Zoya Mod Mattes Review

Just when you think every polish company is busy churning out crackles, Zoya does the unexpected and takes us back to 2009 with another matte collection.  Don't get me wrong, I love it when a polish company keeps us on our toes, and this was certainly unexpected.

Unlike Zoya's previous matte offerings, these are matte neons.  Now, normally, neons dry with a satiny finish anyway, but these dry super matte.  Also unlike the previous matte collections, only one of these polish contains any shimmer.  The formula on these was pretty much the same for all the colors.  They were surprisingly thin and and a tad streaky up until 3 coats, which isn't a HUGE problem.  Normally with mattes, multiple coats is just asking for weird marks and bumpiness, but these evened out really well.

Lolly - Bright pink matte.  Given the fact that OPI came out with La Paz-itively Hot matte almost 2 years ago, this color isn't incredibly unique.  I blog-sold my LPH matte, so I don't have it for comparison, but I do think that Lolly is perhaps a tad lighter.  Also, it doesn't have any shimmer.  I do like the color though.  It's very pretty, and flattering for any skintone.  3 coats.

Mitzi - Bright chartreuse green matte.  You may remember from my NOPI Target spring review that I love anything in this tone of green.  Back when in mid 1990's, I think I had a gazillion shirts in this color, and still gravitate towards it... in clothing.  While I like the color, and think it's flattering when worn on my body, it just looks a little odd on my hands.  It doesn't give me dirty-red-hands like mintier greens, it just doesn't play nice.  That said, I think this would look great as a base for some of the upcoming crackles.  Can you imagine this with OPI's new Navy Shatter?  Amazing.  3 coats.    

Phoebe - Bright caribbean blue matte.  This one, probably not surprising, was my favorite of the bunch.  It's a beautiful medium-toned blue.  It makes me want to go on vacation... preferably somewhere warm, with palm trees and umbrella drinks.  This one was my first of the 3 to swatch, so I had yet to realize that these were 3-coaters, hence the thin spots (though they were not as noticeable IRL as they are in my macro pics, so perhaps you can get away with 2 coats).  This one was the only one of the 3 with any shimmer, which looked amazing when covered with a TC (see below).

Though, only Phoebe had any shimmer, I went ahead and topped all 3 with one coat of TC.

IMO, all 3 look really nice with the TC added, but it doesn't really give the "aaaaah" factor (like TC over the OPI Suedes or the other Zoya mattes) as seen on other matte + TC combos.  It does make the shimmer in Phoebe come to life, but it just makes the other 2 look like normal, non-matte polish.

All in all, I think I like these.  I wasn't a huge die-hard matte fan, and in fact, I've blog-sold all my mattes/suedes away, but there's something about these that make me like them.  Maybe it's the bright colors or the pretty frosted bottles, but these are just happy and fun (something we can all use a bit more of, IMO).

Zoya polishes are available at Zoya.com and various online boutiques.  They are regularly $8, however, through tomorrow, they are offering a BOGO sale on all summer colors (this collection plus the 2 bigger collections).  You have to already have registered for this, so if you are new to the brand, you won't be able to participate, but if you've ever purchased from Zoya before, taken advantage of their previous promos, or if you registered on their website by Sunday afternoon, then you probably have a promo code waiting in your account.

These were sent to me for review


Also girls, I wanted to mention that today is the last day for my giveaway.  Be sure to click the link above to enter.

Piggy Polish Review

Recently, I had the opportunity to try a few polishes from Piggy Polish's line up.  I wasn't very familiar with this brand prior to trying them.  The concept of Piggy Polish is that it's meant for your toes.  I chronically neglect my toes, plus, there's no way I'm going to show feet pictures on this blog (shudders... I have issues with feet.  :P), so I figured I'd go an swatch them on my fingernails.

Piglet – Pale, creamy pink crème that is slightly deeper in tone that my picture would indicate. This one reminds me of a paler, slightly softer version of OPI ElePhantastic Pink or ChG Sugar High. This one took 3 coats to reach opacity, but the formula was nice and flowed pretty easily. I did have to check and make sure I didn’t have too much on my brush with each coat, but that’s fairly normal. I love this color. Plus, after I first saw “Babe”, I became slightly obsessed with baby pigs, so I adore the name.

Keep It Teal – This is what it would be like if ChG Four Leaf Clover and ChG Turned up Turquoise had a shimmery baby. It’s a bright, teal green shimmer. It definitely leans more teal that the Borghese green shimmer I posted the other day. When I first put it on, I thought it was going to dry to a satin finish, but as I applied more coats, I could tell that wasn’t the case. Pic is 3 coats, as I had a few thin spots at 2 coats. I definitely think you could get away with 2 coats, though, if you were more careful than I was.

