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Zoya Ignite for Fall 2014

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The other half of Zoya’s Fall 2014 offering is a shimmery, rich, jewel-toned shades. The lineup includes:

Autumn – Varnished Copper Liquid Metal

India – Deep Red Gold Liquid Metal

Teigen – Violet Plum with Copper Liquid Metal

Sansa – Deepest Eggplant with Gold Liquid Metal

Remy – Indigo with Copper & Gold Liquid Metal

Yuna – Grey with Copper & Gold Liquid Metal

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$9 each, available on Zoya.com and salons/spas. Pre-order is available now. Zoya polishes are “Big 5 Free” – meaning they are free of formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, dibutyl phthalate, toluene, and camphor.

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Zoya Entice for Fall 2014

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Fall collections are my favorite. Zoya Entice collection for Fall 2014 introduces 6 glossy creme polishes that are simply to die for!

The lineup includes…

Nyssa  – Milk Chocolate Brown, Full-Coverage Formula

Claire – Rich Burgundy, Full-Coverage Formula

Veronica – Brilliant Wine, Full-Coverage Formula

Margo – Red Plum, Full-Coverage Formula

Ryan – Classic Indigo, Full-Coverage Formula

Genevieve – Leather Grey, Full-Coverage Formula

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$9 each, available on Zoya.com and salons/spas. Pre-order is available now. Zoya polishes are “Big 5 Free” – meaning they are free of formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, dibutyl phthalate, toluene, and camphor.

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March 2013 Favorites

mofo[5]You know you love my pictures of random crap on my favorites posts. In fact, I think you secretly wait on bated breath every month to see what weird quirky image I will post.

Or not. [Read more…]

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GIVEAWAY: Zoya for Peter Som Nail Polish Trio

The idea behind this is pretty simple – I grabbed an extra Zoya for Peter Som nail polish trio so that we could have a fun giveaway!
If you want to enter to win, comment below with an answer to a question I’m going to ask, and let me know how you follow this blog (whether it’s Twitter, email, RSS, whatever). That’s all you have to do. :)
Question: If you could name a Zoya polish, what would you name it?
This giveaway is closed and the winner has been notified!
Good luck!
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Zoya for Peter Som Collection Review & Swatches


This year for NYFW FW 2012 Zoya collaborated with designer Peter Som to create custom shades of polish. Zoya color director Rebecca Isa created three shades–


Evvie is described as “rich, decadent, smoky eucalyptus cream”. It’s a beautiful green (leaning more towards blue than yellow) with smoky undertones. The formula is to die for it’s perfectly opaque and even in 2 coats that go on like buttah!
Audrey is a “warm, semi-opaque cream”. It’s a lovely peachy pale pink nudey color, but fairly sheer. Might even be nice for French manicures if that’s what you’re into. Personally I like it layered. It goes well over white, or under…
Katharine is a special shade. Katharine is a new formula that Zoya calls “nail gloss”. Nail gloss has half the color and double the shine of regular polishes. A vampy dark wine purple in the bottle, Katharine goes on sheer like delicious grape jelly. Worn by herself, Katharine gives the look of juicy candy nails. For a bit more oomf, she also layers beautifully over Audrey. I love this! As soon as I read about this color and formula I raced to the Zoya site to buy.
Evvie, Audrey, Katharine
The Zoya for Peter Som NYFW FW 2012 set was only available on one day from Zoya and of course sold out fast. It came in a sweet little gift box and I really love the colors! Zoya nail polishes are some of my favs and I’m really glad I was able to get my paws on this trio! 
Here’s some swatches on my nails…pardon the mess, I’m hopped up on asthma meds and they make it hard to paint with a steady hand. I wanted to just get these up so you could see them right away! 
Top to Bottom – Audrey, Evvie, Katharine

Top To Bottom: Katharine, Evvie, Audrey, Katharine over Audrey

Peter Som runway NYFW FW 2012 – photo from Vogue


What do you think of this collection? Is it your cup of tea? I’m dying to know what you all think of the new nail gloss. I loooove it and want MORE shades!
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Name Dropping: Nail Edition

As a beauty blogger I often get asked what my favorite ________ is, so I decided to do a post with all my favorite nail-related goodies. Hope this information is helpful or informative for you! :)
Favorite Nail Prep Products

