Perfectly Polished Tips 243 - Zoya Designer Collection for Fall 2012

And I saved the best for last :) It is no secret that I love creme finish polishes. When I opened the box containing the Zoya fall collections I felt like Designer was made for me. I love every single one, even the red! Zoya does cremes so well, the formula is amazing and their brush is the only one that I can work with and not get frustrated. I know some people are probably getting sick of the smoked out grey that is being added to a lot of colors but not me. I live for them.

When Evvie was released during NYFW I had missed out on it and I was so upset. Evvie is a Peter Som custom shade and I thought that once it was gone that I would never get my hands on it. I am so happy Zoya decided to release it again because it is just as gorgeous as I had thought it would be. I think Natty has cured my MAC Blue India lemming, not to say that I wouldn't like to own the MAC. I haven't looked on ebay in a while but last time I did it was too much to justify buying. One day!

Evvie - smoky green

Monica - dark mulberry

Natty - smoked navy blue, has anyone compared this to Blue India? I would love to see pics.

Noot - charcoal green/grey

Rekha - blood red (Bibhu Mohapatra custom shade) this was slightly on the jelly side but perfect

Toni - dark maroon. I love shades like this but I suck at applying them, no idea why.

The Designer collection is available now at Zoya.com, the polish retails for $8 each.

(these were sent for review)

Perfectly Polished Tips 242 - Zoya Diva Collection for Fall 2012

Here is the second set from Zoya's fall release. The Diva collection was inspired by the magic of NY fashion week. This set is made up of 6 gorgeous metallic polishes. I was really surprised by the Diva collex, normally it's not my thing but wow. The formula was awesome on all of them. FeiFei and Daul would be perfect with three coats, I did two but in the sun I could see they were a bit spotty.

Daul - magic purple with amazing gold flecks

Elisa - true red. I am so not a red gal, especially a shimmery red gal..this polish made me gasp. It is truly beautiful

FeiFei - Zoya calls this a magic blue and it is. The color shifts a bit, a little blue, some purple, a tiny bit of gold.

Ray - deep forest green, my least favorite. I had a bit of trouble with brush strokes with this one.

Song - I feel like this is going to be the star of the entire Fall release. An amazing, bright, royal blue.

Suri - deep purple with slight pink and blue sparkle.

With the exception of Ray these all applied like a dream. I love Zoya's brush and I love that they branched out a little with the Diva collection. I hope they continue to do so!

These are available now at Zoya.com, they retail for $8 each.

(these were sent for review)

Perfectly Polished Tips 241 - Zoya NYFW Gloss Fall 2012

Zoya is releasing three sets for Fall 2012. It's only July and the fall collections have me craving cool weather. It has been hot here, I guess it has been hot every where but the humidity...oh my. I wonder what fall in NC is like, this will be my first. I might turn into one of those people that has to go to the north east to experience the leaves changing. Anyways, back to Zoya. This collection is made up of three sheer, jelly like polishes. They are very sheer but can be layered for more coverage.

I did swatches of 1, 2, and 3 coats of each polish. I found that at three coats it started to get a bit thick. It would probably work better to do thinner coats and let each one dry before moving on to the next. I had wanted to do a fourth coat but it would have been a mess. For the pictures pinkie is one coat, ring is two coats, middle & index are three coats.

Frida was the most sheer of the 3, there is 1 coat on my pinkie and it looks like a barely there wash of color.

Katherine is a deep eggplant color and gave the most coverage.

Paloma is my favorite of the three which is unusual. I had thought that I would have loved Frida, I think jellies are just not my thing.

These polishes can be used to create all types of nail looks. I have read a bit about jelly sandwiches but I have never tried it myself. I think it is when you put a layer of glitter or shimmer in between a jelly polish. These paired with some of the foily polishes in the Zoya Diva collection may make for some interesting combos. I have swatches of the Designer and Diva collections coming, I am editing now!

These polishes retail for $8 each and will be available on Zoya.com on July 15th.

