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.

Sally Hansen Costume-ize Your Nails

Today I've got the Insta Dri and Fuzzy Coat colors from the Sally Hansen Costume-ize Your Nails display they put out for Halloween: Fur-ankenstein, Night Fright, OMGhost, Pumpkin Queen, Scaredy Matte, and Witch-ful Thinking. One could make a very strong case that I should have left all the Insta Dri colors in the store, as they are all cremes, and I have plenty of cremes in my stash, way too many cremes some might say. But as I mentioned when I posted the display, I was hoping the white was a match for the discontinued Whirlwind White, my holy grail white creme, so I had to get that, and I use a lot of black creme for undies, both on my nails and on wheels, so the two blacks would get used, and as long as I was getting three of the four I might as well complete the set. That's the sort of thinking that has led to me having a lineup of Helmers in my basement.



The first order of business was comparing OMGhost to Whirlwind White. I bought a bunch of bottles of the latter when it was on clearance, because a good white creme is hard to find. Top to bottom below (2 coats each): OMGhost, Whirlwind White, OMGhost, Whirlwind White. OMGhost is not Whirlwind White's equal—it's better. Whiter. More opaque. Long term storage, even in a drawer away from light, had not kept it safe from yellowing. Worn by itself, the slight yellow tinge might not be noticeable, but next to the fresh OMGhost, I could definitely see it. The formula also seemed thinner than I remembered, which doesn't entirely shock me, as I've had polishes thin with age before. So yeah, if you want a good white creme, grab OMGhost while it's here, and use it while it's fresh if Whirlwind White is any indication of its future.



Post-comparison, I put OMGhost on all my nails as a base for the two Fuzzy Coat colors. Top to bottom (2 coats over the white): Witch-ful Thinking, Fur-ankenstein, Witch-ful Thinking, Fur-ankenstein. Like the previously released Fuzzy Coat shades, these have small matte bar glitter in a clear base; Witch-ful Thinking has black and light orange, while Fur-ankenstein has black and light lime green. The base in these glitters was fine, and it layed flat enough that I didn't add topcoat to my swatch. I'm much more comfortable with bar glitter now than I was in summer of 2013 when I swatched the original release of Fuzzy Coat. I still don't want to wear it all by itself but as a topper, I can see the appeal.



Pumpkin Queen is a straight up orange creme. Two coats gave me full coverage, and it was shiny even without added topcoat.



I tried the Fuzzy Coat colors over Pumpkin Queen, too. The light orange in Witch-ful Thinking blended too much with the orange base, I thought, but Fur-ankenstein over the orange made a very Halloween-appropriate combination. I still need to work on my bar glitter application technique, as I tend to get clumps when I try to push it around to ensure that the bars are pointing in sufficiently random directions.



I'm a bit surprised that Sally Hansen included two black cremes in this collection, one shiny and one matte, instead of doing a fourth color, perhaps a swampy lime green to coordinate with Fur-ankenstein, and putting their Big Matte topcoat in the display. But two blacks it is, so two blacks I swatched. Top to bottom: Night Fright, Scaredy Matte (maybe they just wanted to use this name, which I admit is a good one), Night Fright, Scaredy Matte. Both of these were nearly one coaters; I mostly needed the second coat to smooth out my ridges since I didn't put on any basecoat.



I used the blacks as a foundation for some colorblock dotted nail art incorporating the other two cremes. Taping off the colorblocks would have been neater, but I freehanded them because I was feeling impatient (and I need to practice my freehand skills). Dots of the opposite color from the diagonal block and topcoat finished the look.



Just for fun, I matte-ified the whole thing before I took it off. I didn't jot down which matte topcoat I used; given my mani box, it could have been one of several I keep in there.



I will probably buy a backup of OMGhost before this display disappears because it is quite a nice white (why they can't keep a white in the core line, I've no idea; that seems like a basic color to me). I hope I can find some time to experiment with these Fuzzy Coat shades over other bases, like the forest green and darkish orange that Jasmine at The Happy Sloths used. I wonder if we'll see red and green Fuzzy Coats for Christmas.

Smitten Polish Fall 2014 Collection

Sample provided for review

I was delighted to get the Smitten Fall 2014 collection for review, especially since I've liked every Smitten Polish I've tried. This collection has six shades: Seasonal Lattes, Antiquing, Penny Dreadful, Sparkling Orchid, Udora's Harvest, and 131 Angstrom.



I paired up Penny Dreadful, a super sparkly coppery brown microglitter, with Udora's Harvest, a dusty pink holo. Most pale holos don't show their colors in the diffuse illumination of my lightbox, but Udora's Harvest did. I used two coats of each for my swatch, no topcoat because I had some nail art plans for these, which we'll get to soon enough.



At some angles, Udora's Harvest looked to almost have a foil finish, which was intriguing, and Penny Dreadful showed pops of sparkle and color at pretty much any angle.





These two were even more lovely in direct low light as well.



And now for that nail art I mentioned above: I did freehand diagonal color blocking so I'd have both pretties on all my nails, then slicked clear topcoat on. I love how these two look together.





Just couldn't resist including this blurry shot with all the colors popping:



The next match I made was between two holos: Seasonal Lattes, a brown, and Antiquing, a taupey silver. Neither of these are typical holo shades, which makes me like them more. Again I used two coats of each. These were a litte more shy in the lightbox about showing their rainbows; Antiquing has the same sorta-foil thing going on as Udora's Harvest, so that was interesting to see.





In low direct light, the rainbows showed themselves.





Adding dots of the opposite color make these shades work better together (and the topcoat I put over the dots added shine).



Adding another line of dots crossing the first didn't look as good as I'd hoped; I think it would have been better if I'd used smaller dots so the lines crossing would have been more clear.



The last two shades are both sparkly microglitters, sisters of Penny Dreadful. Sparkling Orchid is a warm bright purple and 131 Angstrom is a deep yet vivid turquoise blue. I used two coats of each and added topcoat to bring out their sparkle even more.



Direct low light shot of these two:



I jazzed these up further by adding a wide stripe down the center of my nail in the opposite color, using a brush in a cheap set I picked up at Five Below, then added more topcoat.



Sparkles on sparkles in low light:



I regret I was not able to see these beauties in the sun when I swatched, but I didn't want to wait to share them because there's going to be a restock tomorrow, October 11th, at 2 p.m. Central US time on the Smitten Polish website. That restock will include these polishes along with a Halloween duo and a limited edition polish called Out of the Darkness which is gorgeous (and which I failed to pick up when it was first stocked, so I'll be setting a calendar reminder this time). You can follow the Smitten Polish Facebook page for restock and other brand news.

The 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.