Reverie Nail Lacuqer Hot Chocolate + nail art

This polish has been sitting around in my stash for far too long without being shown off!  I won it in an Instagram giveaway from Reverie Nail Lacquer quite some time ago.  I think it's from the winter/holiday 2014 collection.  I actually did swatch it back then, but I never wrote up a blog post about it and forgot how many coats I used and everything, so it never got published.

Anyway, I decided to don this beauty again this week because it's the first week of autumn!  Huzzah!

Hot Chocolate is a truly gorgeous chocolate brown holo.  It's a bit sheer, so I have one coat of Hot Chocolate over one coat of Zoya Nyssa (which is a beautiful chocolate-milk brown creme).  Talk about chocolatey goodness!

This polish definitely makes me crave a steaming mug of hot cocoa.  You haven't lived until you've tried my Mom's instant hot cocoa mix!  Although hers is a lighter shade of brown than this polish. ;)

This first week of autumn has been infuriatingly cloudy and rainy, so I didn't get any sunlight pictures; but here's a direct light shot for you!  I absolutely adore the holo flashes in this.

I won this set of vinyls from mrspoole1128 on Instagram - aren't they great?  The red polish is Zoya India.  She's not holographic, but she's absolutely stunning!

This is the first of many autumn manicures that will be headed your way this year - but I do still have a couple of leftover neon manis to show you as well!  Since it's September 30, though, I'm thinking that the next month's worth of posts will be all Halloween-themed.  So stay tuned, because I have some great ones planned!

Do I Need Them All? Zoya Ryan vs Essie Style Cartel

Welcome to this month's edition of Do I Need Them All!  Today we'll be looking at two lovely navy blue cremes: Zoya Ryan and Essie Style Cartel.  They're both from each company's Fall 2014 collections, but navy is always a good color for this time of year!  I actually bought Ryan shortly before breaking a no-buy policy to snatch up Style Cartel, and then I facepalmed at myself when I held them up next to each other.  Let's see how they actually compare!

Style Cartel is a little bit lighter and more blue-toned than Ryan.  Ryan is such a deep shade of navy that it almost looks black in lots of lighting.

Don't mind the airbubbles on my ring finger!  Or the bright blue glare, which is from my lamp and its blue shade.

Overall, I like Ryan more than Style Cartel.  Ryan's formula is dense and highly pigmented.  It can almost be a one-coater, as long as you have a steady hand.  I did use two coats in these photos, mainly to help neaten the line around my cuticles.  Style Cartel, however, is much thinner, almost the the point that it's watery.  I left it at two coats on my middle finger, and did three coats on my pinkie.  You can see that the third coat deepened the shade just a little bit, but it still looks lighter and bluer than Ryan.

So, Do I Need Them All?  Ehhhh, I would say no.  They are slightly different, so I wouldn't call them dupes, but they're so close that I don't think owning both is a must.  My personal recommendation is Ryan, simply because the formula is so much smoother and more opaque, but Style Cartel is also a  good navy blue polish.

Two more from Zoya Ignite and Entice

If you've been following me for a while now, you'll probably know how much I love Zoya nail polish.  I've already swatched and reviewed several of their polishes, including Remy and Ryan from the Ignite and Entice collections.

Well, Zoya recently had an amazing sale for their customers who connected their Facebook and Zoya.com accounts - one free polish and 50% off of an order.  I was tempted to buy bunches and bunches of polishes, but I settled for just 3 - so I basically got 3 for 1, which is awesome!

(Currently, through Wednesday November 12, all polishes from the Ignite and Entice collection are BOGO using code BFF - and ejoy free shipping on orders of $15 or more!)

So, anyway, the three colors that I chose are India, Nyssa, and Ziv.  I'll be putting Ziv up in a separate post some other time, as it's not from Ignite or Entice; but it's a beautiful metallic gold.

Zoya Entice: Nyssa

I've actually been searching for the perfect chocolatey brown creme polish for quite some time.  In my quest, I picked up China Glaze "Ingrid" - which wasn't quite right because it has a slight sparkle to it, but is still pretty all the same; OPI "How Great Is Your Dane?", which is great but a bit dark and, I dunno, not quite chocolatey enough.

And then, Zoya released their fall collection, and I saw Nyssa at ULTA, and I knew that she was the one.  But because of my nail polish buying embargo, I had to wait.  The one exception to my embargo is if Zoya has a really great sale, and the members discount came at exactly the right time!

Nyssa is a gorgeous hot cocoa brown.  It seriously looks like you're painting your nails with chocolate milk while it's applying!

The formula is a tad bit thin.  It's not insufferably watery - I don't think any of Zoya's polishes are like that.  You just have to be extra careful to wipe the excess off of your brush, because if there's too much extra polish it'll flood your cuticles and make a mess.  Any imperfections in the first coat are perfectly evened out in the second coat.

 

I'm not sure if you can tell, but I dinged up my ring finger before taking photos.  I fixed that by dabbing some acetone over the smudge using my finger (NOT a cotton swab or ball!), and then added a third coat of polish.

I am so, SO happy with this color!  My quest for the perfect brown is over - now to find the perfect autumn-y orange...

Zoya Ignite: India

The metallic paired with Nyssa is actually Autumn, but India stuck out to me more.  And oh. my. gosh.  India. is. gorgeous.

 

India is a ruby-red metallic, paired with Claire in the Entice collection.  In the bottle, it's very red-gold, but just like Remy, all that gold seems to vanish when I put it on my nails.  Is it magic?!  I don't know, but it's pretty freaking gorgeous.  I honestly don't know how else to describe this beauty.

