Zoya Fire & Ice

Hellz to da yeah!

This collection is so totally completely awesome. At first sight I was very underwhelmed to say the least, but as I started looking the colors over more closely and swatching them I began to fall in love with every color more and more.

These polishes are so unique and almost impossible to describe but I'm going with "micro glitter glass fleck metallic bad assness" as my official status on the type of finish they are. It's really all about the formula and finish with this set of polishes. The colors are pretty boring and played out until you take a closer look and realize how complex and multidimensional they really are. These are basically the sparkles collection on steroids people. Even the seemingly boring reds are fabulous!

You really have to see these up close and personal to appreciate how gorgeous they are, but I have done my very best to capture their fabulousness in photos.

Sun

Close-up of texture

Shade

Sun

Close-up of texture

Shade

Sun

Close-up of texture

Shade

Sun

Close-up of texture

Shade

Sun

Close-up of texture

Shade

Sun

Sun

Close-up of texture

 Shade

The only flaw I found with these incredible polishes is that they are pretty sheer. These are all 4 coaters with the exception of Valerie which took only 2. They are totally worth sitting through a 4 coat manicure but I recommend using this tip instead.

Love, MM

Surprise! More Zoya!

I don't think I ever posted about the Zoya polish exchange on here but let me let you, I cleaned them OUT people.  I cannot say how many I got ok. It's just too greedy and horrible to admit. On the bright side of the exchange I have a DESK full of Zoyas and I've managed to swatch about half of them already.  So, here is another sampling of my hoard.

I feel like all I ever post anymore is Zoya swatches and it's annoying me. So I'm going to try to stagger my Zoya posts a little further apart from now on, lol. It could be just me though, because I feel like I'm surrounded by Zoya bottles while I sit at my desk. I seriously see them when I close my eyes. I've gotta get a new rack or something to remedy this situation stat!

Love, MM

Zoya Wonderful Fall 2010

I want to start this post by saying, I love you Zoya.  When I first saw swatches of the Zoya Wicked and Wonderful Collections there was no doubt in my mind that Wicked would be my favorite.  But now that I have them in my possession, the incredible Hulk could not RIP the wonderful collection from my cold, dead, perfectly manicured hands. 

I love every single aspect of the wonderful collection except one. So, let's get that ONE thing out of the way. I don't WANT TO MENTION IT, but I have to.  I think it is so incredibly STUPID, among other adjectives, that they named all 12 new wicked and wonderful polishes after the Dancing with the stars "characters" that it makes me ill.  I would almost rather ignore it and act as though it had never happened, pretend that Zoya, my beloved, had never done something so incredibly gay and then stab anyone that reminds me about it as I go along my merry way. But I can't, it's just too dumb to ignore.

Anyhoo, I adore the Wonderful Collection. It's WONDERFUL people! I love every single color, even the "pinks"! Check THIS out; I love them so much that I am not going to do my normal habit of blanketing anything with a red tone in it as "pink" and dismissing it. I know right, It's incredible.  Instead I'm going to call them by the names they actually are, like "Berry" and "Vibrant red". Amazing! Isn't it funny how something even semi unique can break bad habits like that?

Holy Mackerel the formula on these is fantastic.  Not too thick, not too runny. No streaks. No cute drag... no problems whatsoever. They dried quick too! These are not one coat wonders though, the swatches shown are all at 2 quick coats. Not freakin' bad huh?  I will admit some of the colors seemed a little run of the mill until I started painting my nails with them, but then with each color I fell in love more and more. I will wear every single one of these, for more than 5 seconds, seriously! I don't think this has ever happened with a collection before... *swoon*

On to da pictchas.

 A very wearable medium grey creme.  I love this. Do I need to repeat "I love this" after each photo?  Can I just tell you that I love them all and have that be that? No? Fine then. 

A beautiful, deep and rich berry red. I LOVE THIS. 

 This is a very unique looking pink to me.  It almost pissed me off then I realized it's almost impossible to describe. It's not Hot pink, not a berry pink, not really a rosey pink, it's different, and I dig different. In other words, love it!

Holy bright RED batman. I am *so glad* Zoya made this color.  They were seriously lacking on true reds.  This particular red might as well be neon it's so bright and vibrant. I lubs it. 

Another unique color that's hard to pin down. Maybe if you took a milk chocolate covered cherry and tossed it in a blender it would be this color? I also really love this one because it's one of the only brownish type colors I've worn that didn't turn my hands bright red. Bonus.

