Zoya Beach Collection - The Pinks

Yes, I am slowly making my way through swatching Zoya Beach! My cuticles are feeling much less brutalized now that I've switched back to my normal hand lotion. (Which is Gold Bond Ultimate Healing with Aloe, for the record. My cuticles were NOT pleased with the generic version, sadly.)

Today I have the three pinks from this collection, Reagan, Lara and Shelby. 

I'm still not sure what Zoya was thinking with releasing a collection with three pinks. Maybe it's just because I'm not a huge fan of pink, but I really would have liked to see some more diverse colors here.

Reagan is the darkest of the shades, an almost berry leaning magenta shade.

Lara is the middle child. This one is really rather eye searing on me in person, almost crossing the border into neon territory. 

And the lightest one is Shelby, which is also my favorite of the pinks, oddly enough. I expected to like Reagan the most, but I found Shelby to be very, very flattering with my skin tone. 

The formula across all three polishes was uniformly great. I used two coats for all of them and I was quite happy with the results on all three with just two coats. All in all, these really are quite lovely polishes; they're just not terribly exciting to me. But if you're in the market for some pink cremes, you really can't go wrong with these. =)

It's also worth noting that the Zoya Earth Day Polish Exchange is back this year. You can find the details here. If you're wanting any of these, now would be a good time to order!

Thanks for reading!

** Products provided for review **

Pahlish Dance Across the Sea

Gah, I can't believe it's been almost a week since I updated. Life + work = busy Noelie! 

Anyway, the polish I have to show you today is another favorite of mine from Pahlish. This shade is called Dance Across the Sea, and I think you'll agree that it's quite aptly named!

Dance Across the Sea has a sky blue base that is both milky and packed with shimmer. Suspended within that base are medium and large blue hex glitters. It kind of gives it the effect of bubbles floating in the sea. Looove it. =)

The formula is quite good and easy to control. I needed three coats for opacity, but that's more or less what I expected, otherwise the larger hexes wouldn't show up very well.

I think next time I wear it, I'll do one coat over a similar blue creme base just to see how it looks that way. I'm very happy with it like this though, it's just a matter of curiosity for me!

Total love!

Pahlish is available on Etsy, her shop is here. Her shop is closed right now, but she's supposed to restock on April 27. 

Hope you all are doing well, and thanks for reading!

FingerPaints Hipnotic

Yay, more magnetics! Even though they are everywhere, I'm not tired of magnetic polishes yet. I was at Sally's the other night, and I picked up a couple of the new Finger Paints magnetics. I'll mention right off the bat that these appear to be completely identical to the Color Club Magnetic Force polishes. The bottles, the magnets, even the names are the same. So if you have those, you really don't need these because I am certain they are the same exact polishes, just with different brand names on the bottles.

So with that out of the way, here's what we have. Hipnotic is an absolutely lovely berry shade. The formula and brush are both fab, no complaints whatsoever.

One of the things I like the most about these is the magnet. Each polish comes with one (though they do all appear to be the same wavy pattern), and I especially like that the magnet is housed in an overcap that comes off. This makes it super easy to use, rather than fighting a magnet that's actually at the end of the brush like the Layla magnetics.

Likewise, I really like that the magnet has the little step to help with positioning. I had a really easy time both centering the magnet over my nail AND making sure I didn't touch the magnet to my wet polish. Awesomely awkward one hand pose showing the magnet over my nail:

I held the magnet over each nail for about 20 seconds. I think the pattern was forming faster than that, but I wanted to give it plenty of time. It worked great, no complaints at all.

If you're not over the magnetics thing yet, now is a good time to pick these up at Sally's, since all polishes are B2G1 for the entire month of April. =)

Thanks for reading!

Zoya Arizona

I'm slowly making my way through the Zoya Beach collection for you guys. My cuticles have been rebelling lately, so I'm trying hard to not do any extended swatch sessions while I get them back into shape. Hopefully it was just a change in moisturizer, and they'll be back to normal soon. *crosses fingers*

Today I have Arizona, the bright orange creme from the Beach collection.

I don't own many oranges. In fact, Arizona brings the number of oranges in my stash up to FOUR. Yahoo!