Silver Scream – Speaking of matte… this is a light sliver matte. I had no idea this was going to be matte, but it’s very pretty. It dries super-fast. I applied 3 coats to reach opacity and it was dry enough that I could apply a TC (to my middle finger) within 3-4 minutes. Like I mentioned, I did put a TC on my middle finger, so you can see the difference, though in this pic, it's not very noticeable.  Plus, the one coat of TC made it more of a satin than shiny.  I think if you wanted to make it look like a traditional shiny finish, you'd need 2 coats of TC, and perhaps a high-shine TC at that.

Pimp – This one, I had to request, simply for the name. I mean come on… it’s Pimp. That’s in BB Couture “Adios Mo Fo” territory in regards to awesome-name-ness, if you ask me. LOL. Unfortunately, the color didn’t quit live up to name expectations. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a pretty, albeit kind of sheer, squishy medium bright pink shimmer. Formula was a little thin on this one, but manageable. Pic is 3 coats and I still had VNLs. Though, I think it’s the kind of polish that even if I applied 15 coats, I’d still have VNLs. It’s very jelly-esque.  Which is great if jellies are your thing.  I tend to avoid them because nail line has a tendency to be wonky. 

Smootch – Medium red-based purple shimmer. Had much of the same squishy, jelly finish as Pimp, though I was able to reach opacity with 4 thin coats. This is a pretty purple, and something unusual in my collection, as this one definitely leans red.  However, while the color is pretty, it looks a little “watered down”, if that makes sense, though that may be a result of the finish. When you first look at this one, it looks like it may turn out to be a duochome, but it’s not, at least, not on the nail.

Shake Your Blue-ty – Bright blue shimmer = LOVE!  I know, I know, I have TONS of colors like these, but this one is a tad different. Unlike, say, Essie Aruba blue for example, this one leans more marine blue than straight-up blue. It’s a beautiful color, but I wasn’t really expecting it, as in the bottle, this color looks like a purple-blue with silver ribbons. Weird. This one had the best application and formula, IMO, and pic is 2 coats. I’d say this one, along with Piglet, is my favorite of the 6 I received for review.  It's also the one I've worn as a full mani (I did that w/in 20 minutes of getting the box.  LOL).

All in all, I like these.  If I had to rank them, I'd say Shake Your Blue-ty, Piglet, and Keep It Teal were the real winners for me.  When I first started applying them, I was a little frustrated.  I found the brush handle to be small and short and a little difficult to control, but I quickly got used to it.  By my second swatch, I was an old-pro.  You'll notice that all Piggy Polishes come with a cute flower toe ring.  Some of my bottles don't have them, as my daughter quickly took them over.   You can find Piggy Polish on their website for $9 each.

BTW, as you all may notice, I've been playing alot with nail shape lately and I think I finally found one I liked (what's in the above pics).  Unfortunately, in a cleaning frenzy, the corner of my L index finger snapped off, so I had to round off the edges again.  That'll teach me to clean with naked nails.  And now I'm back to square one (or perhaps... "not-square" one. LOL).  Guess square nails and I just weren't meant to be.  Damn. *sniff*

NOTD: Orly Shine w/ Lippmann Happy Birthday

Back last year before Deborah Lippmann released Happy Birthday, I fell in love with a swatch of it on Vampy Varnish.  Of course, right before it released, her little blog tirade regarding Funky Chunky made the rounds and I kind of didn't want to give her my money right.  :O  So, once it released, I waited.  Once I was ready to buy it, it was kind of in short supply, then I forgot about it (plus, Tim was laid off in the fall/winter and $18 on one polish just wasn't in the cards).  Until, I'd see a swatch of it, that is.  Then I'd fall in love with it again and decide to splurge.  Of course, my brain is a sieve, so I'd immediate forget about it, and never got it. 

Then all this hubbub regarding Bad Romance and Across the Universe happened, and Lippmann glitters found their way back to the forefront of my brain again.  As BR and AtU are only at Nordies (or were, I think they may have since sold out or been put on B/O) and I refuse to pay Nordies high shipping (seriously... free shipping on $200 :|  Dang, Nordstrom), I figured I'd satisfy myself with Happy Birthday until I could pick up AtU and BR.  I used my new job as jusitfication, but really... I just wanted Happy Birthday.  LOL

I got her today, so I just had to show her off.  :P

This is 3 coats of Orly Shine (from the Foil FX collection) with one coat of Lippmann Happy Birthday, one coat of SH Insta-Dri, and one coat of Orly Matte Top (which gives it a satin finish).  I heart this.  <3  I can't wait to dry this glitter TC on just about every color I can think of.  It really does look like a birthday party just exploded on my fingers.  It's that awesome!

