Today I have part two of the Ignite collection by Zoya today.  Yesterday I showed you Autumn, India and Teigan and today we'll do Yuna, Remy and Sansa! We're going to start with Yuna, shown above in a standard, natural light.  One thing I found more prevalent with these three than the others, and especially with Yuna is that they have a color shift. I wore Yuna around for a few days to check wear time (excellent) and removal (not too bad and no staining!) and depending on where she was she looked deep green, blue or greyish.  Zoya describes her as a warm grey with copper and gold liquid metal. Just to prove my point in the below picture the lighting is exactly the same I've just shifted my angle slightly.

Where above she looks more of a light greyish blue now it's closer to a dark grey and the shimmer is a lot more noticeable. In indoor light (which I neglected to take a picture of! Sorry!!) she looks really deep and takes on a slight greenish tint.  While I may not know what color to call her I do know that she's totally gorgeous. One of my favorites in the collection for sure. 

Here she is with a matte top coat.  I'm a sucker for suede's and this collection is perfection if you like dual finishes.  All of these work wonderfully as suede's AND a lot of them have a little color shift so they really have dimension and depth.  I think Yuna looks much more blue grey when matted! It really reminds me of stone.  Next we'll look at Sansa...

Here she is in standard, natural light. Zoya calls Sansa a deep eggplant with a gold metallic sparkle and its a very fitting description.  I'm not big into purple tones but this one is really deep and warm which is nice because it didn't make me look pale or goth or anything like that. It was quite flattering.  You can't super tell that the shimmer here is gold but when you take it out in the sunshine...

...it REALLY lights up.  I wish I could capture the real effect of these because they're honestly one of the most shimmery, glossy, sparkly collections I have.  I like that they used gold and copper shimmer in these because they really do remind you of fire and your nails look so alive!  It's a noticeable effect!  You can also see a bit more here the depth and the jelly-ish effect.  They are all totally opaque though.

Last up let's look at Sansa matted.  I really love how perfectly these all take to a matte finish.  GREAT for anyone who loves a suede finish.

Finally we have Remy.  I thought Remy would be my favorite, and she is a beautiful color but there were a few I liked more!! Zoya describes her as a brilliant indigo with copper and gold liquid metallic.  I can agree with this but again I felt there was a little shift to green in there.  It may be just the way the gold glints off the blue but it's definitely there.

You can see it a little better here, especially if you look at the bottle.  This one reminds me a bit of Zoya Charla although it's much  more sparkly.  I think these are meant to be metallic's but unless you're dead in the sun (like above) they really don't read as metallic.  They also don't have that streaky effect metallic's can have.

Here is Remy with the matte top coat.  So pretty!  Which of these is your favorite? Do you prefer them matte or shiny? 

If you loved these as much as I did you can pick up the collection at Zoya.com!

**These polishes were provided to me for my honest review. I have not been compensated for my opinion**

Today I have some swatches of Zoya's new Naturel Deuz collection.  It's a collection of six polishes; three are a neutral brown tone and three are a neutral rose tone.  I LOVE neutral polishes so I was really excited to get these.  They don't disappoint!  While all the colors didn't really work on my skin tone as well as I'd hoped I think all in all it's a great collection. These are all two coats and while they do dry shiny and smooth, I have used my Deborah Lippmann Addicted to Speed topcoat for these swatches. I honestly think that for most of them you could actually get away with one medium thick coat BUT I used two thin instead.  So the first round today will be the brown tones.  I recall when looking at them they're sort of toned as caramel, coffee, and milk chocolate. The above is Spencer and it's a creamy caramel or cappuccino tone.

It's light but warm and really flattering.  It's really great for a muted manicure (like an office type setting!) and I can see it being a really nice color for fall.  The other nice thing about these shades is that you could easily pair it up with other colors from your collection.  Next we'll move on to what I think is a milk chocolate shade and what Zoya calls toasted almond; Chanelle.  Here's a comparison for you of Spencer and Chenelle:

You can see that it's noticeable darker than Spencer, but still has that nice warm tone to it.  Again this is two coats but I really think, especially with Chanelle and Emilia that one coat could be plenty.

