New Zoya holos

Right around Christmas Zoya ran a promo for a set of holo polishes - one of them was Brighton, which isn't new, but the other two were new pinks, so I couldn't resist ordering them.

They came in one of those nice gift boxes with the magnetic closure:

(Everybody but me may be accustomed to seeing these by now. But I hardly ever order sets, and the only other one of these I remember getting was a black one from the Matte Velvets, like five years ago.)

I got this a month ago - at which time I was too obsessed with picking yearly favorites to be methodical about documenting my Zoya purchases - so I'm not sure but I have a full-size bottle of Remove which I think came with this promo. I think I paid full price for the three polishes and the Remove was free with that purchase.

Anyway, here are the three polishes:

Here's Brighton - which had been previously released with the Bridal Bliss collection last spring:

I've seen it called beige, but it seems to me to be a little grayed out - so, I dunno, maybe we call it a greige? It's so pale we may never be sure. Honestly, I'm not sure why I thought I wanted this - it's not at all my color. (Maybe I can try it with a jelly on top, or something.)

Everly is sort of an almost-red, but I don't think it quite gets there:

It's sort of a strawberry color, I guess - I can't think of a better name for it. I'm looking forward to trying this one out shortly. (I'm not making much comment on the holo part of these because it's a holo like pretty much every other Zoya holo - a lovely scattered holo. If you haven't tried them you should!)

And then Cadence is more of a medium pink:

I go back and forth about whether I think Everly or Cadence is my favorite. I think I will have to wait until I've actually worn them to form a definite opinion on that point.

Earth Day & birthday

I justified the purchase from the Earth Day sale by saying it was for my birthday (see here - I think I ordered before that entry was actually posted last weekend, though - maybe late Friday night or Saturday) and the polishes actually got here very quick, because they've been sitting here a couple of days. I said at first I wasn't going to open them til my actual birthday, which is still a few days away, but then I caved:

I had a pretty decent reason for caving, though, which was that I got in the mood to take pictures late last night. I usually only do that every couple of weeks, so I figured I might as well go ahead and do these while I was at it.

I'm real pleased with what I got, anyway:

Top row: Anaka, Mimi, Logan
Bottom row (all Pixie Dusts): Destiny, Stevie, Vespa

If Logan is supposed to be a glass-fleck I had forgotten that, but it sure looks like it might be a similar formula to Mimi (which I know is a glass-fleck, from the old Sparkle collection). I was worried it (Logan, that is) might be more on the yellow side than I like, but it's really not. I'm in love. Happy birthday to me.

Nothing but lists

It's pretty slow at work tonight, so I was looking around at Zoyas and also poking around my recent stash posts (Zoya, Sinful Colors, & Sally Hansen) and thinking about what I might destash. So here's two lists: (1) the Zoyas I might buy, and (2) things I might destash (some of which I may send to Zoya for recycling, which is the nominal point of the Earth Day promo, after all).

My birthday is coming up and I had told Rob I wanted a certain rather expensive new bag - but I can't find exactly what I want and I may just give up on that and get nail polish instead. (My old bag is still perfectly usable and I still like it, so why do I need a new one, right?) So given that, I might splurge a little more on Zoyas. (Earlier I said I wasn't buying more than six, but now I've caved a bit - EIGHT. That's still the maximum. Anything more than that is ridiculous given how many I already have.) And the other thing is I might get some stuff from Sephora, because the semi-annual VIB sale is coming up - I got a code in the mail. That part might be something other than nail polish, though.

So list #1 is possible Zoya purchases (this is two sublists, actually, Pixie Dusts and not-Pixie-Dusts):

Pixie Dusts:

• Destiny - red-orange
• Nyx - periwinkle
• Stevie - red-violet
• Vespa - pale jade

NOT Pixie Dusts:

• Anaka ("glam pink")
• Maria-Luisa - gold topper
• Mimi (glass fleck purple)
• Finley (Urban Grunge - dk purple holo)

I had a longer list but that's the short list right now. It might change - for example, there's two pretty dark purples there (Mimi and Finley, although they're nothing like dupes) and I'm worried about Nyx being awfully light in some pictures I've seen. I think that was also why I haven't bought both Nyx and Vespa previously, but I think Vespa darkens down enough that it'll be ok. Nyx may too but I'm less sure about it. This may change at any time until I actually order. (But I also think that the sooner you order on the Earth Day sale, the more likely you are not to have to wait a month to get your order, as has been known to happen sometimes!)

