Skittling the purple

Hi everyone! Boy, Uni life sure is hectic even during a break. I finally completed my second assignment for the break and guess what? I have a third one to do. Yipee! :( My life will be absolutely crazy until November 25th, which is when my last exam for the year is scheduled to be. So until then, what with assignments, prac and exams, I have no idea how often I will be painting my nails, let alone updating this blog.

Whining over, on to the nails :) I went for purple this time but I'm not sure I like what I did.

I applied two coats of Sportsgirl Baby elephant onto my index and fifth fingers. It is a greyed out purple with a lovely shimmer - beautiful! For my thumb and middle finger, I applied two coats of OPI Parlez-vous OPI?. Decorated my thumb by placing some 3D objects on it and using my Glossyblossom nail art striper in white for the white lines on my middle finger. Zoya Dannii was applied on my fourth finger and also used to dot the flower on my middle finger.

My friend gave me some of the flat 3D decorations to play with for my birthday. She knows me too well ;)

What do you think of this mani?

Thanks for looking ^^
~Sharon

Yet another spring mani ^^;;

Hello lovelies~ I'm totally on a roll with these spring-inspired manis :P Can't help it, it's September and springgggggggg :D Although it was a tad cooler today and cloudy. Hopefully the sun will come back soon!

I applied two coats of Ulta3 watermelon onto my index and fifth fingers and then used Ulta3 lily white for the dots. Two coats of Zoya Tiffany was applied onto my fourth finger. For my middle finger, I applied two coats of lily white and layered on two coats of Jordana Disco days. Finally, I applied two coats of Ulta3 spring fling onto my thumb and dotted with lily white. For some extra sparkle, I applied one coat of Disco days.

I don't usually wear orange shades so I thought I'd try it out again, especially since it's (meant to be) getting warmer. What do you think of orange on your tips? Also, have a look at my Blog Birthday giveaway, it's ending in 10 days!

~Sharon

Zoya Gems & Jewels Collection Preview

Gems and Jewels




Zoya Nail Polish presents 3 new jewel toned metallic shimmer polishes
and 3 glitzy, glitter glazes (featuring unique bar glitter) for an extra special holiday and winter 2011 season!

Zoya Gems and Jewels Collection
Rina (ZP576): Full coverage, rich green metallic shimmer.
Holly (ZP577): Gorgeous green glitzy, glitter glaze (with unique bar glitter).
Kissy (ZP578): Full coverage, party pink metallic shimmer.
Izzy (ZP579): Vivid pink glitzy, glitter glaze (with unique bar glitter).
Twila (ZP580): Full coverage, icy blue metallic shimmer.
Noel (ZP581): Bold blue glitzy, glitter glaze! (with unique bar glitter).

Mix it up... The Zoya Gems and Jewels color assortment allows
for multiple layered nail polish looks! Have fun…
• Wear the full coverage, jewel toned shades alone for a classic metallic shimmer look!
• Wear the glitzy, glitter glazes alone for a hint of glitz.
• Wear several layers of the glitzy, glitter glazes for a unique textured glitz nail look.
• Layer the glazes over the shimmers to a totally glam nail jewelry look.
• Layer the glitzy, glitter glazes over other colors to create a totally unique look that is
all your own (hint - hint: silver, gold, white and black totally rock under the glazes!).

Ultra long-wearing, glossy nail lacquers by Zoya are free of harmful industrial chemicals like toluene, camphor, formaldehyde, resin, dibutyl phthalate (DBP) that are known to cause cancer and birth defects.

Find Zoya Gems and Jewels as well as over 400 other high-fashion Zoya shades at www.zoya.com.
As always, each and every Zoya color is made for women so we name them after women.

Zoya is the new color of fashion...
Shipping September 15, 2011
Sug. Retail $8.00 ea.

So what do you think about this collection? I can see I'm going to be needing the green ones :)

Why I love purple

Hi everyone~ I'm still sporting my spring pastel mani so this one's from the vault :) I'm sure you all know of my love affair for purple by now, I harp on about it so much :P Zoya Mimi was no exception to my love and you can see why! ♥ I applied two coats of Mimi onto my nails and sealed it with a top coat. And oops, the flashes of red you see are a reflection of my top!

This is a gorgeous shade of purple, I love it loads <33. The only thing is that the polish does stain, so definitely double up on your base coat. Do you love purple as much as I do? ^^ And have a look at my Blog Birthday giveaway as well!

~Sharon

Fall releases, some new Zoyas

July is barely over, but pre-fall and fall collections are already starting to be released. Does time fly or what?