(these were sent for review)

Perfectly Polished Tips 182 - Zoya Smoke

If I had to use one collection of polish for the rest of my life this is the collection I would choose. For fall Zoya released Smoke & Mirrors. This is the Smoke half and it is made up of six amazing creme polishes. I know most of these colors have been done before but I really like Zoya. I like that they are B3F and environmentally friendly. My little girl has recently gotten into polishing her toes and I love that this line is available. I feel great about letting her use them and the color selection doesn't hurt either. These all applied with ease. Photos are two coats of color with no base or top coats.

Jana

Petra

Dree

Cynthia

Codie

Anja

Smoke & Mirrors can be found on Zoya.com. Also make sure you follow them on facebook as they do the occasional promo. There have been lots of good deals on zoya lately!

(these were sent to me for review)

Perfectly Polished Tips 159 - Color Club Wild at Heart

Finally a collection that wasn't 3 seasons ago! Color Club gave me the chance to try out their Fall 2009 collection; Wild at Heart. This collection has an amazing line up for fall. All of the colors are perfect for the season and the variety of finishes is pretty great too.

Wild & Willing - a gorgeous foily duochrome. I could not capture the color good enough. Kind of pink, kind of gold. Very unique though.

On the Wild Side - a blue grey shade. It's on the metallic side which for me means brush strokes all over. The color is nice but I'm not crazy about the finish.

With Abandon - brown and gold glitter in a black base, one of my favorites from the collection.

Rule Breaker - a beautiful shimmery teal. I love the color of this polish but I wish it were a creme. There aren't enough easy to get teal cremes out there.

Wild at Heart - purple holo! CC's holos apply like butter, i love them.

Love Em Leave Em - pale gold holo, it's a pretty color but not on me.

Thoughts on the new water mark? Distracting? Covers up too much? A few months ago a photo on mine was used on Ebay with out my permission. I know watermarks won't really stop the thieves but I guess it's worth a shot.

Perfectly Polished Tips 156 - Zoya Dare

Thank you all for the comments on my last post! I'm not sleeping yet but she's so worth it!

Finally Zoya's Dare collection, this was for Fall 2009. I think this was one of my favorite collections this year. I have been on a purple, blurple, blue, teal, and green kick as of late. I am a total creme whore so this collection was right up my alley. Even though Ibiza and Envy had subtle shimmer I still loved them. Ibiza is a shade of blue that I absolutely adore and I have a weak spot for polishes that look like this. I have several in my collection and love them all. I have said it a million times before that I love Zoya's formula and I honestly think it might be my favorite brand of polish. There are other companies I like for their color choices but I think Zoya is doing a great job at branching out. I would love to see a teal in an upcoming collection and maybe some dusty/muted shades as well.

Vanessa - lovely red creme

Ciara - plum creme


Pinta - inky violet creme (my favorite from the collex!)


Demi - grape creme


Envy - forest green w/ subtle shimmer


Ibiza - shimmery royal blue

The Dare collection is currently available on Zoya.com. Zoya did have a small price increase back in October, they now retail for $7. Thanks Art of Beauty for allowing me to try these out.

I am trying to get back into the swing of blogging and hope to at least get a few posts set up to auto post. The holidays are a busy time for everyone. This is my last semester of school though (for now anyways) so I hope that once the new year is here I will be able to get back to blogging full time.

Perfectly Polished Tips 150 - Zoya Truth Fall 2009

For this upcoming fall season Zoya put out two collections. Truth is made up of six, gorgeous shimmery polishes. I will have up it's counterpart Dare early next week. Dare contains the creme shades. The photos following the review have the warm/yellow tint, I was not able to figure out how to edit them and make them look normal. I have been trying to do all my swatching in the sun when possible so future photos will hopefully look better. As I mentioned in my last post I am so far behind, a lot of my photos have already been taken and uploaded I just have not written the review. So please bare with me while I catch up.

Salma is a warm scarlet red with a metallic finish.

Drew is a mauvey rose and is more pink in real life. It's not as brown as this photo shows.

Anaka is a fuchsia pink metallic with purple undertones. It even has a slight glass flecked shimmer look. This is the stand out polish from this collection for me.

Kalmia is a rosey copper with a metallic finish. I often have issues with metallics and their brush strokes, it was most apparent to me with Kalmia, but nothing too terrible.

