Zoya Merida

Hello Readers! I have really been on a green kick lately, maybe it is because I caught a faint glimmer of spring coming. I'm sure spring won't come full force for a while now, but I can surround myself with green polishes.

I am very excited to share a beautiful holographic Zoya polish with you today. It is a beauty called Merida! It is a nice forest green with holographic similar to Dream that everyone so coveted. 

Press Release: Zoya Spooky Glam Trio

Press Release

Image Provided by Zoya

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy late Valentine's Day! I decided to post my nail design for Oregon's Birthday rather than Valentine's Day yesterday. For Valentine's Day, I wanted to try another water marble. I always feel like I have a difficult time, but this time, it worked pretty well!

Work Wear Wednesday: Wisps

Happy Work Wear Wednesday! This week's design is pretty much the same as Sunday's design, but with a few key changes. I of course made the colors more work appropriate, but I also added a matte top coat. Are you surprised? I have almost run out of matte top coat, that is how much I use that stuff! I really enjoyed Sunday's design and wanted to try it again with a different style.

 

What I Wore to Las Vegas!

My husband and I recently took a short trip to Las Vegas! I knew I wanted to do something blingy and a bit showy for my nails, and this is what I came up with. I went with a black and gold theme to make it classy, but added a holo glitter to bling it up a notch!

Zoya Matte Velvets Collection (Partial)

Zoya Matte Velvets! I think these are famous by now, and I am late in posting them, but wow, what a collection! These matte velvets were released a while ago and were re-released by popular demand. They have rich, jewel tones and a matte finish. I picked up five of the six colors, only because my stores didn't have the sixth. I don't know the official inspiration for the names, but they all seem to be famous models. There are a ton of pictures in this post, so I will just dive right in and have an overview at the end.

Zoya India Gold Leaves

I have beautiful Zoya India and some nail stamping to share with you! Zoya India is a darker red with shimmers and was released in their fall collection. I wasn't able to find many of the colors, but I found India, and she is lovely! I decided to add some gold stamping with Born Pretty Store BP-19 which has a beautiful leaf theme. I used Maybelline Bold Gold as my stamping polish.

Duck Nails for the Rose Bowl

Yesterday was the Rose Bowl! The University of Oregon Ducks football team was playing against Florida State, and my husband loves the Ducks. I remain neutral on the Ducks v. Beavers civil war within the state, but when the Ducks play in a bowl game I'll do my nails for that! Don't worry Beavers, I'll do my nails for you too when you make it to a bowl game. 

Work Wear Wednesdays: Inspired by The Nail Boss

Today, I have another installment of Work Wear Wednesdays! This week, I have something inspired by an artist I love. Have you ever heard of the Nail Boss? If not, you need to check him out on Instagram! He has 148K followers for a good reason. He does some really amazing work and he doesn't use polish! I think he is using acrylic, but what he does it way more advanced than my nail vocabulary. Just go check him out, I promise, you will love him. I spotted an image on his account a long time ago and I can't get it out of my head, so I attempted to re-create it for Work Wear Wednesdays. It has just the right amount of neutral and glitter!

Work Wear Wednesday: Jelly Stamping

Press Sample

I am back today with another installment of Work Wear Wednesdays! This week I don't have a pictorial tutorial for you (sorry), but it is really simple. I have jelly sandwich stamping to share today! 

Nail Art: #31DC2014 Day 26 Inspired by a Pattern

For the nail art challenge today the prompt is inspired by a pattern. I had pinned this images of fabric a long time ago as inspiration, so I used that for my pattern inspiration today. The original picture is from Chronographia on Etsy. I started with a white base (Pure Ice Superstar) and painted blobs that resembled the shapes of the feathers with Zoya Dove, Rocha and Rooney which seemed to be perfect matches for the colors!I then painted black stripes with acrylic paint to make them look like feathers and gave it a matte top coat. I'm really into matte finish lately.

