Who Can Resist Three New Zoya Polishes…

I had skipped out on ordering the Zoya Cyber Monday box (although once I saw what it contained, I sort of wished I had!), but since I was in the market for a new base as well as a new top coat I couldn’t resist this deal that popped up a week later: buy a mini color lock set and receive 3 full-size polishes for free. Since the full-size polishes retail for $9-10 on their own and I wanted all of the items in the kit, to me this was a great deal!

 

I spent ages poring over all the polishes on the Zoya site trying to pick the perfect three. They have so many beautiful colors that it’s just so hard to choose! I looked at swatches of SO many of the polishes that it probably took me hours, not even kidding. I ended up with Tinsley, Hermina, and Nimue.

Five Little Things: This Week in New Products

• I attended a formal event last weekend, and I took the opportunity to wear a lipstick that used to be my favorite but that I haven’t worn in ages — probably because I haven’t had anywhere suitable to wear it to! Meet L’Oréal’s Lip Accents Crème in Paradise Plum. It actually still is my favorite lipstick for being fancy. So this isn’t actually a new product, but just something that feels new because I haven’t worn it in so long.

• I’ve been using my new Bite Beauty Agave Lip Mask as an overnight lip treatment, and it’s been wonderful. My lips have never felt so moisturized!

• I picked up the fairly new VO5 Shine, Glow, & Go Beauty Oil at the grocery store last week, and since then I’ve been using it twice a day. It takes longer to soak in than my body lotions, but so far I’ve been loving it anyway! I think it’ll be especially great for summer.

March Favorites

March has been a pretty good month for me, for the most part! Here are the 6 products that I’ve relied on the most for the past 31 days, everything from skincare to makeup to a gorgeous nail polish.

First Nail Art!

Inspired by #NAFW2015, which is the first Nail Art Fashion Week (started by the So Nailicious blog), I decided to play around with nail art today! A lot of what I’ve been seeing on Instagram has me feeling like I could try my hand at it, so today I finally did.

Because I wanted to experiment, I painted each of my nails a different style.

My Nail Odyssey: Manicure with Zoya Harley

This is the very first manicure I’ve done that I’ve been proud of. I’m proud of it mostly because it’s the neatest manicure I’ve ever done. This is due in part to my longer nails — it’s incredibly hard to keep the paint on your nails when they’re barely there. But also I think my painting skills have improved a bit, especially since I managed to keep my right hand as neat as my left! (I’m right-handed).

I used Zoya Harley, which is a lovely light grey with slight shimmer. When it arrived in the mail and I first swatched it, I thought I didn’t like it. But when I saw it on all of my nails it just looks so sophisticated that I couldn’t help but fall in love with it!

Zoya Mystery Trio Reveal!

Earlier today I showed you the “exclusive mystery trio” that Zoya shipped out as part of their “New Year, New Hue” promotion.

After a bit of research, I discovered that this trio was actually custom-created for Peter Som’s Autumn/Winter 2014 runway collection during New York Fashion Week. This collection is what inspired the color combination.

Charlotte – described only as a “warm nude”, this creme is sort of a pale camel shade.

Anais – although described as a warm black metallic with a vein of Severine running through it, this black looks more like it contains a sheen of silvery pewter. However, this sheen is not very obvious when swatched, and it’s a much more ethereal than “in-your-face” pewter.

Severine – described as a warm pewter metallic, to me this comes across as more gold. This is an absolutely gorgeous pale metallic.

Zoya Haul, Part 2: The Mystery Trio

As I stated in yesterday’s post, in January Zoya held a “New Year, New Hue” sale in which they offered 3 full-size polishes and a mini trio of three exclusive mystery colors for just the $15 shipping cost. These mystery colors were never-before-released, and exclusive to this sale. Despite it being a bit of a gamble, since for all I knew the polishes could have been lime green and orange, I thought it was pretty exciting to be receiving three special polish minis.

Zoya Haul, Part 1: Six Polishes

Earlier in January, Zoya held a “New Year, New Hue” sale in which they offered 3 full-size polishes and a mini trio of three exclusive mystery colors for just the $15 shipping cost. However, if you ordered $25 worth of other products, then shipping was free, too. I took advantage of this and was able to get 6 Zoya polishes, the mini mystery trio, and a 2 oz. bottle of their nail polish remover for just $33.

Since I have a pretty small nail polish collection, I had a lot of trouble deciding on which shades to get. Ever since getting my first manicure a few weeks ago, I’ve been thinking a lot about my nails. As you can read about here, I’ve been on a quest to stop biting my nails, and I think that the primary key is finding polish that is so interesting that I can’t bear to ruin it, and the secondary key is a textured polish that helps me be more aware of where my fingers are.