Later: I did actually order and I only ordered six after all. I put all eight of the polishes above in my cart, but then I took Nyx and Finley out again - I decided I thought Nyx was too pale, after I looked at a bunch of pictures. And I looked at more pictures and decided I was right that Mimi and Finley were too much the same shade of purple, even though they're different finishes. But Mimi is a glass fleck and I adore glass flecks, so it won. Finley is a holo and I like holos some days more than others; therefore, Finley got kicked while Mimi stayed. Then I put in two more polishes not on the list above (yeah, I was really waffling) - Logan (a green) and Nimue (a grayed-out purple). Then I looked at pictures some more and took Nimue out again, mostly because it showed definite brushstrokes in several pictures, and I don't need any more of that aggravation in my life - or at least, let's say, I have to really love a polish to be willing to put up with brushstrokes, and Nimue didn't pass that test! And then last of all, I took Maria-Luisa out because I just have so many gold top-coats already. This one said "cellophane" and that sounds awesome but I just couldn't quite talk myself into it. I was also waffling a bit on Destiny but I left that in. So I ended up with Destiny, Stevie, Vespa, Anaka, Mimi, and Logan. (Tangentially: I know Logan can be a girl's name too but all I can think of is Wolverine. That's throwing me off - but not enough to keep me from ordering it just the same.) Obviously when these turn up later on, you'll hear a lot more about them.

And then we come to the destash list. I have trouble detaching emotionally from quite a few of my polishes, I've talked about that before - but I'm making an effort. So I have the reasons why I'm destashing on this list to remind myself!

Sally Hansens (of various sub-brands):

• Azure (crappy formula)
• Black & Blue (because I never wear it)
• Glitz Gal (because it looks like sludge)
• Gray By Gray (because I never wear it)
• Mist You (too pale)
• Steely Gaze (dupe for several other dark grays)
• Unbreakable Heart (dupe for several other reds)
• Vanity Flare (dupe, & formula is iffy)

Sinful Colors:

• Purple Diamond (because I decided I don't like it much)

Zoyas I will probably destash (although you can't send Zoyas back to Zoya in the Earth Day promo, that's in the fine print): 

• Sooki (too orange) 
• Ali (not flattering on me)
• Charlotte (too pale)
• Karina (maybe - just because I never wear it)
• Riley (just sorta boring to me)

(The reason you can't send Zoyas to Zoya is because they don't have harmful chemicals in them to begin with, although I notice they don't extend that caveat to other 3-free brands!)

This is that Mystery Trio which includes Charlotte. Charlotte is the palest one. I think the dark one is Anais, which might also be a destash candidate. The only one I really care about keeping is the metallic one, which I think is Severine.

Next up in the stash-by-brand queue is Pretty Serious, so I'm starting to think about destashes there, too. After that is OPI (including Sephora by OPI & Nicole by OPI). (If anybody notices and is wondering, I actually wrote this before I wrote all the Pretty Serious posts that I posted in the last few days, but then I saw that PS was having their sale over the weekend and I changed the order around because of that.)

I saw this picture and I think this one is already in the destash box too - Maybelline Magenta Mirage, which as you can see is a crackle.

This particular nail crackled in an interesting way, but I could never get anything resembling consistent results over a whole manicure. (Wasn't there a question in that "unpopular opinions" tag about "trends you never got on board with"? Because maybe I should have said crackles. I wanted to like them, but somehow they never grabbed me when I actually tried them. I imagine I'm not the only one who feels that way.)

Zoya Earth Day + Nail Tees

I think most nail polish junkies know to look for Zoya's Earth Day promo around this time of year, but just in case, I thought I'd point out that this year's version is underway. Code is EARTHLUV, it goes all the way through May 10th. All the info is here, but the short version is 50% off, minimum 6, and it includes free shipping. I don't do this promo every year, but I've been looking at Pixie Dusts, as I mentioned yesterday, and I'm contemplating stocking up on some of those that I don't already have. I started a list and so far it's about half and half, Pixie Dusts and other assorted stuff. (I'm going to limit myself to six, though, if I do this. No sense in getting carried away!)

Also, I know that Nail Tees are nothing new, but I'd never had any until recently and I am in love, a bit. If you've been a regular reader here for a while, you've seen me apologize repeatedly for imperfectly-cleaned-up manicures. And if you were really paying attention, you might have noticed that those apologies have been less frequent lately, and I think these guys are the main reason why.

I've tried brushes and Q-tips and all that, and I just have trouble manipulating them. For whatever reason, I do a lot better with these. They're not perfect, but they're helpful.

(As usual, no disclosures required. Nobody's paying me for anything here.)

Challenge Red-y

This is Nicole by OPI Challenge Red-y:

This is a pretty basic neutral red creme. (If anything it leans a little to the blue side.) It's hard to read my writing on this wheel, but this is the polish that is pointing right at the join between the bottle and the cap. It seems to be just a hair darker than Chinoise, above it, and awfully similar to Big Apple Red, right below it. Now that I look at it again, it looks darker in the bottle than it does on the nail, doesn't it? But it's pretty much indistinguishable from the rest of these bright reds, really.

This was apparently only ever released as a limited edition promotional item, one of those deals where you save proofs of purchase from Special K cereal - which my husband used to love, and that's why I have this one. There were also a couple of other colors that you could get with extra proofs, but I only got enough saved to get this one. (The others were a bright blue and a bright pink. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary, either.)

Playing with polish: Rid Of Me

I am falling down on my nail of the day - I've had a mani on for several days and keep adding onto it and haven't even tweeted about it once. That's very uncharacteristic of me!

(BTW, before I forget again, everybody knows about the Zoya promo, right? 3 polishes of your choice + a "mystery" set of three minis for $15. The code and the expiration date were both on Zoya's front page.)

Returning to the NotD: I started earlier in the week with Nostalgic Rid Of Me. We're back to super-cloudy skies so I am not taking pictures, but I do see it on an existing picture of a nail wheel, so here you go:

There's a picture of the whole filled-in wheel somewhere, too, but it stands out better in this picture - it the one lone blue over on the right side. Pretty, right? It is, but the problem is that it's also very sheer. I did three coats of Rid Of Me and I did wear it to work one day but I was not happy with it. There was visible nail line in a very unattractive way. So I solved that by putting Teal of Fortune (a Wet n Wild polish which is a very similar color, but opaque) on top of that, and then putting more Rid Of Me on top of it. Next time I'll have to remember just to start with an undercoat in the first place.

Also, I tried out Snowflakes, the Color Club flakie, on my thumb, on top of the whole confection. It looks very pretty but it does not really look like what I think of as a flakie - it's not sheer enough. It looks more like a shifty silver glitter. But anyway, it's pretty, so I'll get over my conception or misconception of what a flakie is supposed to look like.


By the way, I am still working on my new stash project, it's just going to be slow. It's mostly for myself, anyway - putting it up here just prods me about it.

Sunday random

(I hit the "publish" button before I meant to - again - if you read this before, you may have only seen the first two paragraphs. I gotta quit doing that.)

Because I have been obsessing about "what color is teal?" way too much, I finally looked it up on Wikipedia and found that the RGB formula is 0,128,128. In other words, equal portions of blue and green. So yay, I have an answer, and I can quit worrying it over in my head. (Yes, I know, totally OCD.)

I said something on Twitter in the last couple of weeks about how I had bought a Colorstay polish on clearance and it looked like Revlon was closing out all the Colorstay polishes, and I was wondering what the deal was. Well, yesterday I was on some random blog that I totally don't remember, and I saw a picture of a redesigned Colorstay bottle. I wish I knew where that was - I poked around in google and didn't find it. But anyway, I imagine that's the answer - they are at least redoing the bottle; whether they've changed the formula again is unclear. It seems possible that they've tinkered around and come up with an updated formula, but I'm just guessing. It is also possible that they are just addressing the fact that the Colorstay and the Brilliant Strength bottles look way too much alike. (I'm pretty sure the picture I saw had the same bottle shape; it just had a different look to the label, with some horizontal stripes.) FOUND IT - ColorStay Gel Envy, probably with a new formula which might or might not be similar to CND Vinylux.

If you haven't seen this already - Zoya's Earth Day promo starts tomorrow. I'm mad at them for discontinuing the Fleck Effects so I may skip this year. Or I may give in and buy something else. We'll see.

One more bargain: I was poking around at Cherry Culture and they have all (apparently all, as far as I can tell) the LA Splash for half-price, $2 instead of $4. For that price I am tempted.

I'm wearing Wet n Wild "Buffy the Violet Slayer" and I tried to take a picture, but it came out looking like this color when it should be more this color - basically, it's a bog-standard glossy royal purple. "Bog-standard" does not mean it's not pretty, though. It is, very much. (The other one - Neve - is too, I'm totally coveting it, in fact. It just doesn't look like what I'm wearing.)

Before that I was wearing a manicure I saw on Pinterest - I'm pretty sure it's the first time that I've replicated a manicure exactly like one I saw somewhere, because it's pretty rare that I have the right colors to do that. But I had these - Sinful Colors Purple Diamond over Zoya Perrie. I didn't take a picture, but it looks exactly like that picture, anyway. I just bought Purple Diamond lately, and I think I googled afterwards and found this. I haven't worn Perrie much because it's a little too pale to be flattering on me, so I'm glad to have a use for it! (Purple Diamond isn't really any darker, but it doesn't bother me like Perrie alone did.)

Teal and Glee

As you can see, I just redid the blog's format. This is the header I had on my bead blog, which is long-dormant. A couple of weeks ago, I finally got around to doing what I'd been thinking about doing for a good while: I went back to the person who made it in the first place and asked her to change the title for me. (Thanks, Vanessa!) Otherwise it's identical - the header, that is, not anything else. I am going to have to tweak the layout a fair bit before I'm entirely happy with it but I'll do that later. But I am happy because I always did really love that header. It doesn't have anything to do with nail polish but it's pretty and colorful and thus apropos to the blog's name, anyway!

Back to nail polish: One of the polishes I bought in Ohio was Black Illusion, and I knew nothing whatsoever about it, so I'm pleased to see (in the link below) that it's a dead dupe for Storm, which I have had on my Zoya wishlist for ages and have never gotten around to getting.
http://demapixie.blogspot.com/2013/04/zoya-storm-la-girl-black-illusion.html
(I just did a huge Zoya order for the BOGO sale - which I think ends tomorrow btw - so I think Zoya will survive without me purchasing Storm. I will naturally be reporting back further on these purchases later on. And also on Black Illusion, when I get around to trying it!)

Pictures - not great pictures because they were taken on the dash of the car, but then that's nothing new for me!

Tenacious Teal:

And, Tenacious Teal with a coat of Glee (Jesse's Girl) on top of it:

You can tell it looks different here, but in actuality it looks considerably more different than you can tell from the picture. Glee is a microglitter, and somehow the finish just didn't show up well in the picture. It's quite shiny and pretty. I like this combination a lot.

Nicole by Special K

I'm still wearing Gimme a Grape Big Kiss (see last entry) which I love but which is getting distinctly ragged in a couple of spots. So something else will doubtless be coming tonight or tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd mention the Special K promotion in case people haven't seen it - my husband has been on a kick of eating Special K for breakfast or I wouldn't have. Going by the link there, though, it appears to be available through other products besides cereal. It takes 3 product codes to get 1 Nicole by OPI polish (in red) or 8 codes will get you a set of 3 (the red, a pink, and a blue). Apparently it MUST be a box with the promo offer on it - just any Special K code won't do. I decided to go for the single polish since I had 3 boxes (rather than wait to see whether Rob collected any more), so we'll see what I get - I'll report back on that when I do.

Kale, and Earth Day

I imagine that most of the people who read here are nail junkies and know this already, but just in case somebody doesn't already know: Zoya's having their Earth Day promo again, good through next Friday, in which you can buy 6-24 bottles of Zoya at half price, and recycle your old non-3-free bottles (if you wish - it's optional). The details are in that link but the code is ZOYAEARTH2013. And, unfortunately, Pixie Dust is not eligible.

(I'm trying to talk myself out of buying anything. As all these stash pictures have made clear, I have a LOT of Zoya already.)

OK, so, the sun has finally been out the last few days (and it's cool - beautiful weather) and I took pictures of Kale in the sun on the way in. This is the one that shows the holo effect off best: