Zoya Flash and Sparkle Collections Summer 2010

Well well well what have we here!? Another double collection from Zoya, which to me seems like bright cremes for summer days and shimmery jellies for summer nights. Hot, just like the season! I like that they went with deeper colors for the season, not light shades or pastels. By making the Flash brights, they keep the summer feeling for the cremes, and by making the Sparkle shimmery they catch a "night out on the town" summery feeling. Hot days, hot nights, hot nails.

Let's start with the cremes - the Flash collection. These remind me of the OPIs of last year which were inspired by those dumb tight pants which make everyone look fat except supermodels and wimpy boys. The Zoya creme formula is nice, maybe a touch thick, thin it with Zoya Renew or another thinner like my favorite, Poshe Polish Reviver, which is like 2 bucks or something for a pretty big bottle.

The sky blue, Zoya Robyn, is very close to OPI No Room for the Blues and Creative Hot Pop Blue (which was my better/cheaper alternative to OPI No Room for the Blues), but it is actually a shade darker.


Zoya Jancyn is a smooth citrus orange, I like it even though I don't, as a rule, like orange. I know OPI had In My Back Pocket - very similar though I believe that was a shade darker than Jancyn.


Zoya Perrie is a medium purple with some red in it, so it isn't much like Zoya Malia or OPI A Grape Fit. It's like a lighter Creative Studio 54 or MAC For Fun.


Zoya Jolene is a pretty standard candy pink. Very very close to China Glaze summer offering, Sugar High, which is much cheaper. It's a lot like Black Phoenix Croquet also, but hotter pink.


Zoya Maura is your standard hot red. I actually kinda like it, even though it's not my style, and is that kind of red I always shreik at when I see it on people's lips. It's a tad bluer than Zoya America, but not so different I see the point, really.


Zoya Dana: fuchsia pink. What's more to say? Cute. It's the same fuchsia pink we see everywhere but it's mercifully free of the omnipresent blurple shimmer, which makes this a kind of relief.


Onto Sparkle Collection - the SHIMMERS!!! The size and style of shimmer reminds me very much of OPI's Winter 2009 Collection I loved so much. These are nice, easily applied shimmery jellies (except for Zoya Nidhi, which is a creme). DELUMPCIOUS!!! They loosely follow the color array of the Flash Collection, with a couple replacements, but in a darker shade. Love!

Zoya Gilda is probably Dana's match, and even though it adds that tired blurple back to the fuchsia, it manages, with the jelly and the shimmer grain size, to be fresh and yummy. I guess it could be Jolene's match if Zoya Alegra is Dana's match, but Gilda matches Dana better than Jolene (see below).


Zoya Mimi is a deep royal purple shimmer jelly. Sweet.


Zoya Alegra, Dana's match? Who knows. Anyway this is a magenta with blurple shimmer. I like it.


Zoya Charla is, in my opinion, the masterpiece. It's like looking at tropical waters. It's an absolutely stunning teal my camera could not do justice. I just stared and stared at this, it is so beautiful. It absolutely glows on the nail, with an almost metallic shine. An instant addition to my top 10 polishes of all time.


Zoya Ivanka is, thankfully, NOT dark green. I am fucking sick of dark greens. I don't think it's the greatest green ever, but it's nice, shimmery, and I love the jelly!


Last but not least Zoya Nidhi is a cream with large blue shimmer. I wish the shimmer showed up more because this counterpart to Zoya Maura is an absolute STUNNER because of the blue shimmer in it. It's hot and original and a must have. LOVE.


Enjoy them, you shouldn't be disappointed with any of them unless you already have a close dupe. But BUY CHARLA!!

BleachBlack Dick Weed

Got hipped to this by a friend, dude. http://needsupply.com/womens/brands/bleachblack/dick-weed.html

It looks jawdropping in the advertising picture doesn't it???? I thought it would be like wearing the carapace of a beetle or a bluebottle fly.

It's pretty but it's basically shimmer in a smoky jelly base. It needed to be a fully pigmented color and have more metallic to it.

BleachBlack Dick Weed:


Looks like a not so shiny Zoya Akyra.


Color Club Emerald Depths is better too. Both are cheaper.

Color Club Wild At Heart Fall 2009 Collection

FINALLY I have these. I am in love with this set. It's got great vibrant colors, a healthy helping of holographic glitter, and only one boring color. Even the boring color has glitter! The formula is good, Color Club formula is nice and manageable for the most part, though frosts are almost always streaky and the ones in this set are pretty much no exception.

Onto the colors!

Color Club With Abandon is a strangely named black jelly with large grain brown shimmer. It manages to be dark but STILL be brown!! Would OPI please take notice?? Easy to apply since it's a jelly, needs two or more coats. I woulda named this one Do It In the Dirt.


Color Club On the Wild Side... ah here's that aforementioned streaky frost. What a waste of a gorgeous shade. Pure frosts like this look so old-fashioned and messy. But what a color!


Color Club Wild at Heart, well, I don't think I have ever taken a better picture. It applies like a dream, and looks like it was sprayed on by a professional. Trust me, this one will look just as good on you. It's not a holographic, but it has enough holo glitter to pack a very nice punch and to look sleek and shiny. And what a great, deep purple.


Color Club Love 'em Leave 'em, huh? I woulda named this Renegade Attorney, or Slightly Naughty Secretary. It's BEIGE. This needed to be canned and replaced by a rich ruby red with holographic glitter. they could have filled a large need in the polish world but gave us something you could probably get away with at work, but frankly is too boring for anywhere else, despite the nice holo glitter.


