Review: Zoya Dahlia

Good evening Ninjas!

Anyone have plans for Easter? I'll be heading to a friend's house for a Misfit Easter lunch, I'm excited!

Tonight's swatch is a press sample provided by Zoya for my review. This is two coats of Zoya Dahlia from the PixieDust collection. Zoya describes Dahlia as, "a black beauty with a sugared sparkle." I liked this polish for the quick opacity and neat texture; it would probably look awesome gloss too!

Product provided by Zoya PR for honest review. Post contains an affiliate link.

L.A. Girl Teal Dimension

Hello Ninjas!

I went running again tonight. Only 1.5 miles but I also did strength training afterwards which made me feel accomplished. I really don't like the running part of my workout and the weights afterwards are sort of like a reward for running. That sounds weird doesn't it? You have to have cardiovascular stamina AND muscle strength to be a well rounded person though. Ah well, at least I'm still running!

Tonight's manicure is two coats of L.A. Girl Teal Dimension. I found the display of these new L.A. Girl scattered holos at my local Rite Aid and was super excited. These look just like the Zoya holos from the Ornate collection but there are more colors! The formula was very nice on this polish, great opacity in two coats and full of large holographic particles scattered throughout a jelly base.

Black and White and Blue all over

Good evening Ninja readers!

I hope you had a lovely weekend in whatever part of the world you're from. This coming weekend is Easter, I don't have any plans but I hope my lovely readers do. This week is weapons week at work which means that I get to learn sword moves!

Tonight's manicure is two smooth coats of Jessica Sophia under one monochromatic coat of Hard Candy Black Tie Optional. Sophia "True Blue" is a perfect University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill blue (aka, Carolina blue) and I foresee myself wearing it in future NCAA seasons when UNC isn't losing so early on. Sophia has a lovely silver shimmer throughout that makes it more than a plain blue cream polish. Black Tie Optional is Hard Candy's version of the currently popular Black and White glitter combinations that began in the Indie polish world. I like this polish much better than the China Glaze version as it was easier to apply and had more glitter per swipe of polish!

Duochrome Purple Layering

Good evening Ninjas!

The weather here in NC is just toying with my emotions this week. There have been days nice enough to wear summer dresses and others where I needed gloves and a hat when I went outside. Ah well, Spring will be here soon enough!

Tonight's manicure is one coat of Cult Nails Charlatan over two coats of Illmasqua Vice. I really liked the way that Vice looked with the rubberized finish and sort of wished I hadn't layered anything on top of it. I can always wear it again though! Vice is a really pretty magenta that Illamasqua calls a "deep cerise" where Charlatan is a sheer pink jelly with pink/blue duochrome particles suspended in it.

Zoya Logan

Good evening Ninjas,

How has your week been going? It's test/stripe week at the dojo and I earned my first stripe on my red-white belt! I'm having a lot of fun in the fire element and much to his surprise my husband is also doing really well.

Tonight's manicure is two pretty coats of Zoya Logan from their Ornate collection. Zoya describes Logan as, "a full coverage, yellow-toned forest green with dense, foil-like yellow-gold and blue-green duochrome shimmer!" I kept putting off wearing Logan because it had such hard competition for my affections against the scattered holos in the Ornate collection. I really loved wearing Logan though, it was less gold than I expected and a very rich forest green. I'm definitely a big fan!

A very decorated St.Patrick's manicure

Hello Ninjas!

Some of you may have read about the recent changes in FTC disclosure regulations and others may not know. The changes basically mean I have to make it painfully obvious whenever a product included in one of my blog posts was provided by the parent company for review. I've always noted this fact on the bottom of my posts but now I have to put it THREE places in my posts, The beginning, middle, and end. This is pretty ridiculous to me and I'm still not entirely sure what the FTC fines people for and what jurisdiction is has to fine people but I guess I have to cover all of my bases. Therefore, I want to apologize in advance for the annoying and repetitive disclosure that I have to add to this and future posts.

Tonight's manicure features products provided for review by MASH nails. Specifically, the rhinestones and stamping plate were sent to my by MASH PR for review purposes. The rhinestones I used can be found at their website here and the plate I used (MASH 50) can be found here.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, check it out! This is three coats of China Glaze Budding Romance stamped with a design from a provided MASH Plate 50 using Sinful Colors Casablanca. If you're ever in the market for a great opaque silver stamping polish, Casablanca is fabulous! Then, to cover up a few imperfections in my stamping, I added green and orange/gold colored rhinestones from MASH to the middle of my nails.

Stamping plate and rhinestones provided by MASH PR for honest review. For a better look at my review policy, please visit this page: http://www.laquerlover.blogspot.com/p/disclaimer-and-pr-info.html

Zoya London

Hello Ninjas!

The weather has been up and down all week here in NC. We started off the week with a bitter cold snap then had days in the 60's but it's getting chilly again. My husband is running his first half marathon on Sunday so I hope the weather is nice for that day!!