Orly Shine and Matte Top are available at e-tailers and Sally's (though MT may no longer be available there) and Lippmann Happy Birthday is available at Deborah Lippmann's own website and various online beauty beautiques.

Orly Iron Butterfly

When Orly introduced their Metal Chic collection, there was one color that I wanted and that was Iron Butterfly.  So, when they offered to send me one from the collection to try and review, I was so happy that they sent me Iron Butterfly.  I may have even giggled when I opened the package.  Though, I am a little over the whole matte thing, I do like this polish, and I may even like it more w/ a top coat (see below). 

It's a deep charcoal grey matte with silver shimmer.  Because it's matte, the shimmer looks like a rubbed silver, more than a bright shiny silver.  This was 2 coats, and I had no problems with application.  The formulation was more like OPI's Suede collection rather than a traditional matte. 

It's awesome with a top coat, too.

If you are interested in viewing the entire collection, Scrangie has a drool-inducing post featuring Iron Butterfly as well as the other 2 in the collection.  Her posts makes me want to pick up the other 2 polishes, even though they would look like crap with my skin (of course, all of Scrangie's posts do that.  LOL). 

This was sent to me for review

KOTD: Bandana Nails!

This was an idea I had last night while I was trying to fall asleep.  I'd always thought that this particular stamp from plate m64 looked like a bandana, so I figured I'd go ahead and do a bandana konad, and while tossing and turning last night, I figured out how.

This is OPI Double Decker Red with Migi White and Black pens.  I applied a stamp of black and then applied a stamp of white, trying to offset it as best I could (so you could see both the colors).  I applied a coat of Out the Door TC to set it.  I also applied a coat of Orly Matte Top so it looked more like fabric.

I really love this.  It did take a bit of time (around 30 minutes), but it was pretty simple to do.

OPI La Paz-itively Hot Matte

A few weeks ago, in my Merry Midnight post, I mentioned that I had tried the 2 OPI Mattes that I owned and I didn't like them.  While this still remains true for Russian Navy Matte, I now have to change my stance of La Paz-itively Hot Matte. 

This color is so gorgeous.  It definitely has a satin finish rather than the chalky matte look I don't like.  It actually looks like hot pink satin on my nails.  They are like bad '80's bridesmaid dresses, but in a good way.  LOL.  The pic is one coat of polish.  It dried in minutes.  I had plans of using it as a layering polish, I did continue on and put a glitter over top (I will post that mani next), but I was tempted to keep it like this.

This polish is from OPI's matte collection that was released this past summer.  I got mine on eBay, but they are available at etailers.

NOTD: OPI Russian Navy Matte/ OPI Merry Midnight

Unlike the rest of the NP-loving community, I'd yet to try flakies. I had looked at a couple Nfu-Ohs, and then decided against them. I felt the price was just too much. Plus, 51 is always OOS.

So, when OPI released 2 flakies in this year's holiday collection, I immediately took notice. Unfortunately, one of the 2 they released, Shim-merry Chic (the golden one) had this vomit-ty look to it, so I decided against it. I waffled on Merry Midnight because I'd read a iffy review on it, though for the life of me, I can't remember where. I decided to go for it, however, because it just looked so unique. Whenever Suzi decides to go out of her norm (read reds), the color is usually fab. Usually. Sometimes, it can go very, very wrong.

Thankfully, Merry Midnight was not one of those times. It's a deep purple base, loaded with duochrome magenta flakies and what looks like blue, purple, and green (maybe? I can't tell if the green is really green or just the light hitting the blue) fine glitter.

Gasp. This is absolutely amazing. What I like about this polish is that the flakies are much, much smaller than the flakies I've seen in the Nfu-Ohs, Sinful, and NYX flakies; though it all fairness, I don't have those to compare. They don't look like big chunks on your nails, which is a BIG plus for me.

As for application, I had read that MM can be a bit thin, and I was afraid it would be lighter on the nail than in the bottle, so I decided to layer it over a coat of OPI Russian Navy Matte, to get a deep purple color and to help with the multiple coats issue.

I'd mentioned the other day that I yet to use my RN-M. I'd bought it on a whim about a month after the first wave of OPI Mattes came out. I think I'd seen Scrangie's pic of it, fell in love with her swatches, and pulled the trigger on it, before thinking it through. Honestly, I don't really like the full-on matte look. I love the satin finish my Orly Matte Top gives me, and I really love the OPI Suedes, but I don't like my nails looking like chalkboards, which is what happens with the OPI Mattes.