While I love fall colors and fall clothing and everything about fall, it does make me a little bummed out. Instead of looking ahead to a long summer we're now looking ahead to Labor Day and everything that comes with it. To this day, when I see a back-to-school shopping commercial on television I get a little twinge of anxiety, even though it's been years since I had to worry about any of that.

Anyway. There are three shades that I have my eye on from OPI's Touring America Collection, but I can pretty safely say that I don't feel compelled to buy anything from Essie, Misa or Finger Paints, and I never buy anything from China Glaze so that's a non-issue. I liked some of BB Couture's recent release, but I'm not positive that I'm sold on their formula and wear; I also skipped Cult Nails' fall colors and missed out utterly on Lynderella.

Thus far I've picked up two from Chanel's fall release (Peridot and Graphite, which I've shown you), two from Zoya's Smoke and Mirrors collection (Neeka and Yara; it's possible I may get Jem at some point) and I pre-ordered Piu Mosso from Rescue Beauty Lounge.

This could of course all change when I start seeing the colors crop up on more blogs and in more pictures on MUA. With nail polish, the decision not to buy is always Subject To Change.

Since it's not a post without pictures, here are the fall Zoyas I purchased during the pre-order.

Yara and Neeka. These are both heavily pigmented creamy polishes with what has been described as "brocade shimmer" - it looks like little threads of embroidered gold running through fabric.

These polishes feel very rich and very "fall" to me. The base colors feel very autumnal. I love them! I'd like Zoya to put out a collection of this type of shimmer in every color.

Neeka.

Crazily, crazily pigmented. Pretty nearly opaque in one coat.

Yara. A gorgeous olive-y green.

If you have tried Zoya's formula in the past and didn't like it, these may be worth another go. I absolutely loved them! One thing to remember with Zoya, though, is that they generally don't play nice with Seche Vite. I've had much more success with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in the red bottle. You can also use Zoya's Color Lock system, though I've never tried it. I use Palladio Fuse bonding base coat and it works fine.

What are you getting for fall? Are there any releases you're really excited about?

Zoya Anja

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

I'm still working my way through the Zoya Smoke Collection, today with Anja.  While I was at it I removed that fake tip I've been wearing, which meant losing more length than I care to, but it's nice to have even nails with no repairs again.  After taking care of that I put on Anja, which Zoya accurately describes as "smoky palatinate purple cream."  It's really nice to apply and one coat was almost good enough, so two made it perfect.  I finished it off with top coat, let it dry for a bit, then took a picture.  You'll see Anja darkens a bit as it dries.

Zoya Anja Nail Polish, Two Coats

It's another very nice, updated, very Fall appropriate shade.  That's the news of the day, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!

Zoya Dree

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Continuing with the Zoya Smoke Collection for Spring 2011, today I have Dree for you.  Before I move on to Dree, I had one quick note about the removal of Zoya Cynthia to pass on to you.  You know how dark blues often leave Smurf fingers in their wake?  Well, I removed Cynthia with the pink Beauty Secrets acetone-based remover, and there was literally zero staining of my skin or nails, so that's a huge plus for a dark blue.

Back to Zoya Dree... That's the olive green creme in the Smoke Collection, and my initial reaction was not particularly thrilled just because I have olive green cremes.  Once I started applying it, I became far more enthusiastic about it for several reasons.  First, the shade is a good one - it's not as yellow as RBL No More War nor as washed out as Chanel Khaki Vert.  The application is very good, although a little bit slow for me since the brush is small and my nails are not, but that comes down to making the color change take 14 minutes instead of 8-10, which is completely reasonable.  Dree's dry time is exceptionally good - when I was painting the seventh nail, I bumped the freshly painted third nail and only made a tiny fixable mark in it, and it was completely dry very fast using everyday base and top coats for me.  The polish is very pigmented so two thin coats were all that I needed and it dries very shiny.  Here's Zoya Dree with base and top coat in the sun.

Zoya Dree Nail Polish, Two Coats

That's what I know about Zoya Dree.  So far so good on the Smoke Collection, and I'm looking forward to the other four.  Until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!



*This polish was provided by the manufacturer for review, that fact has no bearing on the review itself.

Zoya Cynthia

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

I'm wearing Zoya Cynthia today  because I swatched Zoya's Smoke Collection for you at the same time that I swatched Zoya Mirrors, but  in the time it took me to swatch twelve polishes the light changed and I wasn't pleased with the swatches so I figured I'll just show you the Smoke colors one at a time this week.  Why not start with Cynthia...