Penny is a coppery gold mettalic. It is not as orange in real life.

Isla is a deep venetian red metallic. I think it's a must have for red lovers.

The Truth collection is up for sale on Zoya's website right now. Overall it's not my type of collection. I love cremes and as of late I have been wearing a lot of purples and blues. Zoya does do golds well though and one day I'll stop being a baby and wear one!

Perfectly Polished Tips 146 - Zoya Matte Velvet

Matte polish is making a come back. Many, many years ago Maybelline was among the first companies to produce a matte polish. Matte means with out shine, not to be confused with creme. For this fall Zoya has created three matte colors, each with gorgeous shimmer. Personally I have not jumped on the matte train, it's just not me. I've been meaning to wear one of them for a few days to see if I could get used to it but I always end up putting on a top coat. These polishes are meant to be applied to dry, clean, naked nails. No base coat and no top coat. Unfortunately this means that your matte manicure may not last as long as you would like. If matte is your thing though these three make it worth it. Those of you saying, "Oh no, how can I function without my quick dry topcoat?" don't worry. These dried to the touch in minutes. If you look closely you can see that Zoya also gave the bottles a matte look just for this collection.

Loredana - gun metal with shimmer

Dovima - black with shimmer

Posh - wine with shimmer

I think Loredana is my favorite as I am just getting comfortable with black on my tips and I don't do red shimmers on my tips. I wore my first black manicure recently and I was surprised at how much I loved it.

Matte Velvet is currently available at ArtofBeauty.com. I believe this collection is limited edition however I am not 100% on that.

OPI and Nubar have released matte colletions, I also believe SpaRitual will be releasing one as well. Essie has made a Matte topcoat, I will have a review of it up soon!

On one other note, how are the photos now? I tried my best to get them as true to life as possible but I think sunlight might be the only way to go.

Perfectly Polished Tips 117 - China Glaze Operation Color

I'm kinda late to the party with this collection. It's still fall though! China Glaze released Operation Color for fall 2008. I personally felt like these colors would have been more appropriate for a spring collection but I really like them. As I've mentioned before I love almost every polish with a creme finish. Combine that with hues of blues and purples and I'm hooked. I didn't have any application with these polishes and even though my pictures show two coats of color I have a visible polish line, so in the future I would use three coats of color.

Secret Peri-wink-le is a pastel periwinkle creme. The color shown in the photo is pretty true to life.

Agent Lavender is a delicate lilac creme. I hate how my camera likes to assume anything light colored is white. The color is more intense and less blue. Every since I wore Zoya Miley I fell in love with all lavender and lilac colors. They are so clean and lady like.

Pink Underground is a pepto bismal-y pink with subtle pink shimmer. A year ago I would have been all over a color like this now not so much. Believe it or not though I don't have anything similar in my stash.

Here is Pink Underground with flash to show the subtle shimmer.

Revolution is a tomato red creme. I had to alter it a bit to actually make it look like the polish. The picture is pretty close, it's a bit brighter in real life. This red applied very nicely but I just don't do red as much as I used too.

This collection has two more colors as well; Code Orange, and Golden Opportunity. I don't do yellow or orange so I don't have those to show you. I know a lot of the other blogs have posted swatches though so you should be able to find them easily if you're curious!

Perfectly Polished Tips 101 - Metro Chic & You Don't Know Jacques

Sephora by OPI Metro Chic and OPI You Don't Know Jacques are two popular colors that were released this fall. I did separate posts on both of these polishes but I never compared the two. The question of are they too similar to own both comes up often. In my opinion no they are not similar at all. Metro Chic goes very purple on me while Jacques pulls a lot of brown. Jacques is also darker than Metro Chic. Of course this is going to vary from skin tone to skin tone.

The lighting today made MC look very grey, usually I get more of a purple look from it.

In real life and in natural lighting Jacques doesn't look this brown. I like it either way though.

Here are the colors side by side. You can see that the tones have changed again, which makes me think it's a pretty versatile polish.

I love both very much and I love that they are cremes even more. I switched to posting large size photos, does it make much of a difference? You can always click on the photo for a bigger one but I think that might also have to do with my photo bucket settings. Let me know what you think.