Before your manicure you must prep the nails. I like to buff and file mine if they need it, and then apply a base coat. I buff with cheap nail blocks that I get from just about any nail supply. I heard glass files were “the best” so I got one years ago from Sephora. Surprisingly, it’s actually still in stock – check it out. It serves me pretty well, but I also really like these mini files from Tweezerman a lot. They’re the classic emery board files with cute polka dots. What’s not to love?! They’re more purse-friendly since I don’t have to worry about breaking them. I have several cheap nail clippers too. I like to keep them all around the house in case of broken nails or hang nails that need snipping, but I lose them all the time too so I get the cheapest ones I can find. 
Before I start painting my nails I apply Seche Rebuild. This is an amazing product that helps fuse the nail plate to make stronger, more durable nails. If you have nails that break easily or crack/split a lot, you need this in your life. Don’t ask questions, just buy it. You’re welcome. By the way I’ve also tried Orly Nail Armor and I like Seche Rebuild better because it dries to a smooth surface. Nail Armor has silk fibers so if you wear it by itself it’s noticeable, whereas Rebuild is not. If you know you’ll never wear it without polish over it, Nail Armor is still a good choice too.
For a base coat, I really like Zoya Anchor. I have experimented with Orly Bonder but the Zoya Color Lock System is better. I haven’t yet tried the Zoya ridge filler yet, but I plan to.
Favorite Nail Polish Brands

It’s impossible to truly narrow down to just a few favorites, but the brands I like a lot are: China Glaze, Essie, OPI, Zoya, LA Girl (for the glitters), and even though I only have a few – Butter London. Honorable mentions go to Wet ‘n Wild and NYX. There are bunches I’ve never tried that I would like to, such as Nubar, Nfu Oh, Rescue Beauty Lounge, and probably dozens more. 
Topcoats!

Seche Vite is a cult favorite in the nail polish world. I think it’s alright. The thickening thing that it does is really annoying; I hate to have to buy a companion product to use to keep it usable long enough to use the whole bottle. I have a product by Nailene called Miracle Maker Top & Base Coat that is fan-freaking-tastic. The problem is it seems to only come with their French Tip Pen kits. And of course there is Zoya Armor. That is probably the topcoat I go to the most. Like I said above, the Zoya Color Lock System is really great. 
Removing Polish

This should shock no one…my favorite nail polish remover is Zoya Remove+. I have 2 of the 8 oz flipper bottles. I love everything about this product. The packaging is genius, the product itself is purple, and it really works well to remove all of your nail polish quickly.
Well there you have it! If you want to see my nail polish collection, check out my video on youtube!
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Zoya Touch Collection Review

Last week I told you about the new collection from Zoya- Touch. The little trio of nude polishes is available for pre-order now, and launches officially tomorrow (June 1). But how’d you like to see it now? :) 
My preliminary thoughts when they came were a bit of surprise. The three shades are very similar. I wasn’t expecting them to be so similar. They’re all lovely colors. The “kiss of metallic” is very subtle. Both in the bottle and on the nail you really have to look for it. It’s more to give the color more depth than to be really noticeable, I feel. 
As I swatched these yesterday, I realized the concept here was very similar to that of foundation. These are essentially the same shade but with radically different undertones. Now that I’m reading Zoya’s descriptions on their site, I can see this is what they were going for exactly. Now that I understand what they were going for better, I like this collection. This is not one of those collections that you want to run out and buy all of unless you do nails on other people. Good news – money saved! I think if you pick a color based on your undertones and go with just that shade, you’ll be very happy. 
It’s easiest to illustrate the differences in these polishes by showing them to you all on my hand at once. The picture below was taken in natural light w/o any flash. It’s very similar to foundation matching! Pardon the condition of my nails; this photo was taken before I did any post-mani cleanup. All three shades make kind of a super subtle skittle manicure that I kind of like, haha. 
Thumb – “Minka” 
Pointer – “Pandora” 
Ring Finger & Pinky – “Shay”
Same fingers as above, just wanted to show you a better representation of the metallic-ness.
Minka is described as pale milky beige-nude with yellow undertones. Zoya recommends this for those with neutral to olive tones. While this color is lovely, it really doesn’t look very good on me since I have very pink undertones. If you are also pink like me, chances are it will give you “lobster hands” (making your hands look redder than they are). 
Shay is a nude-peach with what Zoya calls red-orange undertones. I agree with their assertion that this is warm to neutral because it doesn’t look completely horrible on me. It’s not the best one on me either, but I still like it quite a bit. I’ve always had a thing for peach polish though. I think most skin tones could wear this one. 
Pandora is my “juuuuust right” shade – not surprising it’s the one described as mauve with cool, blue undertones. I was most excited about this one from the color descriptions anyway, and it does not disappoint.  This is also the one that I liked the formula best on. 
Now about that formula. I love Zoya polish formula in general. These are said to be opaque cremes (they rate them a 5 on a scale of 1 being sheer to 5 opaque). I would rate them more like a 4. To me, a 5 would be something like Wet ‘n Wild’s Black Creme – the most opaque polish I’ve ever used. It’s fully opaque in a single coat. These did require 2 coats to completely obliterate any VNL. Shay and Minka both went on an eensy bit streaky for me, but I’m not 100% sure if that’s the polish, or my nails being really ridgey. However, my other Zoyas go on pretty nicely so I definitely noticed a difference in these. Just keep that in mind when applying, and adjust the amount you have on your brush accordingly. 
Zoya nail polishes are $8 each and available at Zoya’s website. 
Samples provided for editorial purposes.
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Zoya Touch Collection June 2011