Still super shiny and smooth and incredibly easy to apply.  These seemed a little thinner than my other polishes but they applied like a dream. I think this was my least favorite of the browns just because it didn't seem to flatter my skin as much but it's a nice color for fall if you have the right skin tone!

Here's a comparison of Chanelle and Emilia.  Emilia turned out to be my favorite of the brown tones! It's a deep chocolate brown which reminded me of a nice dark coffee!!  I used one coat of Emilia for this particular shot because I wanted to demonstrate the incredible opacity of these.  You can see a LITTLE baldness on my middle finger at the base but over all it's pretty nice coverage for a cream.  

Here she is with two coats.  Such a gorgeous color! I like that it's deep but still quite warm.  Again no issues with application. These all went on super smoothly and dried to a nice shiny finish (they are top coated in these swatches!).  I think Emilia was my favorite this round! What about you? Which shades will you be picking up?

***These colors were provided to me for my honest review. I have not been compensated for my opinion.***

It's time for the letter "Q" in the ABC challenge! I can't believe how fast these seem to be going by!  This one was an easy choice for me because it's the only polish I own with the letter "Q" at the front! How does that happen? lol...it's a gorgeous color anyway. A rich wine shade that leans a little pinkish in certain lights. In my entire collection I don't own a single other polish of this color.  This is two coats and like most of my butter London's, it's flawless even without any topcoat. I don't get into pinks and reds much but this one is a keeper for sure!  

Do you have Queen Vic? Do you have any polishes that start with the letter "Q"?

Don't forget to check out Emma and Kerrie's blogs today for more Q polish!

Today I have a quick post for you!  After I bought the first four colors from the Zoya Pixie Dust collection, I started to see them layering up the colors and I decided to go ahead with the other two!  This is the first layering combo I tried and it's one coat of Zoya  Dahlia and two thickish coats of Zoya Nyx.  It makes a gorgeous navy shade!  I really can't wait to play around with layering these up more and I have a really cool layering post coming up for you that will show you how to make the  most of these polishes!!  Have you tried layering the Pixies?

So you've seen all the OPI Liquid Sand polishes now and you all know that my favorite is the purple one! Well if you loved Can't Let Go too, then today could be your lucky day.  I'm going to give you all a chance to win a bottle for yourself!  I'd love to have given away the set but rising shipping costs have limited me and I want to keep this available for my international followers too!  Find details about entering below! This is a BRAND NEW full size bottle.  The winner we be drawn on the 24th of February and I will contact them via email.  You will have 48 hours to claim the prize or I will draw again. International entries are welcome. Thanks for following and good luck!!

Swatch post!! I've been waiting and waiting for my Sephora to get this color back in stock and they FINALLY did the other day.  It just so happens that I also had a gift card so I HAD to snag this!  Of the Nails Inc Sprinkles polishes, this one is the only that initially caught my eye.  It's got white, blue and pink glitters in a sort of milky base.  One thing I really love about these polishes is the ease with which they apply.  You don't have to dab them on or maneuver glitter around or worry about them getting super duper thick.  You can apply them like normal polish and three coats later...this perfection.  I've been wearing it for about five days now and it still looks like a dream. It looks great matted as well but I knew I wouldn't have time to change my nails for awhile and matte polishes are notorious for short wear time so I skipped it this round!  Do you have any of these Sprinkles? Which is your favorite?

This is an indie post!! Today I'm showing you a polish from an Etsy seller called LynB Designs.  The color?  Zero.  Zero is described as a "...sheer white base, with a small amount of red fine glitter. Loaded with medium black hexes, red hearts, white stars, and white hearts." 

 Two things I will say about the description given.  One:  I didn't find the base to be very sheer.  This swatch is over two coats of Zoya Purity so don't judge it on that!! But in the pics below you'll notice that it's more of a milky base than a sheer one.  Two: perhaps it's just that I'm used to crammed bottles of glitter (like with the Shimmer polishes I received recently) but it didn't seem very loaded to me.  Now...those things aside, the polish is a unique color.  I actually thought it was reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland with the colors and the hearts.  I'm reminded of cards and poker!! 

