Zoya Island Fun and Paradise Sun for Summer 2015

Samples provided for review

I was once again fortunate to receive the latest Zoya colors for review, in this case the Island Fun and Paradise Sun collections for summer. Island Fun has six bright cremes, while Paradise Sun is six shimmers.



As you can see from the bottle shot, most of the cremes have a color-coordinated shimmer, and regular readers know what that means—shimmer swatches with creme accent nails. Plenty of other bloggers have done great swatches of the cremes alone; Mercurial Magpie is one of them.

In the orange red slice of the color wheel, cremey Demetria pairs with shimmery Aphrodite. I used three coats of each but two would have been fine; I just got in a rythmn and liked seeing the microflakie shimmer build up on Aphrodite. The shimmer has such a nice glow, even in indirect light.





My Zoya Bubbly collection lives in the box of fun toppers I never have far from me when playing, and it looked like they'd coordinate nicely with these new colors. Here I've added Jesy to Demetria and Aphrodite, going a little heavier on the tips for a not quite glitter gradient effect.



The deep pink pair is Nana, the creme, and Mae, the glass flecked shimmer. Nana is a deeper pink than Mae, but they still coordinate nicely. I used two coats of each of these since I was on guard against the shimmer distracting me after what happened with Aphrodite.





This pair's Bubbly counterpart is Harper.



Oh look, it's time for my favorite color, purple, in the form of Serenity, a medium purple creme, and Isa, darker purple flecked shimmer. These were two coats each; I might have been able to stop at one if I'd really paid attention to that first coat.





The purples got topped with Binx from Bubbly. I was very enamored with the Serenity plus Binx combination; that might need to make it into my full mani rotation sometime soon.



Turquoise is next, with cremey Talia and shimmery Oceane. Again, two coats of each. Talia might have been good with one.





Muse from Bubbly glitzed up these blues; I especialy liked it over the slightly darker Talia.



Teal takes the stage in the form of Cecelia, the creme, and Selene, the shimmer. I used two coats of these; one might have sufficed. There's a subtle blue flash to the shimmer in Cecelia, which is a nice detail; it showed up best in soft focus shots. These were both two coaters as well, though perhaps one would have been enough.





Staasi from Bubbly is a warm green while these new shades are cooler toned, but together they made quite a pleasing combination.



Jace is a vibrant olive green creme that has no shimmery counterpart in this season's releases, so I did two coats of it and then added Alma, the yellow orange from Bubbly, to all but my index finger. How much did I like this? A lot. A real lot. Jace is a great color on its own, one of those "I can't quite decide if it's pretty or not but it sure is interesting" shades, and Alma makes it even more special.





Genesis is that last of our summer Zoyas; it's a white shimmer that I found a bit tricky to work with, especially compared to how nicely the others in the collection went on. I used three coats and still wasn't quite happy with the end result. The shimmer is pretty subtle, especially in indirect light, but it doesn't disappear entirely like some.





To have a more fun with these fun shades, I did a color block mani inspired by my friend who Instagrams as paintmewithpolish (though she doesn't seem to have posted the mani that I used as the basis for this one). I took her white with brights theme and interpreted it with the Paradise Sun colors. I used Genesis as a base, then laid double wide striping tape down the center of my nails and did each side with one of the other shimmers. I'd intended to leave the white stripe alone, like the inspiration mani, but I messed up when pulling off the tape on one nails, so added dots to distract from my repair job. I quite like this, and might have to try doing it again, but a bit more neatly. Maybe next time I'll not need to add dots, but I might anyway since I think they're a fun addition.



My picks are Aphrodite, Serenity, and Jace (surprised that there are two cremes there). The only one that I wouldn't recommend is Genesis, but perhaps I just got an unusually thick bottle (I did not try thinning it; maybe I will later).

The Summer 2015 polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider, and I get to keep the polishes for my own use.