Showing posts with label Zoya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zoya. Show all posts

Celebratory Manicure

Monday, January 20, 2014

Good evening!

Tonight I have a manicure that probably would have been great for New Year's Eve, had I actually done anything fun to celebrate that night. Instead, we saw a terrible movie and fell asleep, saving champagne for the next day (and Korean BBQ, yum!).

I used LeChat Dare to Wear Just Breathe on my pinky and pointer, topped with Laquerlicious Bottle of Bubbly. On my middle finger I have Zoya Dream, stamped with Winstonia 117 plate and Kiko #399. On my ring finger I have Zoya Tomoko. Thumb has Dream with Bottle of Bubbly over it.

Have a great night!


Zoya 2014 Transitional Collection: Naturel

Wednesday, December 11, 2013



Good Evening!

Today I have swatches of the brand new Zoya Naturel Collection.

Six shades that echo the nuances of soft mauves and creamy nudes and everything in between. I always love the clean, soft hues of the Transitional colors at the start of every year, a nice break between the bright festive holidays and the warmth of the spring season.
Odette. Three coats. A berry medium mauve.

Chantal. Three coats. A nude creme, slightly peachy undertones. 

Normani. Three coats. A medium dusty taupe tinged with purple. The color of a lightly bruised mushroom.

Rue. Three coats. The faintest faded blush creme, dusty. 

Brigitte. Three coats. A more lively mauve creme. 

Taylor. Three coats. A nude creme with sandy beige undertones. Cooler than Chantal. 

I thought a side by side comparison would be much more helpful so that you can seen how the colors differ.

The formulas were good. Thin but smooth. The only one that bothered me a bit was Chantal, it really wanted to pool and was extremely slow drying. I recommend waiting a few minutes between coats and another good five minutes before top coat (even with a quick dry one). My favorite shades were Taylor and Rue, they are so beautiful in their simplicity.

The Zoya Naturel Collection will be available on January 1st, 2014. Each bottle is 5-free and $9.

Click here to visit the Zoya website.

Products featured are press samples. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.

CosmoProf North American 2013 Recap, Part II

Saturday, July 20, 2013
 Good evening! Tonight's post is part II of my CosmoProf North America recap. Let's start off with a bang, shall we? The China Glaze booth was incredibly crowded because everyone was buzzing about the unveiling of Geláze, the new line of gel polishes!
China Glaze has taken 36 very popular shades and created their own gel system, complete with different gel bases for various types of nails, prep and removal products and an LED light.
 A smaller consumer size will be available at Sally Beauty Supply as soon as August. Thrilling right? I am so bad at changing pedicure colors, now I'll be able to have Flip Flop Fantasy on my toes for weeks at a time.




Here's a look at China Glaze's upcoming collection called On the Horizon. Feather glitter! Personally I'm crazy for this stuff because I happen to like bar glitter (so long as it is not the wide chunky kind). I have other pictures and information on other collections too, but can't reveal them until it gets closer to their arrival dates, stay tuned for that! 
Let's talk Seche for a moment. Seche Vite is still my go-to top coat for speedy manicures and I go through bottles of it every year just swatching polishes. Recently they have expanded to include polish line and now there will be a full line of creme shades. These are all supposed to be one coaters, which I find really exciting. 

 The fall Seche collection is called Clever and Confident. I really like how the shades look together, I can't wait to try them to see if they really are one coaters. Wouldn't that be absolutely great for nail stampers?

One of the brands new to me was No Miss. You might have seen their products in Whole Foods or other natural food stores as their line is very geared towards healthy products. Check out this crazy big chocolate lip balm! It smells just like Tootsie Rolls, ridiculously scrumptious. 

 I had the pleasure and honor of meeting THE ZOYA! She is really a joy to talk to. Melissa of the Daily Nail, Katherine of Manicure Addict and I chatted with her for two hours about everything from the influence colors can have to India, Russia, China and even yoga and classical music.

It didn't happen... unless you post about it on Instagram, right? Hah!

 I already swatched Zoya Fall 2013 Cashmeres yesterday, but check out those Satins.

 I felt like it had been a while since Nubar popped up on my radar but they are back at it with a bunch of new collections. Above we have Wild West.
 Eden might be the most exciting for me because I love the looks of those cremes. That green! That latte shade! That ORANGE!

Alter Ego, an entire collection of jellies with big opalescent glitter. How did we get so lucky? The golden one up front is really quite beautiful. Actually they all are.

That wraps it up for today! Come visit again tomorrow for the last official part of the recap and on Monday I'll have pictures of blogger/indie brand meetups.

What new collection excites you the most out of the ones I've shown you today?

