Top 10 Zoyas

I've been meaning to do favorites by brand for a while, and here's the brand I have most of: Zoya. (I'll get others up gradually, I hope.)

I didn't get the bottles lined up fabulously straight here, but it was late and it'll have to do. They're not ranked within the top 10 or anything, but this is what I decided are my 10 favorites:

Top row: London, Daul, Cinnamon, Jem, Lotus
Bottom row: Carter, Carly, Reva, Remy, Zuza

(No cremes, you notice. Zoya does make good cremes, as well, but this is why I love them so much, for the shimmery, sparkly, and/or glass-fleck-type things.)

Added: links, above - more as I track them down.

Honorable mention for the polish that I most loved which is no longer available: Chloe. This would also be my most-worn Zoya, I'm fairly sure. (It's just your basic flakie, though, so I can't say I'm exactly pining for it. There's nothing really unique about it. On the other hand if Zoya started making it again I'd still buy it like a shot.)

I checked and all of the top 10 is still current. About half of the second 10 are discontinued, I think - Chloe, Luna. Irene, and the two Matte Velvets.

Here's a wheel with 18 of the top 20:

There were only 18 spots on this wheel and luckily there were two out of the 20 that don't show up well on the wheel, anyway - Chloe and Leia. The link to my pictures of Chloe is up above, and I had a go at taking pictures of Leia back a couple of months ago.

(Added: Numbers 1-10 on the wheel are the top 10 in the same order as the picture above, I believe. I think the other 8 are just in sort of a color wheel order - Harlow, Aster, Alice, Dream, Irene, Rikki, Luna, and Dovima.)

I may reswatch and do a post on Carly vs Jem (added: that's done, it's here), later on, because they are more similar than I realized. I started to throw one or the other out of the top 10 on that basis, but couldn't make up my mind which one, so I just said the heck with it finally and left them both. They are not next to each other - they are #4 and #7 on the wheel. They are not dupes, but they are awfully similar. See this picture of Carly where it looks less dark and more fuchsia.

Here's the back of the wheel with all the names, if you can make them out (and if you try, bear in mind that they're in reverse order from the front. Start with London, #1, and go counter-clockwise on the back):

I did take pictures individually of most of these polishes, but I'll put those up later on. I also took pictures of ALL my Zoyas - it took two pictures.

(Below the jump I'll leave my preliminary notes, if anybody's interested, and there's a bit more info about the second 10 there.)


I have 72 or 73 Zoyas, I'm not sure where that discrepancy is. I counted bottles and counted on my spreadsheet and came up with two different numbers - but at least I'm close. Most likely I miscounted somewhere. Anyway, I went down the spreadsheet list and wrote down favorites, and came up with 20, so that's my first cut. so the top 20 is below, in alpha order except with the two subtypes (mattes and Pixie Dusts) listed separately, because that's how they are in my spreadsheet.

(Actually, regarding the total number, there's only one polish on the spreadsheet that I never found to swatch, and that's Lara. I don't know if I threw it away for some reason and forgot, or it might still be floating around my house somewhere. Could be either one of those.) (I also know I threw away at least one more, Tallulah, because the neck of the bottle was broken. And I gave away Blaze - and I'm on my second bottle of Chloe. So I've probably bought something more like 75, over the years.)

top 20:
Aster, Carly, Chloe, Cinnamon, Daul, Dream, Irene, Jem, Leia, Lotus, Luna, Remy, Reva, Rikki, Zuza
Matte Velvets: Harlow, Dovima
Pixie Dusts: Alice, Carter, London

It seemed to be logical to cut the ones that are in my 2016 favorites, on the grounds that they haven't stood the test of time (plus I've done posts talking about all of those very recently). So that would eliminate Alice, Dream, Leia, and Aster. And from there I just kept cutting til I got to 10:

(Carly, Chloe, Cinnamon, Daul, Irene, Jem, Lotus, Luna, Remy, Reva, Rikki, Zuza, Harlow, Dovima, Carter, London)