Zoya Surf Collection Swatches

Good evening loves! My last post was of Zoya's Beach Collection, so as you may have guessed, today I have Zoya's Surf Collection to show you! I have really been anticipating getting my hands on these and they're finally mine! I have also seen this collection used to stamp so that's another reason I really wanted these. Let's take a look at the swatches. All are shown with 2 coats and no topcoat.

Zoya Kimber.

Zoya Rory.

Zoya Carly.

Zoya Meg.

Zoya Myrta.

Zoya Zuza.

My favorites are definitely Rory, Carly, and Zuza. I love all of these colors. The only things I don't like about these are that they take awhile to dry and the shimmer particles get all over my fingers during removal. Other than that these are beauties and are perfect summer colors! I can't wait to try stamping with these.

Zoya Beach Collection Swatches

Summer is almost here and that means summer nail polish collections! Today I have Zoya's Beach Collection. I know swatches are already out, but I just received mine from Zoya's Earth Day promo and I wanted to use mine, all of them lol. Let's get to the swatches!

Zoya Lara. 

Zoya Shelby. 

Zoya Reagan.

Zoya Tracie. I hate frosts =|

Zoya Arizona.

Zoya Wednesday.

As much as I love pink nail polish, I didn't love that there were 3 in this collection. I will however, be wearing them all. The formula was generally good, except for Shelby, it kind of dragged during application. All are 2 coats, except Shelby, which is 3 coats. These photos are all shown without topcoat. I was so excited to see the promo pics for this collection and now that I finally have it, I'm happy to say I'm pleased with it. Stay tuned for Zoya Surf Collection swatches!

Nude, Gold, and Hot Pink Double Lightning Bolt Nails

Hey everyone! I've been wanting to do a manicure with nude and hot pink because they go so well together, and here's what I came up with! I decided to do a double lightning bolt tape manicure using a tutorial from Jane at Nailside. She has the coolest ideas and is nice enough to post tutorials--thanks Jane! I used Zoya Shay, China Glaze Passion, and Zoya Layla. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Believe it or not I almost gave up in the beginning because my nude took awhile to dry and it lifted on my pinky at first, but I'm glad I kept going lol.

Zoya Shay and Konad M77

Hi everyone! I have something rare today--me wearing a nude! I have been pretty against wearing nudes because I love how bright colors look on nails, but at the hospital I had clinicals at last semester, I was actually allowed to wear nude polish so I purchased this one. I actually am starting to like how it looks, I think I just needed to break out of my comfort zone =] Here's Zoya Shay stamped with Konad M77 in Konad Black. Looks classy, eh?

New Years Nails

Last post of 2011! I wanted to do a mani perfect for New Years and all I could think of was these Technicolor nails by Liz at Liquidjelly. She put up a tutorial and I tried to follow it as best as I could, I think it came out pretty cool, but I should have used smaller pieces of tape on my first couple of nails. I used OPI DS Signature as my base color, added all the little strips of tape, and then did the gradient using China Glaze First Mate, Zoya Charla, Zoya Ivanka, and OPI Simply Smashing. I did these last night so I don't have any pics of it in the sun, but here they are! What does your New Years mani look like?

Happy New Years everyone! Be safe and see you all in 2012 =]

Zoya Gems and Jewels Collection Swatches

I know the holidays are coming to an end, so I'm trying to get all my holiday polishes swatched soon! I would've done them earlier, but school just ended for me a week ago so I'm barely getting around to it. Here is Zoya's Holiday 2011 Gems and Jewels Collection. There are 3 metallic polishes and 3 coordinating glitter polishes.

L to R: Noel, Twila, Izzy, Kissy, Holly, Rina

Noel. 2 coats no topcoat. Light blue metallic.

3 coats of Twila over Noel (shown with topcoat). Blue microglitter with blue bar glitter.  Indoors.

Outdoors.

Izzy. 2 coats no topcoat. Magenta metallic.

3 coats of Kissy over Izzy (shown with topcoat). Red microglitter, magenta & holo bar glitter. This one is my favorite combination! Indoors.

Outdoors.

Kissy has lots of pretty holo bar glitter!

Holly. 2 coats no topcoat. Emerald green metallic.

