite for sparklies.



I'm as surprised as anyone that a gold made my list, but Nicole by OPI Lips Are Dripping Honey has so much holo in the glitter it's really more rainbow colored than gold.



Wet 'n'n Wild Breakfast in Tinsel Town is similar to Lips Are Dripping Honey in that there's a fair bit of holo in the glitter. It stood out for me because it's green, which isn't that common a shade to see in mainstream glitter polishes. And it doesn't look Christmasy, either, which can be an issue with green mixes.



Glitter that reminds me of snow? Yes, please. China Glaze The Outer Edge scratches that itch.



Continuing the snow theme, Funky Fingers Elsa has actual snowflake glitters in quiet color palette that matches the quiet of a winter landscape.



I was tempted to put the whole Zoya Bubbly collection on this list, as I turned to them so many times, but if I have to pick just one, it'll be Muse.



Deborah Lippmann A Hard Day's Night was the best of the anniversary music box set, transforming other colors into something beautiful and mysterious.



Polish Revolution Fire Sermon looks good on its own and layered. It's packed with a lot of shapes and sizes and colors but the combination works so well, it's not just thrown together and messy.



Love Thy Polish Royalty is special because it's pretty and was a gift from my friend Trish.



Kit Celebration reminds me of a fun day spent with polish loving friends.



Relouis Glitter Collection 01 reminds me of my time in Minsk. For about two minutes yesterday it looked like I might be going back but my boss and I decided it didn't really make sense from a business perspective.



Penelope Luz Luxury reminds me of my sweet Brazilian swap buddy Lucy.



So there you have it. On another day, I might have come up with a different list. I had twice as many on my short list, so I could have done a different list on this day, too, for that matter. It's nice to look back and remember all the different colors I tried. There's so much gorgeousness out there now; we are very lucky to be painting our nails in this era of many options.

Some of the polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes (you can see which ones by following the links to the individual entries). The content of this entry was not dictated by the providers.