This is one coat of Zero.  You can really see the red glitter in this and there are a few bar glitters on there but so far as being "loaded" I'm just not seeing it.  I did NOT do any maneuvering on these coats.  Whatever came out of the bottle is on my nails. You can also see that the base is already fairly visible even though it's just one thin coat.

This is two coats.  So now you can see that there are some more bars, a few more large glitters and the base is REALLY starting to get opaque.  There is still visible nail line and honestly, I wouldn't say this is a creme. It's reminiscent of Essie Marshmallow.  A white or off white jelly. If you look at the original glitters which were on the nail you can see how the second coat has sort of muted them a bit.

Here we have three coats.  And again you can see that mostly it added some bars and red glitter.  The pictures on the Etsy store list that they are three coats but if that's true then the formula on mine is way different than what is swatched because the base on this is very obvious after it builds up.  I wasn't super in love with it after I got three coats on.  At this point, most of the large glitters are on one nail, and the white ones aren't super visible due to the opacity of the base.  It did dry to a pretty shiny finish but I always add Seche anyway because I'm impatient!  For the original picture you saw at the top I used two coats of Zoya Purity and then two coats of Zero using the "dab" technique to fish glitters out of the bottle and place them on my nail.  That's not uncommon with polishes with large glitters, even mainstream brands like OPI require this technique with some of their polishes.  After I'd done that I really LOVED the look.  I got a lot of compliments on it and like I said, it really has a very Alice in Wonderland look to it at the finish.  As a stand alone polish though, I don't think I'd wear it.  In the swatches on the Etsy store, she swatched it over other colors. I tried this but the base on mine just made it look a hot mess.  It MIGHT work over other very light colors but it will certainly mute the base.  

 Which way do you prefer this polish?

You can purchase Zero and other LynB polishes by visiting her Etsy store.

This polish was sent to me for my honest review. I have not been compensated for my opinions.

Is there anything better than nail mail?  I would normally disclose this subtly at the end of my post BUT I want to draw your attention to a wonderful website and seller.  The website is called Overall Beauty and they sell all kinds of great polishes, like the Ozotic I'm going to show you today.  I was given this polish to give an honest review on and when I opened the package I expected the one polish and perhaps a business card.  I found an extra polish, a few nail wheels, a business card AND a handwritten personal card. I literally was blown away.  It's such a sweet surprise.  And now onto the gloriousness of this Ozotic.

I flaked on a bottle shot. I suck, I know. I meant to go back and take one but I already have a TON of pics of this bad boy so here is a lovely stock photo.  This is Ozotic 901, Sugar.  These new Ozotics....well really MOST Ozotics in my opinion, are NOT meant to be worn on their own.  They have a really amazing ability to change before your eyes over other colors.  However, just to be thorough I went ahead and put two coats on my nail so you can see the pretty crystals.

As you can see it gives your nails a nice pink, shimmery effect but it's nothing exciting.  If you click the picture to blow it up you'll really be able to see the glass flecks in this and even though it's pretty tame looking right now it's absolutely STUNNING the way these shimmer.  The color feels very princess like when it's on it's own.  Now let me take you over to the dark side...muahahahaha....

Quite the transformation, no?  It's still has a pink effect although I think it leans almost purple over black.  This is ONE coat over Zoya Raven.  Because there are SO many gorgeous angles to this polish I have a few more pics for you to drool over...

and some close-ups...

There is a pretty strong duochrome effect on this polish. It leans mostly gold but you can catch flecks of blue through it as well.  Now for some extra fun because black is definitely not your only color option for these polishes!!

Here we have one coat of Sugar over Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream, Models Own Moody Grey, and Zoya Purity.  It's still giving off the pink/gold duochrome effect on the grey although it's less obvious than on the black.  The pink is nice but it looks more like a pink and purple shimmer which is a bit sickly girly to me!  And then we have the white.  It sort of looks pearly over the white.  It has a shimmery effect but just a hint of pink.  Here are some closer looks at these colors:

It's time for another theme week!! And I'm really excited for this one because I finally get to talk about my new group!  Recently, Debbie from The Crumpet invited me to join a challenge group with her and eleven other wonderful ladies. The premise of the group, aptly named The Digit-al Dozen, is one week of theme nail art every month. I gave you a little preview last month with the Week of Red art, and now this week the official launch is BLUE!  So for the next five days, you'll be seeing a lot of blue on my blog!  Even though it isn't part of the challenge, I'm going to TRY again this week to only add to the artwork I do each day.  So on day five, my base coat of Deborah Lippmann Let's Hear it for the Boy, will still be intact! Just covered with art. :)  It was a bit of a challenge last time, and the art I ended up with wasn't my favorite but I think it's fun to see where things go!  It's sort of a mood change mani, since it changes everyday depending on how I feel!  I was going to plan something out this time to avoid what happened last time BUT I didn't. I know. Bad me. So let's just see where things go, shall we?  

Don't forget to check on the other twelve ladies in the Digit-al Dozen!!

This past weekend my husband caught me off guard with a trip to the city for the weekend.  Granted, we basically live inside a different city so it wasn't much of a getaway, but sometimes it's nice to just not be at home for awhile.  The original plan was to see a concert in Chicago, but since that didn't work out, we went to a baseball game instead.  It was a fun and much needed date weekend for us!! While we were there we decided to scope out the local Sephora to see what they had.  My husband actually had to ask the sales clerk about these Nails Inc Sprinkles polishes.  It turns out that while they carry about six four in total, the only one they had of interest to me was this gem: Pudding Lane.  It's a blue jellyish base with blue and yellow glitter in it.  I was both impressed and also disappointed by this polish.  I'm impressed because I thought it would take more coats to be opaque (this is an easy two).  I'm disappointed that there is so MUCH glitter.  I guess I wanted a more sparse look so it would be more like a jelly sandwich and less like a whole load of glitter fell on my nails.  It actually reminds me a lot of an indie polish called Floam which I have also recently acquired (and will likely swatch soon).  Of course, Floam has smaller glitter and a clear base.  But the overwhelming glitter effect is the same.  I did like this look but on the downside, it required several coats of Seche Vite to be smooth and ultimately it peeled off within a day. :(  Lame.  I also hate it when glitters are so heavily laden that the glitters stick off the nail and make the edges jagged.  Although a bit more maneuvering on my part would have solved that problem!  Do you have any of these polishes?  Did you love them? 

Today I have something SUPER exciting to share with you all!! Lime Crime's new polish collection, Les Desserts d'Antoinette. There are a few reasons I'm excited to share these with you, and only one of them is that I'm totally obsessed with Marie Antoinette!  If you're not familiar with Lime Crime, they are a cruelty free, vegan (they do have one product which contains beeswax) company which was born in 2008.  Until recently, the majority of their product line was eye shadows and lipsticks but they recently added nail polish and are currently adding a line of face products.  I do have a few Lime Crime eye shadows and they're lovely so I was interested to see how the polishes would be. So how were they?  Well here we go....

I'm starting with the brushes on these because I was surprised at the brush in the bottle!  Here I'm comparing Lime Crime's brush with a China Glaze and an OPI brush.  Since it comes in a shorter bottle I expected a thinner brush a la China Glaze but if you look at the picture you'll see that it's much closer to the wide brushes of OPI.  It's not quite as wide as the OPI but it's wide enough to cover the nail easily yet not so wide that it's not feasible for use on toes!  The cap and brush are shorter than a lot of commercial brushes; I'd liken them more to a butterLONDON brush where length is concerned.  There are seven polishes in the Lime Crime line, and here they are...

This is Milky Ways.  It's an off white polish intended for use with French manicures, but I'm in love with it on my nails.  It's almost got a hint of peach to it and it's a perfect soft white polish.  I could see myself wearing it just as is rather than as a French manicure.  The formula on this one was amazing.  With whites and cremes I usually find streakiness, unevenness, and thin formula.  This was none of the above.  This is two coats and there isn't a streak in sight!  It also dried to a shiny finish (there is no topcoat on these!) which is another big bonus for me!  I think this turned out to be my favorite of the bunch!

Next up we have Crema de Limon.  This is described as a pastel yellow but I think it leans a little more on the bright side than pastel.  I have a few pastel yellows and this is much more pigmented than any of those but it's not bright enough to be neon or unflattering. Like with Milky Ways there were no streaks, no unevenness and it dried to a shiny, glassy finish.  I don't know that I would have chosen this color for myself if I were buying these but it was actually very flattering on me which is surprising since yellows normally hate my skin tone! 