Tonight's swatch is Zoya London. I'm pretty sure they named this one London for London Fog, it's a very pretty grey! Zoya describes London as, "a fog gray with a sugared sparkle." Which means I was right about the inspiration for the name :) This one had great coverage, two easy coats for this color which was a relief after the three long-drying coats from the previous pastel colors.

Only two more colors until I finish up this collection, are you loving the textured polished or wishing companies would quit making them already?

London provided by Zoya PR for honest review.

Volts the pretty Cobalt

Hello Ninjas!

So now that I'm in fire element training, class is way more tiring. I think that's mostly because some of the moves involve a lot of pulling on your attacker and definitely a lot of bending your knees. Needless today, my arms and legs are tiiiired!

Tonight's manicure is Volts from Funky Fingers. This is a super bright blue that shows up a really pretty neon Cobalt blue once it dries. I don't know if you can tell but the polish dries a good three or so shades darker than the bottle color. This is three coats of color which were easily buildable. Without topcoat, this polish dries to a rubber/matte finish which is a big indicator that it is indeed a neon polish.

Zoya Nyx

Good evening Ninjas!!

Hopefully you had a great weekend and were refreshed on Monday morning. I'm having a little trouble with the time change still but I'm sure it will even out in my sleep cycle soon enough.

Tonight's swatch is three coats of Zoya Nyx. Zoya describes Nyx as, " a perfect periwinkle with a sugared sparkle." Nyx was easier to work with than the previous two colors. Now, this may have been because I learned how long I had to wait between coats or because the formula was just more opaque on this color but I was happy with Nyx. The pretty blue of Nyx is more of a stormy sky blue or cornflower blue rather than periwinkle but this is definitely a great spring color regardless.

Nyx provided by Zoya PR for honest review.

Zoya Vespa

Good evening Ninjas!

The founders of the martial art my husband and I are taking are teaching a seminar this weekend at our dojo. This means making sure everything is perfect for the visiting Ninjutsu dignitaries and lots of people from out of town to help out!

Tonight's swatch is three coats of Zoya Vespa from their Spring PixieDust collection. Zoya describes Vespa as, "a Mint Kiss with a sugared sparkle." Which is definitely a fair description. This was a very pretty light mint green with a lot of silver glitter that helped create the PIzieDust texture. For opacity I probably needed to wait longer between coats and possibly to add a fourth coat. I definitely wouldn't give this a 5 on their opacity scale, maybe a 3. As with Godiva, I didn't let the polish fully dry before taking these pictures, sorry it looks a little off!

Vespa provided by Zoya PR for honest review.

Wordless Wednesday!

Zoya Godiva

Hello Lovely Ninjas!

This week is graduation week! Hubby and I will be graduating to Red-White belt and the fire element curriculum that comes with it, very exciting! Of course I'll be doing nails to match my new belt but you'll have to wait to see what I come up with until after I earn it.

Tonight's swatch is three coats of Zoya Godiva. Zoya describes Godiva as, "a soft nude with a sugared sparkle, in the exclusive Zoya PixieDust Matte Sparkle formula." The pale nature of this color made three coats necessary and four probably would have been better. For the polish to dry to the proper matte finish, I had to wait much longer than I wanted to for swatching so this isn't quite the finished texture if worn for more than a few minutes.

Godiva provided by Zoya PR for honest review.

Zoya Pixie Dust - Summer Edition

ZOYA PixieDust - Summer Edition
Because everyone wants more of it...
the color experts at Zoya went back to the lab and created six more beautiful, long-wearing textured, matte and sparkling Zoya PixieDust Colors!


This incredible and best-selling formula is sure to captivate with a magical sparkle and sugary finish like no other.
Zoya PIXIE DUST - sUMMER edition

ZP683 - Solange: EXCLUSIVE PIGMENT!!! Gold Metal sparkle, exclusive Zoya PixieDust Matte Sparkle formula.

ZP677 - Beatrix: Tangerine Metal sparkle, exclusive Zoya PixieDust Matte Sparkle formula.

ZP676 - Destiny: Coral Metal sparkle, exclusive Zoya PixieDust Matte Sparkle formula.

ZP682 - Miranda: Rose sparkle, exclusive Zoya PixieDust Matte Sparkle formula.

ZP675 - Stevie: Violet sparkle, exclusive Zoya PixieDust Matte Sparkle formula.

ZP681 - Liberty: Blue sparkle, exclusive Zoya PixieDust Matte Sparkle formula.

Ultra long-wearing, nail lacquers by Zoya are BIG5FREE - all formulas are completely free of harmful industrial chemicals such as toluene, camphor, formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin and dibutyl phthalate (DBP) that are known to cause cancer and birth defects.

PixieDust Application: For BEST RESULTS apply 1-3 (for full coverage) thin coats of polish. Allow product to dry completely for full effect. Do not use a base coat or top coat.

Find over 300 stunning Zoya colors on www.zoya.com. Each and every color has a name as unique as the women who inspired it.