@gtx Thank you. Finding that comparison blog was fun. There's no reason feel dumb. I'm thinking if I'd heard the term as related to polish three years ago I would have said "Huh???" To me, indie polishes are polishes that are designed, hand-mixed, hand-poured and sold by the individual making them. Of course there are many individual indie polishes that are very similar, both to mainstream and other indies (and to all the polish business models in between). But there is always a seemingly endless variety of unique polishes being released.
One thing I've learned is that much of the damage supposedly "caused" by acrylic and gel nails has much more to do with poor techniques used by nail techs. It takes months for the damaged nails to be replaced by new, healthy nails after the damage stops.
Thankfully I never went down that path. But I did use Nailtiques 2 for quite a while when I wanted to grow them a bit longer after I retired. It worked wonders until I had used it too long and my nails had gotten too hard. Around the same time I came across an internationally known research chemist/nail expert thanks sto a FB group I was in and learned that nail strengtheners are one common cause of the slight onycholisis (nail lifting) I was beginning to experience on a couple of nails. At that time I was changing polish daily, so frequency of ;was also a factor. I now try to apply various oils frequently during the day. I've learned to mostly use unscented because frequent exposure to some of the scents makes my fingertips very sensitive.
To be honest, colors online can be very deceiving. Obviously, the same color will appear differently on different monitors and some photographers are better than others. But some colors just don't photograph accurately no matter what. When you get to glitters and glitter toppers, the "tricks" that are used to highlight the polish, as well as the color used under a topper, can result in the image looking very different when you receive the bottle. Some polishes look far better on than they do in the bottle and vice versa. I also have found that I will often like the looks of a polish that's outisde my comfort zone more after I've worn it a bit.
I'm going to tag you in the long nail polish thread that's been going on for a while now. If you go to the last page and work backwards, you can see some of the indie polishes I've worn recently. My new phone takes better pictures, so the most recent ones are mine. Most of the earlier ones I've found online.
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