Green on Green manicure

Good evening Ninjas,

I hope you've been having a good weekend. The weather has been a little weird here between pouring rain and sweltering heath. You never really know how to dress. This week is graduation week at the dojo and I'll be graduating this time around. I'm super nervous about my first red belt graduation!

Tonight's manicure is two polishes provided by Zoya PR for review. Rikki and Josie. I used Josie as a base color and did a triangle on each fingertip as a sort of reverse chevron with an art brush. I thought this turned out to be a pretty neat accented look.

Here's what Zoya has to say about these two colors:

"Zoya Nail Polish in Josie can be best described as a full-coverage grassy green cream"

"Zoya Nail Polish in Rikki can be best described as a full-coverage fern green foil metallic."

 Polishes provided by Zoya PR for honest review.

Wordless Wednesday

Essie Navigate-her with Funky Fingers Taffy Town

Essie Navigate-her with Funky Fingers Taffy Town

Easter Mani Monday

Hello Ninjas!

Sorry about missing Friday's post, I was out of town at my Grandparents' house which is about 5 hours away. Since our visit out there was a belated Easter weekend, I figured now would be a good time to show you my actual Easter manicure.

Tonight's manicure is made up entirely of the awesome Zoya Lovely polishes that were sent to me for review a few months back. The base of this manicure is three coats of Jacqueline with Piaf, Julie, or Gei Gei dotted on with the rounded end of a bobby pin. I have to say that the bobby pin is much easier to use than actual dotting tools for me. Maybe it's because the pin is shorter? On the bright side, it's a cheap way to do pretty nail art! I was aiming for my nails to look like Easter Eggs, I thought they came out pretty well :)

Zoya Lovely collection provided by Zoya PR for honest review.

Wordless Wednesday: Green and Gold scallops

Zoya Logan, Zoya Ziv, Ulta Maine Attraction

Zoya Logan, Zoya Ziv, Ulta Maine Attraction

Zoya Logan, Zoya Ziv, Ulta Maine Attraction

Wordless Wednesday!

Zoya Lovely Day 6

Konnichiwa Ninja!

It's Friday! Hopefully the week wasn't too hard on you darling readers, I'm about to start a weekend of crazy Trivia competition and I'm super excited :) Today's last color of the Lovely collection is Neely, this is the one I swatched last so I could wear it to work. This is actually the only one I wore with base and topcoat for longevity and it was a hit at work.

Zoya describes Neely as, "a full coverage earliest spring green in a glossy creme finish. A fun color in a muted finish gives a cool vintage edge to your look. Originally created as a custom runway shade for fashion designer Peter Som." I really loved this one, two coats for even perfect opacity and a nice formula good at self leveling. I ended up layering Frida over this for a neat ombre manicure, it's a great combination for those who want to extend the use of a color without changing your whole manicure.

 Product sent for consideration by Zoya PR for honest review.

Zoya Lovely Day 5

Happy Ninja Thursday!

I'm not entirely sure why it's a Ninja Thursday but it just seemed like a fun day to belong to those stealthy folks. Here's the second to last installment in the Zoya Lovely series, Blu!

Zoya describes Blu as, " a full-coverage, soft and delicate pale baby blue with a glossy creme finish. A dreamy, calming blue that's both fun and flattering on the nails." This was a nice two coats for opacity. I think I'd like this better of it wasn't so brightly white based. A nice medium grey base would have made this a little more wearable for me. I guess that's why I've got Kristen.

Product sent for consideration by Zoya PR for honest review.

Zoya Lovely Day 4

Hey Ninjas!

I hope Wednesday is treating you well. Halfway through the week and we're on the second have of the Zoya Lovely collection for Spring 2013. We're starting in on the cream polishes now which, I have to admit, were my favorite half of the collection.

Zoya describes Jacqueline as, "a full-coverage, perfect magnolia nude cream. This light creamy beige has slight warm undertones and a glossy creme finish. Originally created as a custom runway shade for fashion designer Peter Som." I was surprisingly fond of this color even though it's a very light butter yellow cream. This was another three coat polish but the formula was nicer on the creams than on the shimmer.

Product sent for consideration by Zoya PR for honest review.

Finger Paints Go Van Gogh!

Hello Ninjas!

Almost done being sick. Still have a bit of a sinus infection that I'm trying to get rid of but I'm mostly better. It's supposed to snow down here in NC which will be the first time for the season if it does!

Tonight's manicure is two very smooth coats of Go Van Gogh! from Finger Paints. This actually had a surprisingly watery texture for how opaque it was but it held up really well. This is what I was wearing in the worst of my sickness and these pictures are bout four days in so there is a good indication of how nicely it held up against tipwear.

Zoya Lovely - Spring 2013

Here's a little spring press release to warm you up on these cold winter evenings!

Zoya Lovely
Beauty is a lovely state of mind

Lovely, just LOVELY!

Spring is awash in six soft and lovely new Zoya shades including three dewy metallics and three fresh blooms of cream. Poetic in nature, this collection is sure to capture the beauty of the season like no other....

Zoya Lovely – spRING 2013

Piaf (ZP652) - Fresh Forsythia Yellow Metallic - Full Coverage (Originally designed for Fashion Designer Zang Toi)

GeiGei (ZP651) - Blushing Cherry Blossom Pink Metallic - Full Coverage (Originally designed for Zang Toi/SS13).