Zoya's description of Cynthia is that it's a "smoky Prussian blue cream," and that sounds just about right.  Cynthia 's application was very good, and two coats were plenty to make it perfectly even and opaque.  Here it is after the manicure dried (two coats of color with base and top coats).

Zoya Cynthia Nail Polish, Two Coats

I like Cynthia - it's like an updated navy blue and it's nice and shiny.

That's the beginning of Zoya Smoke and just about all I have for you today, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!



*This polish was provided by the manufacturer for review, that fact has no bearing on the review itself.

Zoya Mirrors Collection

Good morning, Dear Reader!

After I thought I was all done yesterday, a set of Zoya's Mirror Collection sent for review arrived, and I have swatches of them for you today.  This is a really cool collection - each of them applied really beautifully, the one I'm wearing dried well in reasonable time, and they're fun to look at.

All of these are base coat, two coats of color, and top coat, and I let each dry for a few minutes before taking a picture in sunlight.  There's no real significance to the order of the swatches.  Now that you know all of that, let's look at pretties.

Tao, which Zoya describes as "smoky slate gray metallic", is what I'd call a light gunmetal shimmer, and a good one.

Zoya Tao Nail Polish, Two Coats

I'd agree with Zoya that Marina is "smoky steel blue," but I say it's a shimmer and not so much metallic.

Zoya Marina Nail Polish, Two Coats

Nimue is called "smoky rich thistle metallic", and and strange as it sounds, I think "smoky thistle" is the best description of Nimue, a shimmer.  A technical difficulty resulted in less nails swatched for this one.

Zoya Nimue Nail Polish, Two Coats

Zoya says Neeka is "sparkly amethyst purple  metallic," it's a bit deeper purple than Nimue and has little gold glitter.  Neeka is right along the lines of Sally Hansen Salon Arabian Night from a collection Tracy Reese did with them a few years ago.

Zoya Neeka Nail Polish, Two Coats

The other with glitter just like that in Neeka is Yara, where it's in an olive green shimmer base.

Zoya Yara Nail Polish, Two Coats

These five are all lovely, but I think almost any polish would pale in comparison to Zoya Jem.  It's described as "sparkly fandango pink metallic," but mine's nothing like fandango pink at all.  It's a fantastic red plum shimmer, and there's something about the shimmer in it that makes it look just like cool custom car paint.  It makes me think of a neighbor I had when I was a teenager who was terribly proud of his IROC-Z.  The custom paint job even included his name on the driver's door - too bad it was spelled wrong... Anyhow, this is Zoya Jem - see if it transports you back to the days of watching a whole bunch of guys trying to construct an entire car out of Bondo.

Zoya Gem Nail Polish, Two Coats

I think the whole Mirrors Collection is excellent (Zoya's really been making great colors), but Jem put it over the top.  Jem is one amazing nail polish.

That's what I know about Zoya Mirrors, so until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!

Dannii, you're delightful

Hi everyone~! I have the most delightful polish to show today :) Dannii is from Zoya's Initimate collection which was released earlier this year as part of the spring collection. This shade of purple is more cool toned and not normally one I prefer - I like my dark and vampy purples, I do :P However, the beautiful silver flecks really drew me in and I gave in to purchasing this.

Dannii definitely doesn't disappoint (how's that for alliteration? :P)! I love the lightness of the purple with the cool shade, what a perfect combo :D

What do you think of this polish - hot or not? :)

~Sharon

Edyta, you beauty ♥

Hello~Just a quick and simple post before I head for the books again :). This is two coats of Zoya Edyta and it's a glorious dark, mossy green with golden flecks swimming in it. It was lovely to apply and even more lovely to wear on my nails ^^ Ahhh, I love each and every one of my Zoyas.

A true beauty to behold ♥ What do you think? :)

~Sharon

Faye, oh Faye ♥

Hello~ Zoya Faye, which is part of the Sunshine collection, was part of my recent ebay haul and one of my most anticipated polishes from the haul. So naturally it was the first one I popped on :P. The polish is so hard to capture, what with the great abundance of gold flecks. Love the gold flecks though, and dimmer lighting my mani actually looked gold rather than pinkish mauve, which is the base colour of the polish.

