Swatch and Review: Zoya Naked Manicure System

Long time, no see, everyone! I'm ten days away from taking the NY and NJ Bar Exams (AHHHH!), so hopefully, I'll have more time to get back to swatching and my nail art once that stupid test is over!

In other news, as you may have seen on Facebook, I received the Zoya Naked Manicure System a little under a month ago. Since then, I have been testing the various shades of the collection, as well as the wear of both matte and glossy looks.

Here is what Zoya says about the Naked Manicure System: "The Naked Manicure System is a simple, highly effective system that gives clients instant, gorgeous natural looking nails. It also provides the intense therapeutic, long term benefits for stronger, healthier nails."

Because of what was posted on their website, I approached product testing with three goals in mind:

1) How natural does it look?
2) How long does it last?
3) Does it make my nails stronger or healthier?

Sometimes, from all the swatching, my nails can be a little yellow and I have issues with ridges. I'm also going to be starting a new job in the fall and I wanted a few more professional-looking options that I could wear every day and know they're appropriate for both day and night work events.

You can also layer different Perfector shades to get a more customized color based on your skin tone and condition of your nails, as demonstrated below:

I'm happy to report that I've now gotten the whole collection swatched and tested for wear!

How Natural Does it Look (The Perfector Shades):

Below, you'll find a comparison between my natural nail, the satin (matte) look, and the glossy look.

DEAL ALERT: Full Zoya Naked Manicure System for $77 (Reg: $96)

Like many of you, I've found myself intrigued by the following from Zoya:

According to Zoya, the system will:

The only downside to the system thus far has been the price. The full kit and caboodle consists of five colors, one white tip shade, two different top coats, and a base coat for a total of $96.

They also offer one color (Pink Perfecter), the white tip, the base coat, and satin top coat for $25 as a set.

Yet, when I started to do the math, I quickly realized something didn't add up.

And I was right.

As I previously mentioned, the price of the full starter kit with a stand for the nine bottles is $96.

But then this happened:

However, it turns out, you can merely purchase the Women's Starter Kit and add on the Mauve, Lavender, Nude, and Buff Perfecters... and get the collection and all the free gifts that Zoya has to offer for $77.

The only thing you don't seem to get is the little stand meant for salon display, which I don't think is quite worth the $19 upcharge. Information on application, blending, etc. is available on the NakedManicure.com website, as well, so it isn't exclusive to the kit.

So if you've been eying the full collection, or even just a few, the best bet is to buy the Women's Starter Kit for $25 (since just the base coat and satin top coat alone are $12 each) and then individually purchase any other shades you might want.

Just picked up the full set for $77 myself, so expect a full review in the future. As someone who sometimes likes to go "naked" (when it comes to my nails... get your minds out of the gutter!), I'm interested to see how these look and function.

Thoughts on this interesting discovery?

Zoya Bruised and Bloody Nail Art

Happy Halloween, my lovelies! May your day be filled with lots of treats and not only a moderately acceptable amount of screaming, sugared-up children!

My NOTD in honor of this holiday uses the classic blood drip look, but with a little something extra.

 

By sponging a little Zoya Cynthia around the border of my nail, over a coat of Zoya Audrey, and topping it off with Zoya Rekha for the blood, I created something a bit spookier than usual. Perhaps, Zombie-like?

What do you think of my subtle twist on a Halloween classic manicure?

Swatch and Review: Milani Nail Lacquer for 2014 Part 1

Happy Friday, everybody! Phew! I thought this week would never end, but alas, it's here!

Today I have for you the first of four parts of Milani's 2014 collection!

Get the NYFW Look: Essie for Helmut Lang

Runway Inspiration:

Vibrant red, black and neutral colors played an important role in the Helmut Lang Fall/Winter 2014 collection. Julie Kandalec for essie created a chic nude by layering allure and ridge filling base coat over adore-a-ball to give a slightly sandy hue to the final color.

Essie Nail Products Used:

• Ridge Filling Base Coat
• Adore-a-Ball
• Allure

Get the look:

1. Apply one coat of Adore-a-Ball.
2. Once dry, apply one coat of Ridge Filling Base Coat.
3. To finish off the nude look, apply one coat of Allure.

Get the NYFW Look: Essie for Herve Ledger

Runway Inspiration:

Inspired by a mixture of fantasy and reality, Herve Leger’s Fall/Winter ’14 collection included a range of bandage dresses, arctic furs and exotic feathers. To complement the playful pieces, Julie Kandalec for essie created a matte, mauve nail. The key polish, lady like, was chosen for its pink undertones that are complementary to every skin tone. 

Essie Nail Products Used:

• Lady Like
• Matte About You Top Coat
• Good to Go Top Coat

Get the look:

1. Apply Lady Like to clean, filed nails.
2. Once dry, apply Good to Go Top Coat to prevent streaking.
3. Finish with Matte About You Top Coat.

Gradient Dot Stripes

Happy Thursday, everyone! I'm sorry I haven't been around a lot the past few weeks. Law school is kicking my butt lately!

But today, I have a unique twist on polka dots and racing stripes. Polka stripe? Perhaps. Though that sounds like a really old record.

For this manicure, I used Zoya Louise from the Cashmere collection and Zoya Giovanna from the Satin collection for the dots. I have a thing lately for jewel tones and neutrals because they seem to compliment each other really well.

