Zoya Seashells: Cece and Bay

So, remember how last January Zoya announced that they were discontinuing the Pixie Dust texture?  As it turns out, what they meant was "we will not create new Pixie Dust shades for a year and a half."  I'm pretty sure it was just a marketing gimmick to get people to buy Pixie Dusts like crazy that month.

Anyway, the bright summer shades that they released in Pixie Dust texture are really great!  I snagged two of them in minis during a recent sale (because not waiting for a sale is silly.  There's always at least one every month!). 

Cece

Cece  is a bright, grassy green.  It applies very smoothly, and it was opaque in two coats.  A third would probably deepen the sparkle, but I was happy with two coats.

I love the yellow-gold undertones in this!  It adds depth that some of the original Pixie Dusts didn't quite have.

Bay

Bay was also a smooth application, but the lighter color required three coats.  The blue sparkles remind me of clear, sparkling waters and make me want to go to the beach!

Bay also has a goldish undertone, although I don't think my camera quite caught it.  It adds to the image of the sun sparkling on clear blue water!

There are four other Pixie Dusts in this year's summer collection, plus six matching cremes that are supposedly one-coat wonders.  I did snag one of those cremes, and it will be featured on the blog soon, so we'll see if Zoya's claims of OCW are true!

What do you think of this summer's collection?  Do you own any of them yet?  Let me know in the comments!

Zoya Pixie Dust Halloween nail art

Remember a few months ago when I shared my collection of Zoya Pixie Dusts, and I said that three of the colors would be perfect for a Halloween manicure?  Well, right before I discovered the nail art challenge that I've been doing all month, I combined those three colors for a fun stripey mani.

Zoya Beatrix, Carter, and Dahlia turned out to be absolutely perfect together for Halloween!  I used a makeup sponge to put them on for a gradient look.

I realize that I could have used this for the challenge theme on the 7th, when the theme was patterns, but that felt a little like cheating since I had painted this design over a week before.  So you guys get a bonus mani this month!  October is fun. :)

What is your absolute favorite manicure design for Halloween?  Let me know in the comments!

ALL the Zoya Pixie Dusts!

**This is another incredibly old post, which I wrote mostly in January.  It's just been sitting around for ages!**

Okay, not all of them.  I can't afford that.  But, in the last few months, I've been accumulating as many of the Pixie Dusts as possible, because as you may have heard, Zoya is discontinuing Pixie Dusts.  All of them.  They're selling out the rest of their stock, but they won't be making any more once they sell out.  They'd better have some amazing plans to replace those beauties!

So, while Pixie Dusts may still be easily attainable for now, pretty soon they're going to be super rare.  Naturally, I just had to buy up all the colors I care about (and then some!) before they end up costing $50 on eBay or Amazon. 

I'll be sure to check the website and note any that are already sold out at the time of publishing (and maybe I'll even update it as the colors disappear). **Somehow, six months after Zoya announced the end of the Pixie Dust line, every single color is still available in the store.  I guess they made an insanely huge batch of each color before announcing their discontinuation.  Suddenly I feel a bit silly for buying up so many Pixie Dusts right away!**

Liberty

I've already written a full review of Liberty, which you can find here.  But I just wanted to throw a few pictures of it in here, since I have all of my Pixie Dusts in this post!

Liberty was the first Pixie Dust I ever got; it was even one of my first few Zoya polishes! 

I think this is the most insanely long my nails ever got!  I keep them much shorter now.

Godiva

Godiva is one of the colors that I bought way back when Zoya was selling 3 minis for $15 in November/December.  I wasn't super crazy about it online, but I ended up falling in love once I put it on!

A creamy, beige-y neutral color that almost leans peach, Godiva is absolutely beautiful in the Classic Pixie Dust formula.  Two coats yields full coverage, though looking at my photos there is still a tiiiiiny bit of VNL showing through.  Many people have compared Godiva to Tomoko as they're insanely similar, but I don't own Tomoko and don't plan to buy it.  From what I've seen and read online, Godiva is a warmer neutral while Tomoko is more cool-toned.