Application is incredibly smooth and even.  You can pretty much get full coverage in one coat, but I used two in order to even out the shape around my cuticles.

When I looked at India out in the sunlight, I almost fell over.  It was SO. SPARKLY.  It also looked almost purple!  I didn't have my good camera with me, but I snapped a few pics on my phone.

I also took a video, because I just discovered that that's a thing people do: take videos of super sparkly nail polish/glitter to show off how sparkly it is.

So, what's your favorite polish from Ignite & Entice?  Which ones do you have, and which ones do you covet?  Do any of them leave you unimpressed or even bored?  Let me know in the comments!

PS in case anyone is interested - after taking these photos, I think I finally discovered a way to stop my skin from getting completely washed out when I swatch a darker polish color.  I don't know about you, but that's been totally bugging my since my very first blog post!  Hopefully my next dark nails will photograph better.

Two Colors from Zoya's Fall Collection Plus Random Nail Art!

Recently I hit a small milestone in my weight loss journey - I dropped five pounds in one month!  I figured I deserved a reward for that (and subsequently decided to treat myself for every 10 lbs dropped), so I went on a mini shopping spree at ULTA for some nail polish.  Hey, it's better than rewarding myself with cake or pizza, right?  Hells yes, because nail polish won't make me gain weight!

I wound up finding Zoya's 2014 fall collections at ULTA, so I got the two colors that I'd been planning on buying - Remy and Ryan!  (I also got a couple of clearance polishes because yay sales!)

Zoya Entice: "Ryan"

 

Ryan is a GORGEOUS creme polish.  Completely flawless coverage in just ONE coat!  Well, almost completely.  I did two coats to even out the lines around my cuticles and because I sort of missed a spot on the side of one nail.  But a more steady hand could definitely make this polish a fabled One-Coat Wonder!

Ryan is so dark that she almost looks black on the camera screen (though once I got it on to the computer, I see that it doesn't look so black), so I took it outside for a few shots.  Luckily the Universe played nice and it was sunny out for me!

Zoya Ignite: "Remy"

Uuuunnnnnnghhhhh Remy is so, so, SO unbelievably beautiful!  In the bottle, she has a lot of gold in her.  In fact, I added her to my list of blue-green-gold-turquoise polishes in my post on Muse.  But once you get Remy on your nails, all that gold vanishes and you're left with a ridiculously deep, dark blue sparkle with just a hint of green.  It looks like the freakin' night sky.

Application is lovely, as always with Zoya!  I really don't think Zoya has a polish that applies badly.  The shimmers are too small to cling to the brush, and the formula spreads evenly, correcting any mistakes immediately!  Two coats, but again, one coat is almost perfect!

Outside, Remy is nothing short of dazzling.  I mean, look closely at my middle and ring fingers.  Look at those sparkles!  Did I paint tiny stars on my nails?  Nope, the polish is just. that. sparkly.

Bonus: Experimental Nail Art!

Partly because I wanted to test out some new designs, and partly because I wanted some interesting nails for Zoya's Twitter event tonight, I decided to throw some nail art on top of those gorgeous blues.  I didn't really stick with a theme here; I just had fun and got creative!

does my skin look weird here? that would be because I tried to tone down the washing out of my skin
 by putting on some makeup that's too dark for me.  it didn't help all that much.  oh well.

Left pointer: a pair of daisies.  I used a dotting tool dipped in China Glaze "Happy Go Lucky" for the centers, and a striping brush dipped in China Glaze "White on White" for the petals.

Left middle: Galaxy!  For this one and the other two galaxy nails, I followed some of the designs in YouTuber SaraBeautyCorner's galaxy nail video.  I used the same white and yellow as before, with a tiny bit of Zoya "Frida" and "Robyn," then topped it with the flakes from Revlon Moon Candy "Galactic," and a final coat of Zoya "Sparkle Gloss."  Also, this was my first try at galaxy nails.  I'm quite happy with how they turned out!

Left ring: a chevron design, with Remy on top of Ryan.

Left pinky: a French tip using Zoya "Harper."  (That's another one from the summer 2014 Bubbly collection.  Zoya recently had a BOGO sale on all of their summer colors, so I got Harper and her creme counterpart, "Wendy."  I'll probably swatch them soon!)

 Left thumb: a stripe of Zoya "Muse" on top of Ryan.  I used two pieces of Scotch tape for this design - super easy and I think it looks surprisingly elegant!

Right pointer: a different style of chevron, again using only Ryan and Remy.

Right middle: another galaxy.  This one has Robyn, Ryan, and Zoya "Malia" on top of Remy, as well as a few dots of the same yellow and white as before.

Right ring: yet another galaxy.  I actually only meant to do one galaxy on this hand, but long story short, I messed up.  This one has Ryan, Robyn, and Harper on top of Remy, with a coat of Sparkle Gloss; then I used Scotch and striping tape to cover up the design with more Ryan.  I'm not quite so crazy about the way I covered it up, but oh well.

Right pinky: another diagonal stripe.  I used Zoya "Wendy" for the stripe.  I kind of wish I'd used Robyn or Ryan instead, but I still like it!

Right thumb: another French tip, this time Ryan on top of Remy.

I had more fun with this than I would have if I'd done the same pattern on every nail.  It's a lot of fun to mix and match patterns and designs; I encourage you to try it out if you haven't before!  What's your favorite design?  What else would you have done using Remy and Ryan?  Let me know in the comments!

P.S.  Please excuse all the color in my cuticles in these photos.  I got a liiiittle bit too excited to take pictures to bother getting them super clean.