Zoya Promo Polishes: Why Free Stuff Is Always Good

Why, hello there, all you lovely people!  It's been a long day for me!  I wanted to get this post up earlier, but I had a lot to do.  First of all, thank you to everyone who has visited my Etsy shop in the last day.  Part of the reason I was so busy was getting orders filled and ready to ship tomorrow morning.  I managed to use up all my printer ink and it turned out my backup cartridge was in the printer already so I'm going to run to the store bright and early in the AM to replace it and finish the last few before this weekend.

Second of all, I'm sitting at an even 300 followers as I type this!  I want to thank all of you for hanging around and checking up with this blog!  This weekend, I'm going to put together another giveaway to help celebrate.  Expect it around Monday or Tuesday!

Finally, before I get to the swatches, I wanted to remind everyone that my current giveaway, two bottles of my Lacquer Convention shade Pop Tart is still open.  If you haven't told me about your ideal polish or posted a picture of yourself holding a pop tart, there's still time!  It ends on Saturday though, so hurry!  I'm having fun reading your comments and it has inspired me to compile a post about finding that dream polish, or rather, using all your resources to create it.  It's coming next week when I announce the winners.

Alright, are you tired of me talking yet?  Well, this is a long post with a lot of pictures, so buckle up!

I decided to start with my least favorite of the bunch, Pippa.  Now, just because she's my least favorite doesn't mean much because I am really, madly, deeply in love with Zoya right now.  Their formula is spot on and their shades are gorgeous.  Pippa is only my least favorite because her formula is the worst of the bunch.  However, I'm pretty sure it's because she's yellow.

As you can see in these photos, yellow nail polish is hard to get right.  It's almost as bad as white nail polish, which we all know I HATE working with but NEED in my life/nail art.  Pippa is a paler shade of yellow, which I have been subconsciously craving (I bought two other bottles from different brands this week in two separate Walgreens runs...without realizing it until Pippa came in the mail!).  

I had streaking and goopy issues with Pippa, as well as leveling issues.  I'm going to take some thinner to her because I am pretty sure that's all she needs to shape up.  These pictures show a difficult three coats, no top coat.  I do rather love this shade, because it's spring and I need something bright and cheerful like this to help chase away the snow I'm still occasionally seeing.  (Mostly in the woods around my house and not actually where I live!)

My next choice was Kieko, which has been one of my biggest lemmings.  When I did the swatches, my nails looked like they were opaque and had full coverage, but the macro blew out any patchiness that I couldn't see.  The pictures show two coats, so in the future I'll do three because I like to know my nails don't look patchy at all.

This type of bright purple is one of my favorite cream shades.  I have an Essence mini that I pulled out and compared to Kieko and it's really close, a hair more purple and already half empty because I've used it a bit.  Kieko is its better, brighter replacement.

The formula on Kieko was sooooo creamy and smooth.  It's the best cream I've tried in a while actually.  She really wants me to come up with a fun and funky way to wear her this weekend.  Hopefully I have a little time tomorrow to sit down with Kieko!

Next I have the first of two greens, Yara.  I absolutely love Zoya's greens.  They capture the best shades with the best blends of shimmers and glitters in their greens.  I mean, it could be because I love green nail polish, but I think it's Zoya being awesome.

Yara is an olive green base filled with gold glitter.  The formula? Dreamy!  Smooth and very easy to apply.  These pictures show three coats.  I could have gotten away with two though.

Oh, Yara, look at all that sparkle in your bottle.  How did you get so pretty?

The second green I picked this time was Edyta.  I had passed her up the last time I went to Ulta because my hands were too full to carry anymore polish and getting a basket is just ASKING to spend too much money =P  I don't regret waiting, though I do really like her.

Edyta just doesn't fit my mood right now, with her dark green.  She is from a fall collection, so I'm not really that surprised.  I'm going to banish her to the cabinet to wait for a more appropriate time to wear her.  Still, it's a beautiful green with a wonderful metallic finish.  I'm definitely going to wear it!

I am, however, going to wear her with extra base coat.  From doing these swatches, I started to get a little bit of staining on my nails.  I definitely don't want that!

Edit: Random piece of glitter on my finger, how did you go unnoticed THIS WHOLE TIME??

This next polish is Jules, one of my other hardcore lemmings.  It's basically everything that I had hoped for China Glaze Fast Track from the Hunger Games collection to be.  It's a nude shade that's packed full of gold shimmer.  I don't really do nude, so even when I'm in the mood for a neutral color, I want it to have dimension.  Jules has all of that!

I'm actually wearing Jules right now as I type this.  I needed to cleanse my palette after My Little Pony.  I have a feeling that I'm going to be wearing Jules a lot, until I get over this weird "neutral" craving that I'm having.  Fast Track is out of here, it's all about Jules now!  I love applying this color too.  The formula is amazingly smooth and silky, like it almost applies itself.

Seriously, check out that gorgeous shimmer.  

No really, look at it.  It gets an extra picture.

The final polish (tired yet?) is actually my nickname-sake, Jo.  Yes, my name is Yvonne and has nothing to do with Jo.  It's a long story!  But!  It is the reason why I picked Jo.  It was my random, unplanned pick for this promo.  I like to keep a wishlist, but I also like to keep my eye out for something I didn't think I'd want.  I decided to give Jo a shot and I'm glad that I did!  Zoya doesn't have an Yvonne, though I'll hold my breath a little longer and hope!

When I took it out of the box, I was a little bit disappointed that it looked similar to Skylar from Zoya's last collection, the only polish from that collection that I had to have.  It's not the same at all though.  Jo is darker and has a fine shimmer versus Skylar's gold glitter, and I actually like the shade of blue better in Jo.  

Need you ask about the application?  The only one that applied better was Yara.  Jo is so nice and smooth.  This is three coats without top coat, except for my middle finger.  I accidentally bumped the tip and had to even it out with a fourth.

Zoya made this haul possible (/too tempting to pass up) with their promos.  I always wait for them and always take advantage of them, usually buying more than I should!  I was a good girl this time and stuck to the buy three, get three, but only because I had done a bit of shopping just the day before.  I had a pair of colors in my cart that I was loathe to pass up, but I told myself I'd go back for them!  And I will, once I recover from this one...and the Walgreens trips...and probably what I am going to do if I can convince my hubby to take a "detour" to Seattle this weekend!  (It's for science!  The last white on my list before I give up on finding a good white formula is American Apparel!)

Are you still with me?  I hope so, even if you just looked at the pictures =) Have a great day!