Oh Zoya.  I love you so much.  You just go ahead and keep making hundreds of pinks if it makes you happy, as long as you keep giving us colors like this once and a while.  Zoya could seriously make nothing but "pink" from now on and I would still love them JUST because they gave us Ibiza and Envy and now I can add this to the list...Shawn.  OMG This green is AWESOME and I LOVE IT. 

Love, MM

Zoya Wicked Fall 2010

I have so much praise for this collection I'm not sure where to begin.  So, I'll begin with my complaints instead.  WHY do weed need 3 more red/pink shimmery glittery look alike polishes Zoya? The answer is WE DON'T.  The first three polishes in the Wicked collection are gorgeous don't get me wrong, but just one magenta or pink would have done the trick considering the name of the collection is WICKED!!! Where is the black or dark blue? Heck, I would even have been happy with a blood red instead of more pinks.  The need for three more pinks seems even tinier when you consider the fact that there are 3 more reds/pinks in the Wonderful collection.  In my oppinion Zoya missed their chance to do a jaw dropping, dark, and mysterious group of edgy polishes with the Wicked Collection.  What we got instead is a collection of HALF jaw dropping awesome, and HALF pink.

So let's start with the pinks, shall we?  

This is a dark pink with dark pink shimmer/micro glitter that almost looks blackened in the bottle, sadly that doesn't translate onto the nail.  On the nail it looks more like a plain dark pink foil. Well maybe not quite a foil, more like a regular ass pink glitter. Ok, ok, maybe it's a regular ass pink glitter with a hint of gold sparkle.

This was virtually impossible to tell apart from Kym in 99% of my pictures. In the bottle no problem, but on the nail they look nearly identical.  I had to purposefully take photos of each color under different lighting in order to get pics that look like 2 separate polishes. Even then I was second guessing myself while watermarking the photos. So, Carrie Ann is a Slightly lighter regular ass pink glitter with gold sparkle. 

Karina is at least a totally different shade of pink than I'm used to seeing from Zoya. It's a gorgeous hot magenta micro glitter/shimmer that almost looks like it has some silver in it.  Again this is almost a foil but doesn't quite translate on the nail.  This one is pretty but it certainly isn't wicked.

Now we can get to the awesome, finally.  It is almost like 2 seperate marketing teams each did half of this collection then they just shoved them all in one box.  These next three colors are freakin' KILLER and deffinately are deserving of their title of Wicked. I seriously want to make out with who ever mixed up these three beauties. 

First up on team bad ass is Cheryl. Stupid name for this incredible polish, but whatever. This color reminds me of cigars, tobacco and smoky rooms filled with mysterious men playing poker under dim lighting.  The color is a redish, brownish, burgundy loaded with brown and very dark gold micro glitter.. I adore this. 

JULIEANNE!!! OMFG. This blue based dark purple is jam packed with so much wicked awesome that I honestly don't know how they fit all the silver and purple micro glitter in there.  This polish flashes like a foil but in most lights appears to be a jelly base, LOVE. It is basically Milani's Totally cool on a serious dose of steriods. This is my favorite polish from this collection. 

Lastly, we have the shining star of this collection with its baffling duochrome, glitter, metallic, shimmer CRAZINESS. Good god is this gorgeous! Honestly I think this polish follows in the footsteps of China Glaze's Wagon trail as it isn't really a duochrome. I think it's actually a black base with charcoal/silver and gold micro glitter and glass flecks, making it appear to flash olive green to charcoal to black. Except this polish is a foil, which makes it blindingly beautiful as it changes colors. Whatever it is, this polish is totally unique and amazing.  AMAZING.

 I love so much about this collection I feel like I am going to bust at the seams! First off I love the NAME.  Wicked. It's awesome, ok. I know I'm suppost to be saying what I love at this point but the names of these polishes really piss me off.  This is the WICKED collection... where are Elvira and Morticia...and other wicked female names I cannot come up with at the moment???

Back on track, I love the finish they have created that is impossible to describe on a lot of the colors. Glass flecky, metallic, foil, micro glitter, bad ass-ness. But, what I loved most about it was the formula.

All 6 of these applied amazing. The formula was 100% consistant from polish to polish. Each and every swatch above is an even two coats, this itself is a gigantic compliment to zoya's formula.  These are highly pigmented for glitters, more like EXTREMELY pigmented for glitters.  They glide on smooth and I saw no need to use a topcoat on any of them due to graininess which was non existent. Another unexpected perk to these was they weren't all that hard to remove, actually they were very easy to remove in terms of any kind of glitter polish.  Zoya did a top notch job on the formula of these babies, I mean WOW.  Just WOW Zoya.