What do you think of this polish? It's definitely my favourite from the collection and I'm glad I caved and purchased it! :D

~Sharon

May haul

Hi everyone~ Yes, this is finally another haul post! I really haven't been feeling the nail polish collections since China Glaze's Anchors Away collection which I hauled waaay back in February. However, a few weeks ago I found a seller on ebay who sells Zoya polishes at a pretty reasonable cost and combined with cheap shipping costs, who can pass on that? :)

I also found Essence polishes being sold in Target awhile ago and couldn't resist getting Choose me hehe.
Zoya Dannii, Faye, Ivanka, Gemma, Mimi

Viva la nails also offered some full nail water decals for bloggers to review. I received the following sample pack~ I'll have a review of one of the decals up soon! :D

What do you think of the recent nail polish collections? Anything I missed and should be looking out for? :)
~Sharon

Zoya Touch Collection Swatches

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Today I have swatches of the upcoming limited edition Zoya Touch Collection, which Zoya sent for review.  The sun peeked out for a moment between storms, which means I hadn't been planning on swatching and hadn't fixed up my pinky yet, so the pictures leave that out, but at least they're in the sun so you can get a good look at the polishes.

All three Zoya Touch shades are extremely well pigmented, so much so that I think with careful application, one coat would be enough for them to be opaque.  Because there's a lot of pigment, they weren't perfectly smooth without top coat, so all three of these swatches are with both base and top (which did smooth them out perfectly), and I gave the top coat a couple of minutes to dry before taking the pictures.  Without the top coat, they dry surprisingly quickly and shiny, but I figured not using it wouldn't be a fair representation of the polishes.  I left the last one on the four fingers I swatched, and it's dried well in a reasonable period of time.

Minka is the palest of the three, which Zoya describes as "latte beige cream with a metallic kiss."  I think it's a light beige shimmer.  The color would likely be a very good match for many people's skin (it's darker than mine), and the shimmer in it is that very fine, subtle kind, but there's a whole lot of it so it shows up quite well.  Here's Zoya Minka.

Zoya Minka Nail Polish, Two Coats

Shay is next in line, and it's a shade darker than Minka and more rose, but has the same cool shimmer.  Zoya calls it "desert rose sand beige cream with a metallic kiss," and I'd call "cream with a metallic kiss" shimmer, but description of the shade is probably more clearly explanatory than any other words I'd choose.  Here is Shay in sunlight.

Zoya Shay Nail Polish, Two Coats

The third and last in the Zoya Touch Collection is Pandora, which Zoya describes as "mauve beige cream with a metallic kiss."  Again, I'd scratch "cream with a metallic kiss" and go with "shimmer," but I'm glad for the suggestion of "mauve beige" because that's a very accurate way to put it.  Here is Pandora, which has the same subtle but dense shimmer as the previous two.

Zoya Pandora Nail Polish, Two Coats

As I mentioned, the sunlight I had was just peeking out between clouds, so it wasn't glaringly bright.  When taking the pictures, I was lamenting that, thinking it wouldn't show the shimmer, but it actually worked out very well.  You can see how the shimmer in these really glows when the light hits it, and that they're distinctly shimmers even without bright light, and the colors didn't get all washed out.

I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite of these because all three of them are really cool, and they're coming out just in time for my renewed love of shimmers.  The Zoya Touch Collection is available for pre-order on Zoya's site now, with a release date and pre-order ship date of June 1st.  They're $8 each and the little boxed set of three is $24.

That's my Zoya Touch review, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!

Zoya Jo & Konad m34

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Today I'm wearing Zoya Jo, the lovely blue shimmer from Zoya's Twist Collection from a while back.  It's what I think of as a jeans color, and it's loaded up with a sparkly shimmer.  For the manicure, I used Nubar Foundation as a base, two coats of color, and finished it with Nubar Diamont.  Jo applied quite well (although as there was some discussion of yesterday, I have to work more carefully with the relatively small brush), and it's one of those where while applying the first coat, I think "This will need at least three coats..." but then the second makes everything nice and evenly opaque. It dried well with this combination, although I know that Zoya strongly recommends their Color Lock system, which I've never used in its entirety, to ensure that everything works out nicely.

I decided to Konad an accent nail again today just because I'm digging the Konad kick for cheerful manis, but I didn't want to mask the shimmer of Jo because that's my favorite thing about this polish.  Also, on the lazy front, it takes about thirty seconds to do one stamp and about ten more to top coat one nail to seal the stamp, so it's pretty tempting to go that route - I think it's a great payoff for minimal effort.  I used the Virgo design from plate m34 in Konad White Pearl for the stamping.  Here's the finished manicure under artificial light (Spring storms mean the sun's nowhere to be found).