3 coats of Rina over Holly (shown with topcoat). Green microglitter with green & blue holo bar glitter. Indoors.

Outdoors.

I really liked this Holiday collection from Zoya. The metallic ones were easy to apply, whereas the glitter polishes became a bit thick during use. I'm new to bar glitter, so my only tip would be to be careful when applying to not let any hang over the edge of your nail otherwise they will get caught on your clothes when it dries. I used one coat of topcoat here, but two coats would be ideal. I almost got this collection for the giveaway, but this is seasonal and the Essie Luxeffects can be used all the time so I went with Essie. Thanks for reading! Until next time!

Christmas Water Marble

I wanted to do two Christmas water marble manis, but I only had time for this one. It didn't turn out as well as I wanted it to. I think the gold I used kind of mixed with the other colors a bit, but I still think it looks pretty decent. Does anyone have any suggestions of a gold polish that works well with water marbling? My favorite nail is my index finger, I wish all of my nails turned out that way. I used a base color of China Glaze Passion and to marble I used China Glaze Passion, Sally Hansen  Xtreme Wear in Cherry Red, and Zoya Holly. Anyways, short post today, my nails are drying as I do this post. I have two more really festive Christmas nails to show in the next couple days!

Zoya Faye & Sally Hansen Cherry Smash Crackle Overcoat

I promised to use Sally Hansen Crackle Overcoat polishes this week and I'm totally sticking to it =] I decided to use the red one first. It's called Cherry Smash. O.P.I. has released a Red Shatter with a mauve color called Rally Pretty Pink. I really wanted these, but I heard Rally Pretty Pink is an exact dupe for Zoya's Faye, which I own already, so I decided not to buy that set. Instead, I will use Zoya'sFaye and Sally Hansen Crackle Overcoat in Cherry Smash to try to get the same result as the O.P.I. set.

I was actually surprised at how well this turned out! I used a medium coat of the Cherry Smash crackle and it turned out great. I tried out thin and thick coats on my right hand just to play with how well it works. A thin coat almost completely covered the base color (I wouldn't recommend it) and a thick coat worked well. Sorry no pics, I suck at taking pics of my right hand. Also, I think you can see this from the pictures, but the Cherry Smash crackle is not opaque. I wouldn't say it's a good or bad thing. Maybe with a different color combination I'd be able to make a decision on that. I totally recommend this as an alternative to O.P.I. Red Shatter, although I think Red Shatter may be just a bit more opaque than this one.

Zoya Apple & Konad M73

This is the third color I got from Zoya's Sunshine Collection. I love green, but I just don't wear them for too long because I'm worried my nails will be super stained. I like green so much that I ended up buying both Apple and Ivanka from Zoya! I'll show Ivanka in a later post. This is a green color that has a yellow tone to it. It has beautiful gold glitter in it that makes it super shimmery. I started to stamp with yellow in top of it, but it wasn't showing up, so I chose white instead. I used Konad M73 and stamped in Konad white. 

Zoya Tanzy & BM 225

I chose to use this nail color with this plate because the image on the plate kind of looks like a California poppy flower to me, except it didn't really come out as how I imagined it in my head lol. I wanted more orange to show =\ Oh well. I used Zoya in Tanzy, and I have to say I LOVE this color. I only own two orange polishes, Tanzy is one of them. I would totally wear this one by itself. It's an orange color with yellow/gold glitter. It reminds me of happiness, orange soda, and sunshine! I stamped with BM 225 in Konad white.

Outdoors with flash.

Zoya Faye & BM 05

Julie from Varnish Me Up requested a swatch of Zoya Faye that I just got recently, so here you go =] I'll also be showing swatches of my other Zoya polishes over the next few days. This is a beautiful color, one unlike any that I own so far (I currently have under 100 polishes haha let's see how long that lasts). It's a mauve color that leans toward a light to medium purple shade. It has a really sparkly light gold glitter duochromoe effect to it. I used 3 coats, it seemed just a little sheer. For the nail art, I stamped with BM 05 and used Konad white. I got the idea of the stamp placement from soguesswhat11 on YouTube. 

Outdoors, no flash. This is the true color of the polish.

Outdoors, with flash. With flash, the purple looks a little darker than it really is, but this shows the gold glitter better.