Nyx

Nyx is a soft, periwinkle-lavender with silver shimmer.  The silver actually surprised me - most of the Pixie Dusts I've seen have been more... I don't want to say flat, because the sparkles are anything but flat - but color-wise, I guess they've been more uniform.  If you look at Liberty and Godiva, there isn't a ton of color variation, just sparkle.

Nyx was mostly opaque at two coats, but I could still see a bit of the whites of my nails at certain angles.  Shown is two coats.  I did three coats on my right hand, and I was surprised by the difference in color!  At two coats, Nyx is definitely a softer periwinkle, but at three coats it leans more to a stormy lavender.

Beatrix

Beatrix is a great, bright, sunny orange with yellow-gold sparkles.  The yellow-gold definitely doesn't stand out from the orange base as much as the silver stands out in Nyx, which I like.

Two coats was, like Nyx, pretty opaque, but if I stared at my nails long enough I could kind of see the whites of my nails.  I tested out a third coat on my thumb, and it's definitely fully opaque; what's also nice is that the color didn't change very much, as it did with Nyx.

Just for fun, I threw on one coat of China Glaze's Fairy Dust over top of two coats of Beatrix, because hell, there can never be enough sparkle!  Even though you lose the texture of the Pixie Dust a little bit, the holographic sparkle from Fairy Dust makes it super awesome.  If you want your nails to be show-stoppers, I'd highly recommend Fairy Dust-ing that shit. ;)

P.S. don't mind my lack of pinkie in some of  these photos.  Two days before swatching Beatrix, my pinkie got in a nasty fight with a cheese grater and lost.  Right above my cuticle.  That nail was out-of-commission for nail polish for a while. :(

Carter

For some reason, I found myself much less able to look away from Carter than any other Pixie Dust so far.  I honestly can't really say why, except that its formula is just so flawless.  And I don't just mean that two coats was perfectly opaque, nor do I just mean that it applies super smoothly (as do all of the 'Dusts).  I think Carter is just more perfectly dense with glitter than those I've shown so far; it's also the most uniform color so far.  Liberty is also pretty uniform, but something about Carter made me really, really glad that I didn't have to drive anywhere while I was wearing it, because I probably would not have looked at the road very much.

Carter is a perfect shade of purple, too; it really doesn't lean reddish or blueish or lavenderish or any other -ish.  It's really a true, royal purple.

Dahlia

Dahlia is the last of the Classic Pixie Dusts that I own.  Like Nyx, Dahlia has a lot of very prominent silver sparkle to it.  But since the main color is black, it doesn't really stand out as that different.

Two coats was perfectly opaque, but it still looked a tad charcoal-grey to me, so I put a third coat onto my middle finger.  There is a slight difference to the color, but it was so minimal that I decided to leave the rest of my nails at two coats.

Out-of-focus because I realized when swatching this one that I didn't take any out-of-focus photos

to show off the crazy sparkle of Pixie Dusts!

Unfortunately, Dahlia fell a little bit flat on its own.  The sparkle didn't photograph that well, as you can see, because of how dark it is; but it doesn't really sparkle THAT much more in person.  While most Pixie Dusts have a stunning sparkle, Dahlia is just kind of... sparkly black.  I probably won't be wearing this one on its own very much.  But Dahlia, Carter, and Beatrix would look amazing together for a Halloween-y mani.  I know what I'll be doing to my nails in a few months!

I also own a few of the Ultra Pixie Dusts, but since this post is already getting pretty long, I'm going to go ahead and give those their own separate post.

Which of the Pixie Dusts is your favorite?  Do you prefer the Classic or the Ultra finishes?  Let me know in the comments!

Half of Zoya Wishes

What is this, a Zoya Promotion Blog?  Nope!  Zoya just happens to be one of my favorite brands and they KEEP ON HAVING SALES.  I mean, sales are a good thing, but I need to stop buying from EVERY SINGLE SALE.