Nail Art: #31DC2014 Day 16 Geometric Print

Hello! Sorry my posting has been a little sporadic lately, I am trying to keep up with the nail art challenge posts, but it takes time! For today's post I am doing yesterday's challenge. The theme was geometric print. Funny enough I was wearing a geometric print dress to work yesterday, so I used that as my inspiration for my nails. It has a Mondrian feel to it, but not exactly a copy. I did some Mondrian nails a little while back and loved the result, so these were a lot of fun and reminiscent of that design.  I started with a white base coat and free hand painted with Zoya Ling for the blue, Zoya Dove for the grey, and Color Club Sunrise Canyon for the chartreuse.

Nail Art: #31DC2014 Day 11 Polka Dots

I have a late post today because of my swatch post this morning. For the daily nail art challenge today is polka dots! I love polka dots, but I created something a little different. More like a pattern. I used all Zoya polishes: Tilda, Stassi, Dove and Trixie. I started with a base of Dove and created layers of dots starting from the tip of the nail working back toward the base. 

 

Nail Art: #31DC2014 Day 1 Red

I decided to participate in Chalkboard Nails' 31 day challenge, and I am already super late! So, I will be posting a series of challenge posts and hopefully catch up by tomorrow. For day one, the prompt was a color: Red. I love red nails, I know some aren't a fan of it, but I have always loved red nails. Red is a lucky color after all! I received this really unique and lovely color, Burning Embers from Northern Star Polish a while back for review (Summer Collection Review). I thought Burning Embers would make a great base for nail art for day one! I then added a stamped image from the Born Pretty Store Plate QA 88 which I also previously reviewed (Turquoise Stamping). Also, if you would like 10% off at the Born Pretty Store use code: HANDX31. I used Zoya Pepper for stamping and it worked surprisingly well.

Swatch and Review of Zoya: Chita

Hello! I am sorry I haven't posted for a few days, my husband and I went camping! We have been wanting to go to Crater Lake for a while now and Labor Day weekend was the perfect excuse. Camping is really hard on your nails, so I thought I would go with just a plain textured polish this time. Zoya Chita is a forest green textured polish from their PixieDust line. It has a lot of gorgeous sparkle! I took the photos below in our camp site in full sun.

Swatch and Review of Zoya: Naturel Part Deux Collection (Partial)

Press Sample

Recently, Zoya sent me two polishes from their Naturel Deux collection: Spencer and Aubrey. There are six in the collection, and you can view them all here. I am glad they sent two that were so different, so I would have a good contrast to show you. The Naturel Deux Collection is meant to help you transition from summer to fall colors and all of them have a neutral color palette.

Press Release: Zoya Entice & Ignite Fall Collection

Press Release

Inspired by the classic wools, textured brocades and metallic accents of the season, Zoya's new ENTICE & IGNITE collections create a palette of lush, deep color including wines, browns, navies and greys. 

The Perfect, Creamy, Soft Pink: Zoya Dot

Hello! Today I have a very lovely soft, baby pink to share with you! I have swatches and a review of Zoya Dot. Zoya Dot is part of their Spring Awaken Collection and is available for purchase on their website. For the photos below, I applied three coats. Two coats are probably sufficient, but I wanted to be sure I had full coverage and no visible nail line. 

Swatch and Review of Zoya Magical Pixie Dust Summer 2014 Collection

Press Sample

Summer 2014 is shaping up to be beautiful! Zoya sent me three new polishes from the Magical Pixie Summer 2014 Collection and I have them to share with you today!  Zoya provided these for my honest review. The Magical Pixie polishes are very textured polishes, but even if you don't like textured polish you should definitely check them out. I have photos of all with and without top coat, and I think you'll be surprised!

Nail Art: Zoya Tickled and Bubbly Gradient Tape Mani

Press Sample

Oh Zoya, how do you make such fantastic polish? I recently reviewed the Tickled & Bubbly Collections on my blog and was so inspired by the colors I had to do some nail art right away. For this look I started with a base of Jesy from the Bubbly Collection and created a gradient over that with Rocha, Rooney and Kitridge. I used striping tape to create my design.