Rule Breaker is a gorgeous teal frost but it has so much shimmer added as well that it applies a bit better than On the Wild Side. Beautiful color, just I think it'd be best worn without color coordinating your clothes with it.


Color Club Wild and Willing is not done justice by my picture. It's a slightly sheer golden brown jelly with very vibrant shimmer. It reflects tons of light. it also has a small shot of gorgeous rose/green duochrome. Just fabulous.


So why am I so interested in the names? Who knows. I know no one cares about the names. They just made me go WTF this time. Heh.

O! A Daily OPI! - OPI Glacier Bay Blues

This is one of my favorite blues of all time. It's a navy base with a duochrome shimmer in teal and cobalt. Here you can only see the cobalt, unfortunately, take my word for it the teal is amazing. A completely unique stunner.

OPI Glacier Bay Blues:

China Glaze for Days - China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise

This is a gentler neon, a bright, with a very nice shimmer finish to it. Easy to control, and a great summer eye-catcher.

China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise:

Diamond Cosmetics - $2 Polish and Not Bad At All!

Rebecca kindly sent me a metric fuckton of nail polish the other day, because she's kind and generous like that. She found Diamond Cosmetics, and decided she'd add some stuff for me onto her order. She also, dear Polish Monkeys, bought YOU a gift, which I will post about next.

Diamond has a pretty decent formula! It's more on the runny side, only one creme did I find thick (Oh, Tiff!). All had good coverage with two coats except the Glow in the Darks, which are very sheer. Some cremes could probably even be one coaters, if you put on a thick enough coat, but I prefer two coats in most circumstances to prevent sheer spots.

Diamond has some July Specials, which I will start with first. The first special is six "neons" plus a topcoat and a white, for $15.00. I do not as a rule use whites for base coats, as Diamond suggests, I find that rather than provide a bright base for colors, they wash them out. But that's just my opinion, you may like them very much that way. All these swatches are without white as a basecoat, but, as they are neons and many neons dry matte, I used a topcoat.

Diamond Froggy:


Diamond Beware:


Diamond Danger Zone:


Diamond White:


Diamond Safety Zone:


Diamond Hot Summer Pink, fuchsia pink neon with purple shimmer and an INSTANT all-time favorite of mine:


Diamond Wow, just the bottle and washed out at that, could NOT photograph this bright hot pink correctly, but it's very, very like Essie Punchy Pink:


The second July Special is the "Summer Special" - six red/pinks and two blues, and a topcoat for $12.00. These are two coats with no topcoat.

Diamond Oh, Tiff! - with which I will be doing a comparison against other Tiffany blues later:


Diamond Pink Passion:


Diamond Fiery Coral, which I say is red:


Diamond Don't Teal My Heart Away, a very nice dark teal creme:


This collection also contains Hot Summer Pink, already pictured, and a soft pink called Cotton Candy, which Rebecca kept. The next are not on "Special", but are only $2.00 each, and they are Glow In the Dark, so damn straight I love them. Sorry I did not test out the GITD ability it was daytime and I had a lot of swatchin' to do. :( This is four coats and topcoat. To make up for needing so many coats, they dried quickly!

Diamond Tangeglo:


Diamond Gloworm Green:


Diamond Blue Moonglo:


Diamond Pink Flaminglo:


I have some others, but I am gonna hold them back as I see "A Daily Diamond" daily polish review in the future. :D

New Sally Hansen HD "Liquid Crystal" Polishes

I ran out and got most of the new Sally Hansen HD "liquid crystal" polishes today. I had hoped they would be similar to my beloved China Glaze glass fleck polishes. Well, not quite.



They have a sort of truncated rainbow of colors in this formula, purple, bright blue, aqua/teal, yellow, orange, medium pink, and fuchsia with purple shimmer. I would have liked a green added to this, and a true red added, or the fuchsia left out for a red. Seriously, how many fuchsias with blurple shimmer are there? 5,672? But the colors are bright and summery and vibrant. I did not purchase the yellow. I bought these for $5.99 each and I couldn't justify orange AND yellow. Edit: Added a picture of a color addition to this Collection, Hi-Def, at end of this post!

The formula for these reminds me of their Insta-Dri polishes. It almost seems to dry as you apply it. The brush is similar too, it has that wide oval plastic stick and while the brush is not rounded at the end, like Insta-Dri, it is similar in width. The polish formula is HORRIBLE. It is simultaneously runny and sticky. It sticks to itself and starts to dry, making it hard to spread evenly. It wanted to stay in strips, and if I pushed it, it made sheer places in the polish. To get even coverage over the sides of the nail I had to deliberately paint my skin in several instances. Luckily it came off the skin easily when removed quickly. They were also very prone to bubbling and imperfections. It was a sticky mess I don't care to repeat, it was not fun applying this polish.

As for the glass fleck effect - well it looks more frost to me. Whether it's the fine grain of the glass, the amount of it added, or other pigments, I do not know, but while this does catch the light, it only has slightly more depth than a frost and looks, frankly, just like a frost. I was disappointed. I dunno what my final verdict on these is, but my preliminary verdict is skip them, buy cheaper polishes with better flash and color, like China Glaze Surfs or Summer Days if you want glass fleck, or "liquid crystal" as Sally Hansen Calls them. On the other hand, they are kinda pretty... but I can buy something better for $5.99.

I'll post a comparison between these and glass flecks later today.

Sally Hansen HD Cyber:


Sally Hansen HD BLU:


Sally Hansen HD Pixel Pretty:


Sally Hansen HD Three D:


Sally Hansen HD Hi-Res:


Sally Hansen HD Digital:


Sally Hansen HD Hi-Def: