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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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!

Zoya Fall 2012 Designer, Diva, and Gloss

Hey Ninjas!

Today's post is a super exciting press release from Zoya on their upcoming fall collection. I should hopefully have some fun swatches up within the week and the polishes go on sale this weekend!

NYFW 2012

DESIGNER, DIVA & GLOSS

three new couture nail color collections ZOYA for Fall 2012

Inspired by backstage beauties, talented designers, runways and VIP fashion events, the NYFW 2012 Color Collections by Zoya for Fall 2012 are simply stunning. Choose from full-coverage creams and metallics or incredibly shiny jellies. If it’s in style this season - Zoya has it!

Each New Fall Collection (Designer, Diva and Gloss) features color that is beautiful, long-wearing and “haute” off the New York Fashion Week (NYFW) Fall 2012 runway!

Zoya NYFW 2012: Designer Collection

• Rekha (ZP626) - Blood red cream (Bibhu Mohapatra custom shade)

• Toni (ZP627) - Dark maroon red cream

• Monica (ZP628) - Dark mulberry purple cream

• Natty (ZP629) - Smoked navy blue cream

• Evvie (ZP630) - Evergreen green cream (Peter Som custom shade)

• Noot (ZP631) - Charcoal green gray cream

Zoya NYFW 2012: Diva Collection

• Elisa (ZP632) - Crimson red metallic

• Suri (ZP633) - Royal purple metallic

• Song (ZP634) - Egyptian blue metallic with a subtle sparkle

• Ray (ZP635) - Pine green metallic

• FeiFei (ZP636) - Magic blue foil sparkle metallic

• Daul (ZP637) - Magic violet foil sparkle metallic

Zoya NYFW 2012: Gloss Collection

• Katherine (ZP638) - Sheer eggplant jelly gloss, buildable formula (Peter Som custom shade)

• Paloma (ZP639) - Sheer berry red jelly gloss, buildable formula

• Frida (ZP640) - Sheer teal blue jelly gloss, buildable formula

ZOYA IS THE NEW COLOR OF FASHION!

Ultra long-wearing, glossy 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.

Find over 300 other Zoya shades at www.zoya.com. Each and every name has a color as unique as the women who inspired it.

Polishes and press release provided by Zoya PR team for my honest review. Please see my Disclosure policy for more information.

Adventures in Duochromes: Sherer Chameleon

Hello Ninjas!

Today will be my first day back at work since last Saturday! Holy cow, it's been a while. Now that I'm back in town, you can expect more regular posting from me again. I picked up four polishes on my trip to NYC, two of which were holo's from the Face Shop in Koreatown. I'm sort of excited about those because I didn't even know they existed!

Today's manicure is from about a week before my trip. This started off at two coats of OPI Here today Aragon tomorrow which is a blackened green jelly polish. By itself, it just wasn't standing out to me so I added a more recent find of mine from Rite Aid, Chameleon Nucleus. Nucleus is an amazing duo/multichromatic polish that seems to have a rusty red base color with very strong blue-green shift. There are moments when there is a little purple and a little crimson in the shift which make me think of it as a multichrome. This is two very thin coats over the OPI base color.

Nail Polish at MoMA

Hello Ninjas!

I'm back in NC! It's  over 100's heat index from here until fall but it's home.I'm really happy to have my bed to sleep in and my dogs to snuggle, not to mention my entire polish collection to choose from when I've got a particular color in mind to wear.

This is just something really neat I saw when we visited the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in NYC; a concept bottle for nail polish. According to the placard it was developed in 1994 by Maurizio Ficcadenti  and he gave the bottles as a gift to the museum in 1997. I just thought this was a really cool design and my husband was shaking his head at how I managed to find nail polish in a museum. The first two pictures are mine, the last belongs to the MoMA.

Source: http://www.moma.org/collection_images/resized/036/w500h420/CRI_210036.jpg

Wet n Wild Jewels for your Highness

Hi Ninjas!

I'm having a blast here in NYC. Since I've got my nights off to relax, I actually meant to post yesterday but I ended up crashing right to sleep. Ah well! I went to an awesome restaurant called Ninja New York tonight with servers dressed like ninja and flaming food; totally awesome place for dinner. Tomorrow is the 4th and I'm sure I'll get to see a ton of fireworks, we're hoping to see Cirque du Soleil too.

Here's a quick look at Wet n Wild's Jewels for your Highness from their Coloricon Be Jeweled collection. I passed the China Glaze versions of these polishes up because I didn't think they were really my style. I picked this and one other color from the collection up a while back and just confirmed my dis-inclination towards these pretty duochromes with too many rainbow hexes. I think this is three coats, this was a very sheer polish to work with.