Ahh, Zoya has done it again! Announcing the T O U C H collection for summer. It’s a little trio of nudes that is sure to have you racing for the Zoya website, begging them to take your money. ;) These are described as “full coverage nude creams with a bit of metallic”. Um, sign me up.
The colors & descriptions are:
Minka – latte beige cream with a metallic kiss
Shay – desert rose sand beige cream with a metallic kiss
Pandora – mauve beige cream with metallic a kiss
These will retail for $8 each and be available on Zoya.com on June 1st. However! Due to huge demand for this collection, you can pre-order this collection from now until May 31st. Pre-orders will not ship until June 1st when the collection “officially” launches.
Zoya Minka polish
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Zoya Hot Lips Review

 Zoya Hot Lips in Heatwave

Like many of you probably did, I took advantage of Zoya’s Hot Lips glossy lip balms freebie offer and picked out my 3 free Hot Lips. Several shades were sold out by the time I got my act together and picked mine, but I ended up with Heatwave, Purr, and Starlet. Heatwave and Purr are creme finishes while Starlet has shimmer.

They seem like they would be pretty small. I was expecting something about the size of a mini Juicy Tube, but these are bigger. They come in short, kind of “stout” tubes that are actually 12g in the tube, so it’s a decent amount of product. The first thing I noticed when I opened the envelope they came in was the smell. They have a deliciously sweet fruity scent (kind of similar to the scent of L’Oreal Color Juice glosses). I have heard they are flavored but to be honest, I don’t make a habit of licking my lips when I have something on them so I wouldn’t really say I’ve tasted them.

The way Zoya refers to these as “glossy lip balms” is a bit misleading, I think. When I think of a glossy lip balm I think of Soft Lips, which is a lip balm that imparts some shine. These are really lip glosses that happen to be very moisturizing, but they are definitely a gloss. The three I got are very pigmented. I think they look best (and work the best at moisturizing lips) when they are patted on lightly like a stain, rather than slathered on like a balm. That way you get some color and the moisturizing effects.

The texture is very sticky. If you do not like sticky lipgloss you will hate these. I personally don’t mind at all, as some of my favorite lip glosses (Juicy Tubes, Stila lip glaze, etc.) are sticky ones. Other than the fact that wearing a red lipgloss to bed is kind of weird (lol) I like these as a bedtime night treatment for my lips. At least the stickiness means it’s not going to wear off in 5 minutes.

I’m pretty happy with the colors I have chosen. Heatwave in reality is much more coral-looking than the photo above. I was kinda hoping for a deep cherry red like the one pictured, but it’s a creamy midtone corally red. Still pretty on, though. The other 2 colors I chose are exactly what was shown in the pictures:

Zoya Starlet & Purr
They do not go on as dark/deep as they look in the tube but that’s to be expected. The only thing I really do not like about these glosses is the applicator. There basically isn’t one. The part of the tube where the gloss squirts out looks like the nozzle of a tube of lotion. A slant or round-tipped applicator would have been much nicer and would make this product easier to apply.
Would I buy these again? Not sure. They retail for $6 each, and while I do think that is a fair price for the product, I’m not sure I would spend the money knowing that I really do not like the applicator. There are many deals to be had on glosses whose applicators I like (ex– Juicy Tubes are often only about $7 at the Lancome outlet), so I don’t think I’ll be jumping at the chance to spend the same amount on a gloss with an applicator that bugs me. I will definitely use these 3 though and I do enjoy wearing them.
Did you get your free Zoya Hot Lips? What do you think of them? What colors did you get?
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