I actually find Arizona oddly flattering though. I think the key for me liking orange is that it has to be a pure orange, not red or coral leaning at all. This one certainly fits the bill. The formula on Arizona is good, though a little thin.  These shots were taken at two coats, but next time I wear it I think I might go for three. You can't really see it in the pics, but there were some little sheer patches here and there. Three coats should make it just about perfect though.

And I took a few pics of it in the shade as well, since the sun was making it look a little bit more searing than it actually is. =)

So what do you think? The formula is what I've come to expect from Zoya, but the color is a really pleasant surprise for me. ^.^

Thanks for reading!

This product was sent to me for review.

Dollish Polish Expecto Patronum

You know how awesome it is when you really want a polish, and then when you finally get it, it actually exceeds your expectations? That's what happened to me with Expecto Patronum. =)

I had wanted this polish for months, and I finally bit the bullet last time Dollish Polish restocked. I ordered this one and Cold Winds Are Rising (Game of Thrones, yeah!), and I decided to wear Expecto Patronum first. Because it's white, and because it's a jelly, I expected to have issues with streaking and opacity. The little bits of beautiful teal peeking out convinced me that any work I had to do to make Expecto Patronum look good would be worth it. 

This is the part where it exceeded my expectations. After one coat, I actually gasped at how pretty it is. After two coats, I was shocked that I wasn't seeing streaks and that it was almost opaque. Three coats, and it was perfection.

The end result is this delicate, ethereal beauty. It dried quickly, even at three coats, and it's smooth with just one coat of top coat. I really can't believe how much I love this polish.

I mean... wow. Just wow.

Dollish Polish is available at Dolly's Etsy Store for now, but she has said that she's relocating soon, so keep an eye on her Etsy page so you know what's up. Just like a lot of the indie brands these days, she does close the store occasionally so that she's able to keep up with the demand. But I promise, this polish is completely worth it.

Hits Apolo, a Blue for World Autism Awareness Day

I'm actually a day late with this post. World Autism Awareness Day was actually yesterday, but I couldn't get my act together to make a post about it - it was just one of those days. But since it's also Autism Awareness Month, I figured being a day late wasn't too bad. =)

What is Autism?

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and autism are both general terms for a group of complex disorders of brain development. These disorders are characterized, in varying degrees, by difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors. They include autistic disorder, Rett syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder, pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) and Asperger syndrome. ASD can be associated with intellectual disability, difficulties in motor coordination and attention and physical health issues such as sleep and gastrointestinal disturbances. Some persons with ASD excel in visual skills, music, math and art.

 

The above paragraph is from Autism Speaks, and they have lots of great information there. I'm not personally affected by autism, but I have several friends with children on the autism spectrum, and I know from them what an important issue this is. So in support of my friends and their children, siblings and spouses who are autistic, I present you with a lovely blue for Autism Awareness Day, Hits Speciallita Apolo.

 

 

Apolo is simply stunning, a gorgeous medium shade of blue. The formula itself was great, opaque in two coats. My bottle of Apolo is, sadly, plagued with one of the defective Hits brushes, so it was a bit like applying my polish with a fuzzy, frazzled mop. I really wish that brush situation would get under control because I want to order more of these, and it would be great if they had normal brushes. 

Just perfect.

Apolo was actually a gift (Thanks, Daphne!), but it's available through Llarowe.

Until next time, thanks for reading!

SinfulColors Sweet Dreams

Sweet Dreams is the last shade I bought from the SinfulColors Girls in Pearls Sheer Shimmer collection, and I do believe it's my favorite. Sweet Dreams is the bright aqua cousin of Morning Star, with the same soft glass flecked type finish.

Note - Please excuse the jaundiced looking fingers. It took me four different lighting setups to finally get color accurate pics of this baby, and it took a warmer toned light to make that happen, which turned my fingers far more yellow than they actually are. The polish is pretty color accurate though, go figure.

I think that the formula on Sweet Dreams was slightly better than either Morning Star or Cinderella, though I did thin it slightly before using it. It only took me two coats for full opacity on this one as opposed to three on the others though, so that made me quite happy.

I love this finish so much that I'm seriously considering going back for the other shades (there's a pink, an orange and a yellow) even though I don't really wear those that often. I just love how soft these look, while still being so bright and beautiful for spring.

So there you go, my favorite of the new SinfulColors shades. =) Happy Sunday, Happy April (Can you believe it's already April?!), and thanks for reading!