Zoya Cashmeres and Satins for Fall 2013

Today I have swatches of the non-PixieDust Zoya colors for Fall 2013, which I received for review, plus a couple bonus comparisons to Essies I shared a couple days ago. (and of course some of these Zoya shades were in the OPI San Francisco comparisons post last week). As usual for Zoya, there are twelve new colors for the season, split into two sub collections.

The Cashmeres (all cremes): Livingston, Pepper, Sailor, Hunter, Louise, and Flynn.



The Satins (one flakie and five shimmers): Maria Luisa, Channing, Mason, Claudine, Neve, and Giovanna.



I started my swatching with Giovanna, a teal-leaning green shimmer. I used three coats, though it is quite pigmented; you can see hints of that on my pinky finger where I had some trouble with cleanup.



I was intrigued by Maria Luisa so did a quick accent nail with it over Giovanna. Maria Luisa is a gold flakie topcoat. At least, I'm calling it flakies. These flakies aren't strongly iridescent or color shifting like we typically think of flakies being, nor are they as they as opaque as the 24K gold ones we saw in Zoya Gilty last year, yet the material doesn't look like glitter and the shapes are more organic than shreds, so I don't feel calling it a shredded glitter is right. Glitter flakies, maybe? Whatever we call it, it's fun to look at and makes a nice accent against Giovanna's dark teal green.



I paired Flynn, a light camel tan creme, with Louise, a brown creme. Both were two coats. Flynn is just a bit too yellow-toned to get along with my skin color but I quite liked Louise.



I just had to try Maria Louisa on top of these, and it helped confirm my deciding to call it a flakie, as I could see some subtle iridescence in the gold bits.



Channing, a dark orange shimmer, got an accent of Pepper, a dark brick-leaning red creme. Again, both were two coats.



This pair was lovely in low direct light:



Did I try topping them with Maria Luisa? Of course I did.



Neve is a dark royal blue shimmer; she got an accent of Hunter, which is a dark green creme. I used two coats of each.



More Maria Luisa? Don't mind if I do:



Mason is a magenta shimmer. I gave it an accent of Sailor, a slightly dusty dark blue creme. I used two coats of Mason but only one of Sailor (it was a thick coat, I admit).



Mason's shimmer has pink and purple glimmers in it.



You knew this was coming—Mason and Sailor topped by Maria Louisa:



The last two colors are Claudine, a dark grey shimmer, and Livingston, a bright red creme. Claudine was two coats; Livingston was three (this was a little thin; I had a problem with cuticle flooding because I didn't expect that).





And yes, there was a Maria Luisa moment with these two as well:



OPI didn't do a medium red creme for their fall collection, so Livingston didn't get a chance to get in on that comparison post. But Essie did do one, Twin Sweater Set, so compare them I did. Because both Livingston and Twin Sweater Set are three coaters, it's easy to make each of them look darker or lighter depending on how thick/many coats are used, though I found that Livingston ended up looking lighter/brighter than Twin Sweater Set regardless. Left to right below: Zoya, Essie, Zoya, Essie. All three coats, but thicker ones on the left, thinner on the right.



Mason didn't match up with anything in OPI fall, either, but it sure looked a lot like Essie The Lace Is On to me. Left to right below: Zoya, Essie, Zoya, Essie. They are pretty much the same color, but the Zoya is more shimmery. Unless you really, really like purple, you don't need both. If I had to pick one, it'd be the Zoya.



The biggest surprise for me in this collection was Maria Luisa. I'm much more drawn to silver than gold, but I wanted to see Maria Luisa over everything.

The Zoya polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider.