Zoya Zenith Collection for Holiday 2013

It seems way too early to be talking about winter holiday collections already, what with it not even being Halloween yet and the fall colors still blazing on the trees, but since Zoya kindly sent their Zenith collection for review it's only right I share them now before I get distracted. There are six shades here: Seraphina, Cassedy, Belinda, Payton, Dream, and Mosheen.



Seraphina is a very light grey with an abundance of silver shimmer (you can probably spot a few stray sparkles on my skin in these photos). I used three coats, no topcoat.





Cassedy is a pewter metallic. In some lights, it appeared to lean ever so slightly toward green, by which I mean it seemed to bring out the red tones in my skin. This swatch is two coats, no topcoat.





Belinda is a deep but not too dark purple shimmer. I added topcoat to this two-coat swatch because I bumped one of my nails when it was wet and the spot needed more smoothing than I could achieve with my usual wet finger method. (I didn't want to add another coat of color lest it get too dark.)



Low light didn't do much for the first two in the collection, but Belinda glowed:



Payton is a deep berry flecked shimmer. The finish is similar to Aurora, Blaze, and Storm from last year's Ornate collection. This swatch is two coats, no topcoat (though probably adding some would have been a good idea to bring out the shimmer even more). The shimmer flecks in this one are predominantly lilacs and pinks and peach.





In low light, the colors of the shimmer in Payton really pop:



Dream is the same finish as Payton, but in blue. The flecks here are mostly blues, blue greens, and greens. This was also swatched at two coats, no topcoat.





Here's the shimmer in Dream popping in low light:



The last polish in this collection, Mosheen, is a glitter topper. It's got iridescent bar glitter in turquoise and teal mixed with small round iridescent glitter in the same hues as well as peachy and rosy ones, all in a very sheer turquoise base.



I just had to try Mosheen over all the other colors in the collection. In all cases, I used two coats of Mosheen plus topcoat. The glitter in Mosheen does lie pretty flat on its own, so no heroic topcoating is needed.

Over the pale Seraphina, Mosheen blends rather than contrasts, just adding a bit of interest.



Over the darker Cassady, Mosheen shows up a bit more strongly. It did seem to bring out the greenish tones in Cassady.



Belinda is a bit darker than Cassady and has a quieter visual texture, so Mosheen really took center stage when layered on top.



It's a similar story with Mosheen over Payton, though the flecks in Payton making the overall effect a bit more busy than it is over Belinda.



Dream has flecks, too, of course, but since they're similar cool hues to the majority of the glitter in Mosheen, the combination is more harmonious to my eyes than it was with Payton.



Mosheen was generally well behaved; the only problem I had was sometimes the bars would stick out over the end of my nails and I'd have to nudge them back with the brush (in at least one case you case see I missed some).

As collections go, this one is very Karen-colored; I would wear any of these as a full mani, though I'd be selective about what I layered Mosheen over—I like it best over Storm. Thinking about picking my favorite, I naturally gravitated toward the gorgeous purple Belinda. Quiet Seraphina has much to recommend her as well; so many silver polishes are uber blingy metallics or brushstrokey frosts, but not Seraphina—she is soft and elegant.

The Zenith collection is available now on the Zoya website for $8 a bottle (or $48 for the whole collection, so no quantity discount on that sampler pack, but it does save extra clicks to fill your cart if you want them all).

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