*Some gifted polishes used in this post.*
I feel like pretty much everyone has said everything they possibly can about 2020 being quite the year, so I won’t blather on about that. It was, despite of or in spite of everything, a great year for nail polish. There were a lot of amazing new collections released and some of us may have ramped up the amount of polish they were wearing because what else was there to do? Might as well paint your nails! Like the previous year, I have rounded up some of my favorites from this year, but I decided to only include polishes that are still available, at least still available as of this moment. I saw someone on Instagram mention that they don’t like favorites lists filled with limited editions and I can really respect that! So, without further ado, these are the top twenty polishes I wore for the first time this year. Some of these were released this year, but others may be old favorites of yours. Enjoy :]
The list is in alphabetical order of brand name and polish name within the brand name categories if there are more than one. They’re all equally my favorite for different reasons! You will see different hand poses throughout because I can’t stop experimenting. These are all polishes I wore as a full mani, I did not count polishes I only swatched.
1. Butter London 24K Overcoat (shown above with one coat over Rather Red)
2. Cadillacquer Bragi (shown above in 3 coats)
3. Dimension Nails Mushroom Tongue Salamander (shown above in 3 thin coats)
4. Essie Expressie Air Dry (shown above in 2 coats)
5. Essie Bustling Bazaar
6. F.U.N. Lacquer Peacock (shown above in 3 coats)
7. Holo Taco Aurora Unicorn Skin (shown above in 1 coat over Duri Dream Pop and under Purple Flakie Holo Taco)
8. Holo Taco Cold Shoulder
9. Holo Taco Frost Light
10. Holo Taco Zyler the Cat
11. ILNP Confetti (shown above in 1 coat over Wet N Wild Caribbean Frost and below Flakie Holo Taco)
12. ILNP Diablo
13. ILNP Eclipse
14. ILNP Party Bus
15. Nine Zero New Horizons (shown above in 3 coats)
16. Olive Ave Josler (shown above in 1 coat under Pahlish Goldsmith)
17. Palate Polish Artichoke (shown above in 2 coats)
18. Palate Polish Cookies & Cream
19. Palate Polish Hot Wings
20. Picture Polish London (shown above in 3 coats)
Blues, greens, purples, greys, oranges… no one is shocked, haha! I think it’s safe to say that I became a bit of an ILNP fanatic this year and of course continue to be a Palate Polish fanatic! By choosing only polishes that are still available, I feel like you get a good sense of the indie brands that are not doing constant limited edition. Also, I really noticed that indie brands swept the more mainstream ones, with only Butter London and Essie making the list. I would expect that mainstream brands would be more likely to keep their polishes around, but I guess the ones I really liked this year disappeared fast. For a bit of fun, I’ll mention the polishes I loved that were cut from the list: a-england Skinhead, a-england Spirit of the Moors, Butter London Rather Red, China Glaze Payback’s a Witch, China Glaze Having a Crystal Ball, MDJ Creations Music of the Night (original version), Nails Inc Ocean Ever After, Pahlish Alien Bloom, Pretty Serious The Dragon’s Curse, and Society Wit The Scholar. A little more brand diversity for you, but still quite a lot of indies!
What were your favorites this year?
xx, Ashley
Some of the polishes used in this post were previously gifted to me: Butter London 24K Overcoat and Duri Dream Pop.
Cruelty-free brands used are: Butter London, Dimension Nails, Palate Polish, and Picture Polish
short nail swatcher 
These are lovely. I am not sure what my favourites have been! Working my way through old and new polishes haha!
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I have to keep a list of my favorites throughout the year, otherwise I would never be able to put this post together 😂
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