The polishes from this post are actually from two different sales.  I got Prim from a Zoya sale (3 for $15), and Nori and Haven from ULTA.  Through November 29, several brands of nail polish are Buy Two Get One Free, including Zoya and China Glaze! (See page 26 of this ad.)  Online, I wasn't terribly impressed with the Wishes collection, but in person I fell in love with Haven and rather liked Nori, so I got them.  (My third was China Glaze Fairy Dust.  I bought that entirely because of The Mercurial Magpie's Fairy Dust All The Things post.)

So, without further ado, I give you...

Zoya Wishes: Prim

I'm actually a little disappointed in Prim.  EVERYWHERE I've seen it online - Zoya's official pictures and ads, and in various blogs - it looks like an icy, barely-purple blue.  It's actually an icy, barely-blue purple.  Zoya even describes it as a "velvety blue," but frankly I think they're wrong.  It's still quite nice, and it does still feel very wintery, but it's just not what I expected.

Please ignore the bright orange on the bottle.  I need to stop wearing neon clothes when I take nail pictures!

Also, ignore the nasty dents in the polish.  I should have waited longer before typing, apparently.

Other than that, I do like Prim.  It's a bit brush-strokey, but it's not as noticeable in person as it is in the photos.  The formula is very smooth and a great consistency.

Despite my disappointment in the color, I have to give Prim major credit because I got perfect, complete coverage in just one coat!  In fact, I used two coats to clean up the line around my cuticles on a few nails, and I found that I ended up with worse brush strokes on those nails.  Never in all my year of polish hobby-ing have I seen a polish that actually fares BETTER with only one coat than with two!

I tried really, really hard to get a picture without too much glare.  Prim is just so shiny and metallic, and my lamp is really bright but gets too dim if I move it too far away from my nails.  I love that metallic glare in person, but I think it's distracting in photos!

Zoya Wishes: Nori

Nori is another reason that I'm disappointed in Prim.  The purple of Haven matches Thea perfectly, and the black of Willa matches Imogen perfectly.  And then you have icy purple Prim and sapphire blue Nori.  Zoya is usually so much better at pairing colors - just look at Ignite/Entice and Tickled/Bubbly!

Anyway, Nori is the first Ultra Pixie Dust that I've tried.  The concept is similar to Liberty - a matte polish with large, super-sparkly 3D glitters.  Except that Nori doesn't dry as matte as Liberty.  I'm okay with it, as it's still incredibly sparkly and a very pretty polish, but I've seen that a lot of bloggers were really disappointed with the Ultra Pixie Dusts in this collection.  Maybe I'm less disappointed because I haven't used an Ultra Pixie Dust before.

 Out-of-focus to help show the sparkle!

As far as application goes, Nori is great, on par with all of Zoya's polishes.  Some of the larger glitters will spread across the nail, so it does require a little bit of dabbing, but it's quite easy to work with.  Two coats for full coverage.  And I really like the color - sapphire is my second favorite shade of blue!

 

Since Pixie Dusts are supposed to be matte, here's Nori with a matte top coat.  (This first two pictures had no top coat, which is how Zoya recommends you wear Pixie Dust polishes.)

Here she is with a shiny top coat.  I think I like this better, though I think it really looks best with no top coat.

Zoya Wishes: Haven

Oh man.  Haven is absolutely gorgeous.  It's definitely my favorite of these three.  Wonderfully, perfectly smooth application with no brush strokes.  The color is really accurate to what I'd seen on the internet.

And what a color!  It's such a wonderful, amazing deep purple.  So regal!  I can't wait to pair Haven with Ziv.  Zoya describes it as a "true holiday plum liquid metal with a thin vein of orchid to ensure brilliance," and I totally agree.

I quite like the Wishes collection, and I'm glad that Zoya picked something other than red, green, silver, and gold for their Holiday collection this year!  What are your favorites from this collection?  Got any great holiday mani ideas based on these colors?  Let me know in the comments!