So, my RN-M, and my LaPH-M have just been sadly gathering dust in their drawer. I had no plans on using either of them. Then I had the bright idea, that they would be perfect for layering. They dry super quick and the color is very saturated. Perfect, IMO, as a base. I could have gone with a regular navy (i.e. CC Naughty-cal Navy or ChG Calypso Blue), but again, I didn't want to have to deal with the drying time on the bottom coat.

For those that are interested, I did take a pic of RN-M on it's own, just so you could see it.

It's a pretty, if boring, navy, but I don't really like the finish. It's also very unforgiving. I use glue-ons, so thankfully, I don't have to deal with ridges in my nails, but you can see every time where I didn't put the polish on perfectly straight or it got a little lumpy. There was no fixing those mistakes, either, as it dries in 1-2 minutes. I just can't see me using this on it's own in the future. Maybe, I'll use it with a konad and then top it with a coat of Matte Top, but it just doesn't ring any bells for me. I'm planning on layering it with the original RN, as I wasn't a fan of the O-RN due to the green base. In swatching, it looks like using the RN-M neutralizes the green.

But to get off my tangent, I then used 2 coats of Merry Midnight and a coat of my current quick-dry TC, Beauty Secrets Top Coat. Like I said earlier, I adore this color. It's different which is something most nail polish companies are lacking. Granted, it's not brand new territory, but it is new for OPI (US), and that's something I can appreciate. Let's hope it's a trend that continues into Spring 2010. Not just for OPI, but for Essie and Orly as well (ChG, CC, and Misa seem like the are on the forefront of interesting and different colors).

RN-M and MM are both available at e-tailers and on eBay. I'm not sure of the availability of RN-M in beauty supply stores as it came out in the summer, though they still should have it, but MM should definitely be there as it's a brand new release.

Hope you guys love this one as much as I do. It's a fab color for the holidays. I can't wait to try it layered over other colors as well. I've heard it looks great over a red creme.

Falling Leaves KOTD mattified

I'm not going to do too much gabbing here. I just wanted to do a quick post of this mani before I head out to run errands. This is the mani I posted the other day (2nd one down), topped with a coat of Orly Matte Top. I adored this shiny, but there's something so pretty about it matted. The colors in the design become much more pronounced and there's a crispness to it that you don't see when it's shiny.

Updated NOTD: Fantasy Makers Black Magic

I don't think I'm ever satisfied with a mani until I've taken it as far as I can. I always end up konadding, mattifying, and/or frenching any mani I have on. Then once that's done, I may keep in on another 24, possibly 48, hours. NP ADD, I tell you. :P

With yesterday's Black Magic/Black Cream mani I was curious to see what the glitter would look like matted. I loved it before, but let me tell you, it's amazing now.



I used one coat of Orly Matte Top and then finished it off with a french in WnW Black Cream. I really like the contrast between the satin finish of the Matte Top and the shiny black french.

Previous KOTD: CC Sakura Glow w/ ChG Emotion w/ Orly Matte Top

Goodness gracious, it's been awhile since I've updated. I try to keep it about 2 days between posts, but it's been almost a week. I apologize. My brain's been in a thousand places since last Monday, so I pretty much forgot to blog. Again, apologies all around. :)

Anyway, I'll try to do 2 posts back to back so I will be up-to-date w/ my current mani. Of course, I totally forgot to do comparison pics with Essie VLV and SD, but I will try my hardest to remember to do that, even if I have to do it quick and dirty before I take off my current nails.

Before I get to my current and previous mani, I want to mention a quick note on my nails. I picked up 500 assorted tips from a HK seller, and like an idiot, I ordered white rather than natural. I went ahead and tried them to make sure I liked them before I placed another order for the natural tips. So that's why it looks a little funny at my cuticles. I do like these tips, aside from the color (though I can see that the white would be useful for pale polishes that streak). If you are interested, search full nail fake nails 500 on eBay and you should get many pop up. You'd probably want to get natural, though. If you want the exact auction I ordered my white or natural nails from, just let me know and I'll hunt it down.

This first post of the 2 is a mani I did a couple days ago. It's CC Sakura Glow which is one of the new limited edition Japanese glitters that I've only seen at VNS. H2T may have them, too, as they sell CC, but I haven't checked. Here's a pic of the final product and then I'll ramble on for a bit more:

I like this color, it's a very pretty soft pink with holo glitter. I paired it ChG Emotion from the Romantiques warm collection for a tonal konad. I used plate m64 (I know, I use this one all the time). And then... because I'm a nail polish Border Collie, I added the matte top coat. While I liked it shiny and glittery (no pics, I always forget to get the transition pics), the look of it mattified is awesome. It captures the color in the holo, so it looks like I have a smattering of blue, green, and pink dots under my konad. Matte glitter rocks the house.