 

This was fairly easy to do, as well. I started at the base of my nail with a large dot and just kept moving in a straight line. As the polish starts to wear on the dotting tool, the dots get smaller. So I just kept with that trend.

What do you thing? Would you rock this mani?

Polished Professionals: Weekday to Weekend

The weekend is nearly upon us, a three-day weekend at that, and I don't know about you, but I'm SO ready! So here's a little weekend-themed post as part of the Polished Professionals series. If you missed last week's post, you can check out my Beauty Survival Kit!

With Labor Day weekend officially here, I'm sure that many of you, like myself, have plans for a party or barbecue. Weekend plans can often throw a little bit of a wrench into things when it comes to your nails.

Maybe you've just gotten a manicure at the start of the week and it's tough to part with your perfect polish job. Or maybe you have gel polish in a neutral color that's just not going to cut it for a party. You could have last minute plans. Or perhaps, as this is often the case for me, you're too lazy/tired to take off your polish, put on new, and wait for it to dry. After all, it's a long process!

Today, I'm going to show you a few weekday to weekend looks that can be accomplished in just fifteen-twenty minutes. And most of that is just drying time. You could really even do this on the way to the party in the car... not that I've done it before or anything...

The best part about the looks to follow is that they're very simple and easy to achieve. All you need is two kinds of top coat: your normal quick-dry brand (I use either Seche Vite or HK Girl) and a special effects top coat.

Special Effects top coats are those that change the look of your polish in some way. They can be your ordinary glitter/sparkle, a flake-filled fiesta, or even a holo top coat. It's totally up to you.

So, let's get started with some transformations!

Swatch and Review: The New Black Week Day 5 - Runway Collection Part 2

Today, we're checking out the second half of the Color Barometer Runway Collection, the cooler range of nail polishes.

The formula on these four nail polishes were just as good as the last. There is a camel color, navy blue, dusty periwinkle, and pine green. The first two are cremes and the latter two are frosts, but all only needed two coats to be opaque.

The navy blue reminds me very much of Zoya Cynthia, while the periwinkle is very much like Zoya Jo. I think I need to do a comparison in the future. But regardless, I don't have anything like that pine green at ALL and like the range of these very much. I do NOT own a camel color either!

All of The New Black sets are available at Sephora, Nordstrom, and Beauty.com. However, this collection is currently exclusive to Beauty.com. All of the sets, like Graffiti, Haze, Waves, and Runway include five 0.125 fl oz. bottles of polish. Polishes by TNB are 3-free, cruelty-free, and vegan friendly! The sets range from $10 to $32, with the Runway Collection retailing for $32.

Tomorrow, we move on to nail art!
Princess Polish

Disclaimer: The product(s) in this post were provided to me by the manufacturer or their PR company for consideration. For more information please visit my Disclaimer page. Product photos provided by The New Black. 

Day 21: Peter Som Collection

Since I'm giving away a currently sold-out, Limited Edition Peter Som Color Box by Zoya, I figured it would be a good idea to see just how GORGEOUS these colors are! So while the winning shade for Day 21 of the 30 Days of ZOYA Challenge/giveaway will now be featured as Day 22 tomorrow instead, here is the LE collection!

PRESS RELEASE: Zoya Feel (Winter Collection)

Zoya FEEL Collection
Kristen (ZP591): Full coverage, gull gray cream.
Carey (ZP592): Full coverage, periwinkle gray cream.
Megan (ZP593): Full coverage, taupe gray cream.
Kendal (ZP594): Full coverage, rose quartz beige cream.
Kennedy (ZP595): Full coverage, pale french beige cream.
Avery (ZP596): Full coverage, blonde beige cream.

Zoya is the new color of fashion...

Vegan friendly, ultra long-wearing, glossy nail lacquers by Zoya are free of harmful industrial chemicals like toluene, camphor, formaldehyde, formaldehyde resins or dibutyl phthalate (DBP) that are known to cause cancer and birth defects.

Find Zoya FEEL as well as over 300 other ultra high-fashion Zoya shades at www.zoya.com. As always, each and every Zoya color is made for women so we name them after women.

Sug. Retail $8.00 per 0.5 fl.oz. bottle (US).

Available / Shipping November 15, 2011 on zoya.com


I'm kind of on the fence about these polishes. You know I'm big on dark/vampy or bold/glitter, but I'm kind of starting to dig the "your nails but better" trend. So maybe I'll like these.

What do you think, fellow polish junkies?

- Princess Polish

OPI In the Spot-light Pink

I went to my local salon for a manicure a few days ago so that my nails would get the TLC they needed before the Maroon 5 concert. (Which was AMAZING, by the way.) I had planned on doing this really awesome gradient manicure that faded from deep maroon to a medium pink color. Needing a base color to ensure complete coverage, I decided to go with a really pale pink that would be easy to build on and chose OPI In the Spot-Light Pink from the Femme de Cirque collection.

But a funny thing happened shortly after I returned home…

I fell in love with the color.



As you may have figured out by now, I love cheery, sparkly polishes or dark, vampy hues. But rarely do I wear pastels, let alone those of the "barely-there" variety.

In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is the first time I've worn this kind of natural-looking shade that I can recall.

There is something very classy about this color, even in its sheerness. It's glossy without a top coat, but with one, it's a true stunner.

If you're in need of a polish for a french manicure, I'd highly recommend In the Spot-light Pink. It's a great neutral tone without a streaky application.