Zoya Jo Nail Polish, Two Coats, with Konad m34

You might notice there's no way to leave comments today (on any post), or even read them for that matter.  Comments are back for now...  That's because the commenting service I use is having tech issues.  It's on the agenda to switch to another that comes highly recommended, but because of the way the current one was installed by the service, a lot of coding will be required to remove it.  Due to the constant tech issue and general lack of interest in customer satisfaction, I don't exactly trust the current service to strip out the code for me.  Since Blogger now offers a zillion times more drag and drop features than it did a couple of years ago when I was coding workarounds for things I wanted (and learning html that way, so coding many of them poorly), I'm leaning toward just completely redoing the whole blog rather than stripping out what I want removed.  There won't be giant changes since I'll never want a loud background or music playing or that kind of thing, and I'm limited with page layout since I use humongo pictures, it would be more a matter of tidying up the things that are either now offered by Blogger as pre-written elements I'd be content with or the things that make me cringe when I see them and know how I'd address them differently today.  I just thought I'd mention that's been moving toward the front of my brain lately, but today's complete lack of comments anywhere pretty much solidified it.

That's the update for today, Dear Reader. Until tomorrow, love and nail polish to you!

Zoya Sunshine & Summertime - Tanzy

I had a wild need for orange nails so what other choice did I have...Tanzy is an orange gold metallic duotone3 coats to my opaque happy placeI added a little pink and gold leopard spot decal by request of my youngestI love the application on these, it's closer to a glass fleck in application so very easy to work withYes I filed my nails a little....it's summer and I'm busy so this is an easy

Zoya Touch Collection Pre-Order

Hello, Dear Reader!

[Here are Zoya Touch Collection Swatches]

I'm fast asleep by now, but I have some news I couldn't give you until May 25th Eastern time, and since that's now, I wrote this several hours ago so you could get the word promptly. Today begins the pre-order for Zoya's upcoming limited edition Touch Collection.

Zoya Touch consists of three opaque nude shades, but not our mamas' kind. They're the kind of edgy, muddied variation of neutrals that are really taking off now, with the cool twist being what appears to be a downright killer shimmer in each. I'll be swatching these for you as soon as I can because I'm really fired up about them based upon the press pictures - I'm a big fan of traditional shades with a good twist, and these appear to be just that. Since I don't have them yet, I'll share with you the press image and video (assuming I embed it properly, I've never posted one here before) that have me excited about this release from Zoya.

Just so you know what you're looking at, here's Zoya's description of the three polish colors:

Minka - latte beige cream with a metallic kiss
Shay - desert rose sand beige cream with a metallic kiss
Pandora - mauve beige cream with a metallic kiss

This is the promotional image I have, which you can click to open in a larger size in a new tab.

Zoya's Touch Collection

In this video, there are closer pictures of the color swatches that give you a better idea of the shimmer in them. I think the shimmer looks awesome.

How cool do those look??? I think the reason I'm hyped up is that they're totally wearable, office-appropriate shades for any profession at all, but the cool shimmer is like a secret over-the-top element. I just think that's really fun.

Zoya's polishes are all free of formaldehyde and formaldehyde resin, toluene, dibutyl phthalate, and camphor, so in addition to being cool, these are safe to wear. For me, being devoid of formaldehyde has mattered for a couple of years since I saw what a difference it makes in discoloring my nails. Quite frankly, vanity aside, all carcinogens are really on my mind a lot more lately because my closest cousin, a breast cancer survivor who's been diligent about check-ups and all, very recently had a sudden aggressive recurrence that spread to her bones and lungs before it was caught. I don't want any one of us to deal with that, so I'm becoming far more conscious in general of risk factors, so having cool nail stuff that's not adding to the problem matters to me, and these don't.

These three limited edition shades will be available for pre-order starting today on Zoya's site, and I'll have swatches for you as soon as samples arrive. Until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!

When you're in a rush...

**Thank you blogger, for eating this post up :(. At least it wasn't totally deleted though...**

Hey everyone~ Suede/matte polishes are such useful polishes when you're short for time. They dry extremely quickly and are pretty easy to apply.

Below I have two coats of OPI Lincoln park after dark suede and Zoya Harlow.

Wanting to spice things up, I then added some nail stickers I received from Born Pretty Store.

I finished the mani with a top coat to protect the stickers. Unfortunately they didn't stay on too well this time. This mani didn't even last a day without some of the stickers falling off.

What do you think? Do the polishes look better suede/matte or glossy? ^^ And have a look at my Thank you-Sorry giveaway :) here if you haven't already!

~Sharon

Some of the products in this post were provided for review. For more information, please view my disclosure policy.