Zoya Breezi

The final gem in the "Summertime" portion of the Summertime and Sunshine Summer 2011 Zoya collection is Breezi, a soft, dusty medium cerulean blue with an opaque cream finish.  A super chic high-fashion denim look for nails."  While I don't see this as a denim blue (I'm more into darker washes personally), Zoya does do blue very well.  This blue reminds me a LOT of Zoya Phoebe but as you'll see below it's darker, richer, and of course, not matte.


I used a base of Zoya Get Even, 2 coats of Breezi and a top of Zoya Armor.  Formula, again, was excellent.


Here in the sun, you see how well this polish applied - no brush strokes, no bubbles, nada.  Very nice solid blue.


Same story in the shade - nice and creamy.


Indoors with the flash, you can see a bit of balding on my middle finger on the outside edge (going towards my ring finger) but that's from bad application by me.  Getting those sides has always been difficult for me.


A great finale to this half of the collection - I'd say my favorite is a tossup between this and Mira.


Zoya can be purchased on their website for $8/bottle.

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

Martha Stewart Vintage Leaf Glitter

While I was at JoAnn's Fabrics this past weekend, I saw this set of 12 "vintage leaf glitter" vials from Martha Stewart.  I had bought her 12 glitters vials about 2 years ago and it's done nothing but sit on my shelf of crafts as another one of those "I'll eventually play with this" things.  I figured with this, I could use it in nail art just like gold leaf foil (which I had to fight myself from buying last week as well).  At $20, this is a pretty good value considering how little you use for art and how many different colors are included.


I opened my vial, and tried to "paint" on some of the leaf glitter using my paintbrush that I clean up my cuticles with but that didn't do much, so I just used my fingertip to place the leaf glitter on my nail and then added a thick coat of Seche Vite.  A few pieces were still sticking up, so I pushed them down with an orange stick to try and get it to stick.  Bottom line, I wasn't patient enough.  I'm positive with enough time and patience (and a good top coat), you could get the leaf glitter to properly lay down and even place in a design.


This was over my earlier manicure, Zoya Mira.


The shine is amazingly brilliant but as you can see, a few corners are still sticking up which can easily catch on things... mainly hair since I tend to play with my hair a lot.


Even in the shade, this catches any available light to reflect upon.  I definitely think this is a great way to spruce up a manicure :]



Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

Zoya Mira

Moving on down the line of Zoya's Summer 2011 Sunshine and Summertime - today I have Zoya Mira, a "blue toned medium purple with dusty lavender tones and an opaque cream finish.  For a muted yet colorful purple that isn't too dark."  Now, when I first saw this color, I giggled at the name, because in Spanish, mira means "look", and as a teenager, it was popular to say "mira, look it" (which is totally redundant, but also hilarious at the time)...  Okay yeah, it's kind of weird but what can I say.  I used a base coat of Zoya Get Even, 2 coats of Mira, and a top of Zoya Armor.  Formula was very nice and even.


Now, this color looks a lot like China Glaze Grape Pop, but I haven't had any time for comparisons just yet.  That's one reason why I'm doing my nail project, so I can pull comparisons all the time.  I have a little over 50 nails done, so I'm only 5% into it (oy).  Very beautiful purple though.


Here in the shade, you can really see the blue tones coming through - I'm not sure what I like more... I'm a huge blurple lover in general.


Indoors with the flash... very Barney purple like.  Great creme but not entirely unique.  I promise to have comparisons again soon!



Zoya can be purchased on their website for $8/bottle.

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

China Glaze Let's Do It In 3-D

I follow a few Tumblr "blogs" (I don't really know what you'd call them, maybe it's just "tumblr"?) and I've been noticing a lot of China Glaze Let's Do It In 3-D postings from their Kaleidoscope collection.  This is a rainbow holo (not linear) in a charcoal grey base that I originally hated.  Seriously, I nearly gave it away last year because I was so underwhelmed by this polish.  Today I decided to try again.


I used a base coat of Nfu-Oh Aqua Base which takes a bit longer to dry than normal base coats because of its thickness, but provides a nice smooth base for the nail polish.  Next I added three thin coats of Let's Do It In 3-D.  And then I fell in love.


Not going to lie - I took about 50 pictures.  However, I'm going to spare you and only show the best one that showed you that holo goodness we all love.  Yay!


However in the shade, well you know the story.
Boo shade.


Indoors with the flash provided a bit more holographic pictures, but not by much.  This is definitely a "wear in the sun and blind everyone" type of polish - which is fine by me.


While this color is discontinued, you can find it sometimes on eBay (ouch on prices) or in small/local beauty supply stores or salons.



China Glaze [official website] can be found online through several etailers, including my favorite Head2Toe Beauty [official website], Sally's Beauty Supply [official website] as well asTransDesign [official website].

Zoya Areej

I'm officially finishing some CosmoProfNALV items today (YAY!) and I have a pretty pink for you!  Zoya Areej is a "pink with an opaque cream finish.  A pink for when you want a bold pop of color but not something neon-bright."  It's almost Barbie pink but has a bit more blue in it.  I used a base coat of Zoya Get Even, 2 coats of polish and a top of Zoya Armor.


Here in the sun you can see that it's definitely a darker pink than "Barbie pink", but still quite lovely  I like this shade of pink better than light because I feel it's better with my skin tone, but who am I kidding, I wear all kinds of polish.  Yellow is still my "ehh" color thought.


Oddly, in the shade, this looks much more berry than pink.  It's still quite beautiful, but just a little bit different.


Back indoors with the flash - I can't stop raving about Zoya Get Even and how well it covers ridges.  People constantly ask me where I get my nails done and I'm happy to say "They aren't fake!"


Zoya can be purchased on their website for $8/bottle.

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.