Then we have Peaches ♥ Cream.  This was my least favorite of the bunch.  It again is not really pastel but also not neon.  It's like pastel on a night out! Very pigmented and very vivid.  I didn't love it on my skin tone but even though it has peach in the name, they do describe it as an orange on the website which is much more color accurate.  I had some issues with formula on this one.  Even though all the polishes have the same viscosity, this one seemed to want to drag and streak a bit.  This is three coats and it evened out nicely but it was the only one of the bunch I needed three for.  It did dry shiny and glassy like the others, but it wasn't my favorite to work with. 

Here we have Parfait Day.  I'm just going to throw it out there...for a pastel collection, these are very intensely colored.  This one was no different than the others.  It's not as soft as you'd expect a pastel to be but I really loved this one.  I'm not a pink person by any means but this has the right amount of softness and femininity and just a punch of fierce.  No complaints on the formula on this one either.  Two coats, no streaks, shiny finish. 

This is Lavendairy.  This one surprised me a bit.  It really reminds me of Barry M Berry Ice Cream.  It's purple...but wait...it's also pink?  It's a very warm, pink toned purple and again it was very intensely colored.  These are not your grandmothers pastels.  The formula on this one was great but it didn't dry as shiny as the others.  I'm not sure if that's something to do with the pigments but it had a more semi-matte, neon type of finish.  Nothing a bit of top coat wouldn't take care of though.  This is another favorite for me.  It was super flattering and I like that it's not a straight up purple. 

Here's Once in A Blue Mousse.  This was another pleasant surprise for me.  It's blue and it's sort of pastel, but it has just a hint of soft green in it.  It really gives the color dimension and it was SUCH a pretty color.  Other than Milky Ways this is a favorite for me.  It was so gorgeous I hesitated to remove it to finish my swatching!!  I had a hard time capturing the color on this so it's more intense than what you see in the picture but the basic color is accurate.  It's not pastel but it's soft and rich.  No formula issues on this one.  This is two coats and it dried to a shiny finish.

Finally we have Pastelchio.  This one is a stunner.  It's literally almost a neon but it just hinges on that line of crossing over!  It's bright, intense and in your face.  I was surprised at how intense it really was when it was on my nails!  It did dry to a semi-matte type finish same as Lavendairy but again a little top coat solves the problem nicely.  The formula was lovely on this one, two coats no streaks, but beware of using a base coat on this one!! I didn't and I should have (duh) so I did get a bit of staining from it but nothing serious.  Actually I'm surprised it didn't stain worse with no base coat but I also didn't wear it for an extended period of time!

Overall, I'm really impressed with these.  I think the formula is on par with high end brands and the retail on these is $5.99 each which puts them at practically a drug store price point.  They're not thin but they're not super thick either and for the most part they only need two coats. The wear time on them is good, although I've only had them a day so I can't speak too much on how they wear.  So far so good and I have no chips or issues yet.  I love that they're unique colors, I haven't seen anything like them before and with over 900 polishes in my arsenal that's really saying something! I also love that they're vegan and three free! I'd love to get more of these in the future! Thanks for following along with me! I hope you enjoyed this collection!

Do you have any Lime Crime polishes? How do you like them?

I'm so excited about this post! I got my VERY first Koh! polish this week from a super awesome nail buddy and it. is. gorgeous.  This is Koh! Blue Universe.  It's a murky navy blue polish with micro silver glitter and rainbow flakies scattered throughout.  It's so much prettier on my nails than I ever expected it to be.  The formula on it was a little on the thin side but this is two coats and there is no VNL so I can't complain about it too much!  This pic is in natural light and you can already see the goodness of it.  I wanted to take a full sun picture because it's just AMAZING in the sunlight but unfortunately the sun isn't cooperating with me at the moment so this is all I have. :(  I really love this color though and I'll certainly invest in more Koh! polishes at some point in the future.  They're a bit pricey but this one at least, was worth every single penny! 

Thanks for following! Do you have any Koh! polishes?