Zoya Fall 2013 Cashmeres Collection

Friday, July 19, 2013
Hi folks! I'll finish up my CosmoProf North America Recap series but I wanted to squeeze in your first look at part of Zoya's fall offerings. This is the Cashmeres, the creme collection. The colors are exactly my cup of tea, dark and rich.
Livingston. Clean blue based red. More blue than Zoya Rehka and darker and more creme-like than Zoya Sookie (which has a bit of jellyish squish to it).
 Pepper. A smooth brick red. I love that it has just enough brown to it to not be glaringly bright.

 Sailor. Perhaps my favorite out of the group, a gorgeous navy.


Hunter. A dark green that hits the sweet spot right; not too blue based and not too much yellow. A lot of greens can really make my hands look quite yellow but this is just fantastic.

Louise. Great coverage brown. A little darker than milk chocolate but not quite dark chocolate territory.
Flynn. A smooth elegant light tan. I want to say that it doesn't have enough yellow to be considered camel. Very chic shade.

So usually I list how many coats I'm wearing in each swatch, but everything in this collection took just two glorious coats. Two smooth flowing, gliding coats that practically applied them selves. Really great formula on this collection.

It may only be July but I so ready to wrap myself up with a thick knitted sweater, pack a thermos full of hot spiced cider and go see the changing leaves! I really loved every color in this collection (Livingston wasn't super exciting but the quality is just superb) and the application of these shades pleased me greatly.

What are your favorite shades from this collection?

Zoya's ultra rich Cashmeres are $8 and available now at Zoya.com. Zoya Nail Polish is a nail polish free of toluene, formaldehyde, DBP (phthalates) and camphor.

Products featured were given to me to review. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy. 

Zoya Textured Stars & Stripes Tutorial

Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Hi folks!


Zoya's PixieDust polishes are my favorite textured polishes in terms of formula and final gritty effect, so I used two shades to create a 4th of July manicure to share with you.

You'll need:

-Zoya Chyna
-Zoya Liberty
-Zoya Purity
-a piece of foil or other surface for nail polish
-a dotting tool, birchwood stick or toothpick
-a fine nail brush
-Q-tips or brushes and polish remover for clean up.

Paint your nails using Zoya Chyna and Liberty. I used Liberty on my pointer and Chyna on the other fingers, two coats each. Wait for them to dry completely.

Pour out a bit of Purity on the foil. Then let it sit for a while, stirring it with your dotting tool to occasionally to test it.

You want the polish to pull away in strings. Too runny and it'll drip away in big blobs, too dry and it'll get chunky and break instead of creating thin strings (like pulling taffy!).

Pull up strings of polish and wrap it around your nail, a circular motion with your tool. Each time, dipping the tool into the polish to pull up more strands of polish. If the polish starts drying out, add a drop of fresh white polish.

When you've spun enough of the strands around your red nails, use the thin brush and fresh white polish to draw white stars on the nail painted with Liberty.

Finish the look by cleaning up with remover around your cuticles. Since it's a textured look, no topoat is necessary!

Zoya Pixie Dusts are $9 each and can be found on the Zoya website.

Easy patriotic manicure, right? Did anyone else do any 4th of July or Canada Day nails?

Some of the products featured were sent to me for review. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.

Zoya Summer 2013 Stunning Collection

Saturday, May 4, 2013

It's Zoya time! Last week I received the two Zoya summer polish sets. Today I'll be showing you the Stunning set which contains cremes and like-cremes.

There are six shades. Four of these shades have the finest white silver shimmer that is barely visible in the bottle, there just happened to be thin veins of it running through the polish. This shimmer is not really visible on the nail but it does give the polish an extra shiny look. They look like cremes, they apply like cremes. So I'm calling them like-cremes.



Darcy. Three coats. Like-creme. Pure yellow color. A little on the streaky side, but three coats evened it out.


 Thandie. Three coats. Medium orange color. Also has that fine pearly shimmer.


Micky. Three coats. Again, fine shimmer. Bubble gum pink, but not too bright looking.


Yana. Bright magenta-pink. Three coats, again having the barely discernible shimmer.


Rocky. Two coats. A light, robin's egg blue but slightly faded. Pure creme.


Josie. Two coats. A lighter green that is almost a little bit jade. Another pure creme.

All together, the formula on these were good, not great. The colors with the slight shimmer were a bit fussy, they didn't level all too well until the third coat. I liked the two pure cremes though, Josie and Rocky. All of the shades (except Yana) had this slight faded quality to them. They sort of remind me of the colors used in 60's advertising (or perhaps I've been watching too much Mad Men).

Zoya Stunning polishes are $8 and can be purchased at Zoya.com
All Zoya shades are Big 5 free!

Which shades are your favorite?

Products featured were sent to me for review. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.