As for application, Sakura Glow took 3 coats to reach bottle color. It made a pretty, glitter wash at one coat though, so I think it would totally rock over black.

All in all, I really liked this look. It was a pale pink that didn't look assy on me, and that's a big feat. :P

KOTD: Essie Viva La Vespa w/ ChG Devotion and Harmony w/ Orly Matte Top

To acheive this, I used my Viva la Vespa mani from yesterday and applied a konad design using the butterfly and stemmed flower from plate m21. I used ChG Devotion (silver) and Harmony (purple) from the ChG Romantiques collection. I applied my regular top coat to set it, then about 10 minutes later, I applied 2 coats of Orly Matte Top. I like this a lot, but I think I prefer it shiny (sorry for not taking a pic of it while it was still shiny), or maybe not (as I'm staring at it trying to decide), this satin look is fab, too.

Previous NOTD: OPI Red Like Roses w/ ChG Poetic

This was my KOTD about 3-4 days ago, so I apologize for not showing it to you sooner. :)

Anyway, as last week was HTF week on the MUA NB, I figured I'd use one of my (few) HTFs. Red Like Roses is from OPI's 2007 Valentine's Day collection. You can find it on eBay sometimes in the $10-12 range, though there are 3-4 sellers charging $22-25 for it. However, I got mine at TD for $4.99. As I am writing this, they still have them. RLR is a pretty metallic red with a gold tinge. The closest thing I have in my collection is OPI An Affair in Red Square, but AAIRS isn't nearly as glowy as RLR, and the gold in AAIRS is much more pronounced.

I went w/ ChG Poetic for the konad design and I used plate m64. I've used this plate 2-3 times since I got it, which was just like a week and a half ago. I love it that much. I think the golden metallic Poetic plays very nice with the golden highlight in RLR. Here's a pic:

I wore this for 2 days and then I got Orly Matte Top in my my VNS order, so I figured I'd use it to freshen up my mani.

I'd been interested in trying Essie Matte About You, but I didn't want to go to eBay or pay retail at VNS, so I opted to try Orly's Matte Top instead. Have you heard anything about Matte Top? Me neither. I'd heard about Nubar's matte top coat and Essie MAY is all the rage on the NB, but it seems Matte Top had fallen through the cracks. Now, I don't have any other matte TC to compare, but I'm in love with Matte Top. While it's called Matte Top, the finish it creates is more similar to a satin finish, but I think in that regard, it's much more user friendly. I have a couple OPI mattes and I don't really like the finish on them. It's so chalky. I think when I try my mattes in the future, I'm going to add a coat of MT. I think I will much prefer the satin finish to the "totally devoid of light" finish of a true matte polish.

If you are interested in trying a matte top coat, definitely give Orly Matte Top a try. It's cheaper than Essie MAY as VNS had it for $4.50 and the satin finish it creates would be fantastic over just about any type of polish, konad, or nail art.

I got a few things in the mail yesterday...

and I thought I'd show y'all what I got, as I'm still wearing the PVO konad from the other day.



I got 3 new plates from wowsocool.com. The fruit plate, the girl plate, and the heart/bow plate (m55, m71, m59 respectively). I can't wait to try them. I'm thinking about a full nail design using Orly Enchanted Forest and ChG Awaken. We'll have to see if I'll still be the mood for that when the time comes. LOL. I'm fickle. :P

I also got 3 new mattes. OPI RN matte, OPI La Paz matte, and Zoya Posh. I know in the past I was all "buh?" with the mattes, but they are intruiging to me. La Paz and Posh look more satiny than chalkboard matte. As for RN, as much as I don't like the original (I'm beginning to think I got a bum bottle), the swatches of RN-M look amazing. I'm also curious to konad with these 3. I also have a couple of Maybelline mattes that I kind of forgot about until after I'd bought these. Also, I know my experience w/ Zoya has been iffy, but there's something about Posh that is so appealing to me. It's odd how a certain polish will remind you of the smallest thing. Posh reminds me of a trip we took when I was 10 to Biltmore in Asheville, NC. You know why? The chairs. Many of the antique chairs in Biltmore were upholstered in red velvet the exact color as Posh. It takes me back to one of the happiest memories of my childhood. Silly, huh? :)

And speaking of childhood... bonus pic. My son, Blake, was on the counter, even though he knows it's a no-no, and rather than get all mommy on him, I just started snapping pics. His twin sister was running around in the living room, so no pic of her. He was looking in the camera saying "cheee, cheee". <3