Monday, July 30, 2012

Zoya Designer Collection

Hello Ninjas!

Happy Monday. I spent most of the weekend sleeping, reading, and recuperating from my sinus infection. Now that I can breathe through my nose. I've got a dry cough to contend with. That's alright though, I'll take a few cough drops over a box of tissues any day! This week is set up to be crazy so you might not see another post until Thursday so let's make this a good one!

Today I've got the Zoya NYFW Designer collection for you. The first two colors up I wore as a full manicure and the last 4 I swatched when I got down time tanks to being sick. Yes, I chopped my nails off and squared them last week. I'm still getting used to this length and nail shape. All of these are two coats, the first three with topcoat, the last three without.

First up, Rekha " Bold medium blood red with a glossy cream finish. A custom runway shade created for fashion designer Bibhu Mohapatra."




 Second, Toni "Dark, warm raisin-wine cream with strong purple tones. A fashionable muted purple for a classic vampy nail look"





Third, Monica (This is where I changed my nail shape/length) "Dark, soft blue-toned purple with a glossy cream finish. A bit of vibrant couture color, darkened for a bold, dramatic nail look."








Fourth, and my personal favorite, Natty "Smoky deep steel blue with an opaque cream finish. A standout smoky blue for an unexpected but very wearable runway look."







Fifth, Evvie, "Dark smoky grey cream with strong teal green undertones. A custom-mixed runway shade created for designer Peter Som."






And last but not least, Noot, "Very dark grey cream with strong blue-green undertones. Smoky, smoldering dark grey nails with a twist from the addition of green tones."






Overall, my favorites were Rekha, Natty, and Evvie. The other colors were nice but those three really stood out. I love how vibrant Rehka is without looking like any old red in the crayon box, it's sort of the red of fresh blood which is really fitting for fall when you think of Halloween coming up. I enjoy Natty immensely, I don't have anything like this smokey slate blue in my collection and this is one of the colors that I both swatched and decided to wear as a full manicure after the fact. Evvie is really pretty, another color that is unique in my collection, Evvie reminds me of shade in an Australian forest (C'mon, they called it eucalyptus!)

This is a great collection and you can order it now from Zoya.com!

Polish in this post provided by Zoya PR team for honest review.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Zoya Gloss Collection

Hi Ninjas!

Stormy weather out here in NC, hopefully we'll get through the worst of it without any serious downed lines. Next week is weapons week at the dojo and simultaneously graduation week so I'll be super busy until Wednesday night. Ah well, it's all fun anyways!

This is the Gloss NYFW Collection from Zoya to supplement their Fall line. The set consists of three glossy jelly polishes that were inspired by Peter Som's request for a glaze which lead to the creation of Katherine and subsequently Paloma and Frida!

For each of these, I did an increasing number of coats on each finger starting with the index and ending with the pinky. First off, Katherine "A sheer, dark, red-toned aubergine with a buildable jelly gloss finish."





 Next up, Paloma! Now, Paloma is a name that means dove so I was a little surprised when this wasn't a great. Here's what Zoya says about Paloma, "A sheer deep fuchsia-berry with a buildable jelly gloss finish."





And finally, Frida. Now, the name Frida always evokes imagery of Frida Kahlo for me. She's a really interesting Mexican painter that did iconic portraits. They're not the prettiest portraits and I generally amuse myself picking on the massive unibrow the women sport.

Source: http://arthistory.about.com/od/from_exhibitions/ig/frida_kahlo/Frida-Kahlo---Me-and-My-Parrots--1941.htm


 I've got a fairly ugly little necklace holder that I call Frida because it's not the prettiest thing. When I saw that Frida was a gorgeous teal jelly, I couldn't help but be amused! Zoya calls Frida, "A sheer, dark, warm-toned teal blue with a buildable jelly gloss finish."




 
Gloss Collection provided for honest review by the Zoya PR team.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Orly Preamp

Hello Ninjas!

I'm not feeling well again. I think that my body deals with a large amount of stress by getting since once I'm NOT stressed any more. Which of course makes no sense but I sort of get it. I mean, if you're in a heightened state of stress for weeks at a time,  your body is working super hard to keep you well enough to deal with all of the obstacles coming at you. Once the stress has passed, your body needs to take time to recoup all the resources it used up keeping you going. Anyways, I've got a sinus infection and the raging sinus pressure headache to go with it. I've been working my way through the Fall 2012 Zoya collection but I want to be able to do entire halves in a post so give me a little more time please!

Today's polish is Preamp from Orly's new Electronica collection. By my guess this was the most unique of the four colors released and also the prettiest. I'm not much of a pink polish girl but I'll try almost anything if it has a pronounced golden shimmer in it. Preamp is a blue toned bubblegum pink with loads of course gold shimmer. This was a very easy to apply polish despite being so light and so packed with shimmer. Two coats did the trick and it also dried very shiny on its own. I've got to applaud Orly, it's not often that I find a pink I'd like to wear more than once!




Monday, July 23, 2012

Milani Bridesmaid: OPI Designer De Better Dupe

Hello Ninjas!

It's stripe week here at the dojo which means people are packing themselves in to classes so they can test for their stripes and next belts. Mr. Ninja and I got our second stripes on our belts today so we only need one more stripe until Blue Belt! A lot of the techniques for this test were ground based and ended in arm bars. As a result, my forearm is a little store from being pulled in the wrong direction :( It's alright though, I'm learning to be safer!

This manicure is of Milani Bridesmaid from their Limited Edition Pure Love collection. This is a great dupe for OPI's Designer De Better from the Muppets collection. Since I had only gotten my hands on a mini of DDB, I was super excited when I saw Bridesmaid at Walgreens. The base is the same very pale gold with a generous splash of cooper/rose gold particles. This was a little sheer when applied thinly so I ended up using three coats but it wasn't hard to work with and was a very pretty color even on stormy days!



Friday, July 20, 2012

Milani Mint Candy

Hi Ninjas,

This will be a short post today. The weather here is dreary and I'm in a mood to match so let's just look at a pretty polish, shall we?

This is two coats of Milani Mint Candy. This is a really neat mint green polish with hidden teal/green shimmer. I don't think I captured the shimmer very well but it is very similar to Purplex and Into Astrono-me.




Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Layla Hologram Effect Ultra Violet

Hi Ninjas!

I've been AWOL the last few days because I've been off in the mountains having the experience of a lifetime. 30 of the ninjas from my home dojo graduated to some degree of black belt this weekend! 22 went to first degree, 2 went to second, 3 went to third, 1 went to fourth, and our owner went to Fifth! We're so incredibly proud of all the graduates but it's very obvious to everyone that we all feel more special with the head of our dojo also getting promoted. The sense of community on the mountain was incredible and I can't wait to go back next year.

Today I've got a very shiny and sunny polish for you. We got rained on for almost the entire weekend in the mountains so I thought my first post back should be something that was the antithesis of dark and dreary. This is another of the notorious Layla Hologram polishes: Ultra Violet. UV is a nice medium to light blue based purple with strong linear holographic effect. Instead of trying to make this polish opaque on it's own like I did with Mercury Twilight, I put it over a base color in Zoya Carey. Carey is a very pretty pastel purple from the Winter 2011/12 Feel collection and a wonder base color in just one coat! Over Carey I added three coats of UV and a topper of Seche!