Julie (ZP650) - Soft Wisteria Purple Metallic - Full Coverage (Originally designed for Zang Toi/SS13).

Blu (ZP653) - Lucky Hyacinth Blue Cream - Full Coverage

Neely (ZP655) - Earliest Spring Green Cream - Full Coverage (Originally designed for Peter Som/SS13).

Jacqueline (ZP654) - Perfect Magnolia Nude Cream - Full Coverage (Originally designed for Peter Som/SS13)

Shipping January 01, 2013

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.

Zoya Lovely $8 (US)

Follow the Zoya Nail Polish and Treatments Blog and stay tuned on Twitter (@Zoyanailpolish) and Facebook for release date updates.

Hashtags: #ZoyaLovely and #nailpolish.

Purple Nail Art

Hello Lovely Ninjas!

I hope you all went out and voted if you're in the US. It's been an interesting day here in NC with a lot of back and forth about how our popular vote would go!

This is a manicure I did so I could wear the wonderful two coat purple manicure from this post for a little bit longer. I added one layer of Essie Nothing Else Metals in a cloudy shape followed by Zoya *Toni in the same shape.

* Toni provided by Zoya PR for honest review.

Awesome purple layering

Hi Ninjas!

Monday was crazy, not only did we have the big Grand Opening but I was sick so it was quite a handful! It was great to see so many new people and celebrate this new beginning with our Jiu Jitsu guys :)

 This is a manicure that was incredibly simple to do and looked awesome. This is exactly TWO coats of polish! One coat of the fantastic dark plum purple by Essie, No More Film, covered evenly and was completely opaque on the first try, I was quite impressed. The second coat was one of the pretty translucent purple with pink/gold/purple shifting glass flecks by Pure Ice, Busted. I cannot express how much I loved this manicure and it was soooo easy to do!

Monochrome Manicure

Good evening Ninjas!

Tonight has been a night of zombies for me. There was a huge dojo party to celebrate a Second Degree black belt graduation as well as a number of awesome peoples' birthdays. The party had a zombie theme and I went all out with the makeup for me and a friend. I think I'll save the pictures until closer to Halloween though, they're pretty scary!

Tonight's manicure was one I wore for quite a while because it lasted well and I just loved how it looked on the nail. This is two coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement with an awesome coat of Pretty & Polished Valentino. I got a mini bottle of Valentino in a great swap I did a while back and I could not be more happy with this polish!

This is a little wooden "Armless Doll" mirror from Japan and a student gifted me with.

Rimmel London Steel Grey

Hi Ninjas!

Before I get to the fun stuff I need to clarify a few things about my giveaway. First off, it says in the post that it is open to US/Canadian readers only. If I find out that you are not in either of those countries, your entries will be deleted. Second, don't try to scam me. If you didn't leave a blog comment, don't complete that entry.  I've had at least three people already who tried that trick on me and quite frankly, that makes me mad! I'm moderating the entries every day so please, don't try to game the system. This is done in good spirit as a means to share a little of the excitement surrounding a belt promotion, not a way to just cheat and get free polish. I have to say, I'm disappointed in the people who are lying and I kind of hope none of them were my existing readers :(

Today's polish was a gift from one of the lovely black belts at work. Every time I would see her she had this wonderful purple leaning taupe polish on and I always made a point to compliment it. Well, one day she surprised me with my very own bottle of the polish! It was Rimmel London Steel Grey from their Pro line. I love this polish! It is a wonderful neutral that goes with just about any outfit you can imagine and it and matches today's stormy skies. This is a warm taupe with purple undertones and a cream finish polish that was easily applied in two medium coats or three thin coats.

Essence A Lovely Secret

Hello Ninjas!

Today was a nice relaxing Sunday that all happened to be tax free. I picked up some shoes sans tax and a couple of beauty related things. Probably my best find was the Buy 2 get 1 free on ButterLONDON polishes at Nordstrom. I was able to find the brand new Fall collection in stores so I picked up Dodgy Barnett and Trustafarian which are both holos. For my freebie, I picked up Branwen's Feather. Did anyone else find something cool this weekend?

This is an older manicure from early in the summer. A Lovely Secret from Essence is one of their new to the US colors and similar to Milani's Orchidia. This is a pretty light purple polish with pink shimmer as well as an odd sort of suspended darker purple speckle effect. I don't recall seeing the speckles in the bottle but they certainly showed up on my nails. I wonder if the darker purple was just a reaction to my top coat? Two easy coats for opacity on ALS, it was a nice early summer manicure to wear.

Ulta Good Clean Fawn

Hello Ninjas!

It's been a nice relaxing Friday here in sunny NC. The weather was warm but what do you expect from a southern summer? I spent most of my time inside getting a little R&R but the hubby and I did go out to lunch with a good friend of ours so that was nice. Next week we're headed to a concert and we can't wait! It will be the first concert we've attended together and two of our favorite bands will be there :) I can't decide which band I want to match my concert manicure to though, decisions decisions.

Tonight's manicure is a color I picked up on clearance at Ulta quite a while back: Good Clean Fawn. Since I love the cream with hidden shimmer finish on polish, a nude/brown version of this was right up my alley. GCF is a dark tan cream polish that leans slightly pink and has a sort of hidden light gold/pink shimmer. As with most hidden shimmer polishes, this wasn't an easy one to capture on camera but it was a nice subtle color to wear between the brights that dominate summer.

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.