Love, MM

Zoya Mattes

When it comes to matte nail polish there is one company that stands above the rest.  Zoya matte's apply smoother, are more opaque and LAST LONGER than any other matte I've tried.  Normally with other brands of mattes you can expect chipping within a few hours. Not Zoya.  I have worn them for over 48 hours with only the slightest of tipwear and no chipping.  This is all without base or topcoats. Zoya's mattes are just simply the best, people.

Here are swatches of the four colors pictured above, all pictures are 2 quick, no fuss, coats. 

A quick tip for matte polish: apply a coat of matte followed by a coat of clear, then another coat of matte.  This tends to help chippy brands of matte polish not chip so easily!

Love, MM

Zoya Sparkles, the remainder.

When I first bought the Sparkles Collection from Zoya I decided on only getting 3 of them and passing on the reds/pinks.  Now that I have the 3 reds from the Sparkles collection I realize the mistake I made when first purchasing! These are gorgeous, people!

Nihdi is the most unique color of the bunch in my opinion. It's a red jelly/cream hybrid loaded with shimmer and micro sparkles. I absolutely LOVE it, not to mention I own nothing else remotely close to it which is a good and RARE thing.  

HOT.  I adore this medium to hot pink jelly!  It's so 80's yet so now at the same time.  It's jam packed with pink glitter and shimmer and basically comes alive in the sunlight. 

Alegra...Wowza!  This one is my favorite from the entire Sparkles collection now that I see it in person.  A truly gorgeous magenta like dark pink that sings when applied.  It was the most pigmented of all the sparkles polishes IMO and only needed 2 coats to reach it's perfectly sparkly goodness.

Overall, the Sparkles Collection is my favorite collection from zoya ever.  These polishes are unique in color as well as finish, they are attention getting, and they have a superior application to any other glitters I own while not needing a topcoat. SO, if you haven't gotten the sparkles collection yet...HINT HINT. To see the other colors from Zoya Sparkle click here.

While Zoya used to be near the bottom of my top 5 polish brands they are trudging up the totem pole with these new wonderful and inventive collections.  I have found myself with a desk FULL of zoya bottles with nowhere to store them, and they are quickly catching up in numbers to my previous favorite brands like China Glaze and Orly.  Keep it up Zoya!

Love, MM

I wish I was cool too.

Check it out.  I SO WISH I was one of those super cool bloggers that gets to review stuff before it EVEN COMES OUT.  I am so jealous.  SO VERY JEALOUS.  I mean Vintage Vixen by China Glaze is my dream come true as far as polish colors go and it is simply KILLING ME to see everyone else posting their review swatches. I want to scream from the rooftops, "CHINA GLAZE I LOVE YOU, PLEASE THINK I AM COOL, AND HERE IS MY MAILING ADDRESS!".  

I need the vintage vixen collection like I need coffee ok, I need it from deep within the depths of my soul.  And even more than needing to own the polish, I long for the chance to get my hands on them for review before anyone else does, and post swatches for all to see while yelling out, "NA NA NA NA NA NA!!!"

But since I am NOT in the fashion loop and I am NOT one of those cool bloggers *grumble* here are some stank, old, boring swatches of stuff that has been out FOREVER.  Zoya neutrals commin' up! 

Love. perfect in 2 coats. This wore like iron.  What a great shade of putty, I want walls this color.

This is basically Amanda with a drop of yellow. 3 coats though.

I will never wear this. 4 coats pictured and makes my hands look "dirty".

My new favorite pale pink! 2 smooth coats, this one goes on the "wear often" shelf next to Amanda.

3 coater, meh.  I am not a fan of shimmer in neutral polishes.

This is really dark/warm/yellow for me as far as neutrals but I like it anyway! 2 coats.

I have always liked Zoya.  Great dry time, long lasting, cool colors, the bottles RULE, but GOOD LORD their customer service is the SUCK.  Once again they messed up my order.  I got 36 bottles...that's 6 full mini Zoya boxes.  Now you would THINK that Vitali would notice a problem when all 6 boxes aren't FULL.  Does Vitali always pack yalls orders too? lol.  So. Out of 36 colors take a WILD guess which color they left out. Just GUESS.  YEP, Zoya Ariel, the one named the same as my step daughter. AWESOME.

Love, MM

PS- Zoya's are still totally worth it.