Now in its ninth year, NAILS Readers’ Choice Awards stand alone as the ONLY nail product awards chosen by YOU, the nail  professional. As working nail techs, who better to choose the best professional nail care products than those of you who use them every day?

Ours are not “editor’s picks” or a “best of” roundup; they’re simply a snapshot in time telling us the products you and your peers love most at this very moment.

So what are your favorite products? We’ve tallied the votes and are happy to announce the winners of the 2012 NAILS Readers’ Choice Awards.

We are listing the top five favorites in each category. We’re also highlighting the top 20 favorite new products for 2012.

If you’d like to see how this year’s favorite products stack up to years past, go to www.nailsmag.com/RCA to take a look at what products are consistently on the list from year to year and who has broken into the club of finalists. (You’ll notice slight modification in our categories from year to year to reflect industry trends.)

Now for the small print: We sent out nomination forms to every major product manufacturer in the nail industry. They nominated themselves (NAILS did not select the products for voting). In August and September, we sent readers online to vote for their favorite ­products. If your favorite products weren’t listed, you could write them in. Readers were not required to vote for every category. If you have any comments or would like to see additional categories in the future, please let us know. You can e-mail Erika.Kotite@bobit.com.