Assorted Sparkly Zoyas

LEFT HAND (click to enlarge)

This mani is some of the sparkliest Zoya polishes I own.  Of course these photos do not do them justice.  After many photos I did get the colour quite accurate.  Purple is always a tough colour to photograph as it tends to come out more blue.  The pinky pink is a bit brighter and deeper in person with visible pink sparkle.  Hot Pink!  The gorgeous blue, which I call peacock blue, has a light green sparkle.  I did this mani on June 6th.  Didn't take photos until the next day.  The 4 colours on the left hand fingers (not the thumb) are from the Zoya Sparkle Collection.  Ivanka, on the right hand, is also from that collection.  It was a favourite collection for sure.

RIGHT HAND (click to enlarge)

LEFT HAND
Thumb - Julieanne
Index - Alegra
Middle - Charla
Ring - Mimi
Pinky - Gilda

RIGHT HAND
Thumb - Edyta
Index - Gloria
Middle - Crystal
Ring - Tiffany
Pinky - Ivanka

I could not find my Zoya basecoat so I used OPI Start to Finish.  I used a single layer of the Zoya Armor topcoat.

About a week after doing the mani I did some stamping on the left hand. There was a bit of tip wear but I was happy with how well the Zoya held up. The polish I used for stamping was a very old Sally Hansen Chrome polish called Diamond. The plate used is Konad M57.  The pattern on my index finger is noticeably a smidge to short to cover the entire length of the nail. I did not apply top coat after stamping as I had not planned on keeping it on very long. It was my intention to do a fresh mani later that day.

I ended up keeping it on for another week!  You can see the grow out gap between the cuticle and the polish and some tip wear.  You can also see the stamped on polish worn off in spots. Even more remarkable is that I washed dishes several times in the 3 days before this picture was taken.  Normally I wear gloves to protect the polish but I was planning on taking it off anyway.  I fully expected it to peel at it didn't.  I'm kinda shocked that this is how it looks after 2 weeks with just one top coat and some dish washing to test it!  Yay Zoya!

I have been very impatiently waiting about 2 months now for the Zoya Sunshine Collection to be available here in Canada.  So frustrating!!!!!

Burgundy Bounty Part 2

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I almost made 6 months without breaking a nail!  They always break right at the quick.  For the last while I have been trimming them when they get to a certain length in hopes of preventing breakage.  That point was reached at the time I did my burgundy mani last Monday.  It was time to trim them back a bit but It was late and I decided to wait another week.  Sure enough just a couple days later....  Waaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh : (

So I went ahead and trimmed all my nails and did a little stamping with my new Bundle Monster plates!  The plate images are larger than the old ones but still not large enough to cover my nails at the length they were.  I ordered my plates on Wednesday, April 27th.  I recieved a ship notification email the same day just 3 hours after placing the order!  Wow!  They are as excited as us to get those plates out there. I live in British Columbia Canada and the plates arrived in 9 business days on May 10th.  I received 2 of plate BM201 and did not received plate BM210.  When I emailed Bundle Monster they were exceptionally apologetic and assured me the problem would be remedied immediately.  It was such a nice and reassuring email I just have to share it with you.

Thank you for your email regarding your recent Bundle Monster order.  We are sorry to hear that you received only a partial order.  We strive to always offer quality service and we apologize that this was not the case.

We will send you the missing plate BM210 in the mail.  Please expect to receive the replacement package in 7 to 20 business days to Canada

We are truly sorry that a plate was missing from your order and we appreciate you bringing this to our attention.  We look forward to shopping with you again.


The whole experience with Bundle Monster was exceptional.  One of the best experiences I have had.  Thank you Bundle Monster!  I dealt with them via their Amazon store which is here:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=bl_sr_beauty?_encoding=UTF8&node=3760911&field-brandtextbin=BundleMonster


Left Hand Fingers
Index - BM-223 using Revlon Diamonds Are Forever
Middle - BM-206 using OPI DS Exclusive
Ring - BM-211 using Sally Hansen Chrome Champagne
Pinky - BM-206 using OPI DS Extravagance

 
Right Hand Fingers

Pinky - BM-203 using OPI DS Extravagance

Ring - BM-208 using Konad Black  (the gold is from a failed gold attempt that I wiped off)

Middle - BM-202 using Revlon Diamonds Are Forever

Index - BM-221 using Sally Hansen Chrome Champagne

Thumb - BM-221 using Revlon Diamonds Are Forever

Stamped Easter Mani 2011

As always as my mani nears the end I stamp it.  Originally I was going to use the same images, all flowers, on the same finger of each hand but make one hand white and one black.  I almost did it but got sidetracked on the last 2 by my fave image and one I had not used yet.

Left hand

Thumb - Plate M65 - Konad
Index - Plate M64 - Konad
Middle - BM16 - Bundle Monster
Ring - BM16 - Bundle Monster
Pinky - BM16 - Bundle Monster

Right Hand

Thumb - Plate M64 - Konad

Index - Plate BM16 - Konad

Middle - BM16 - Bundle Monster

Ring - BM16 - Bundle Monster

Pinky - BM16 - Bundle Monster

I CANNOT wait to get my hands on the new set of Bundle Monster plates!  Sadly when I tried to log in to Amazon it would not let me.  : (  Have to call customer service tomorrow.  Have you seen or used them?

Valerie

I debated long and hard about bothering to post this mani. The base polish colour is Valerie by Zoya. This polish looks magical in the bottle. It is so many colours all at once and they flash as you move the bottle! A burgundy purple with fuschia, red and gold glittery sparkles. Just gorgeous.   I couldn't wait to put it on! 

Photos I have found, including the one at the Zoya website make it simply look like a rich royal purple. This picture on the right I took indoors under an Ott lite and it too turned out very purple on my nails.  So strange that the colour on my nail is not true but the colour in the bottle is correct!  If I had to pin it down to one colour I would describe it as burgundy. So a purple with more red like in the bottle rather than with more blue making pure purple as it appears on my nails.

This poor quality pic when the polish is several days old, the top coat is dull and icky and there is tip wear (sorry) comes pretty close to being the right colour. Sadly the beauty in the bottle does not show up on the nail. Not even close. I see burgundy and very subtle fuschia sparkle hidden deep inside. Bright light is required to see more sparkle. So sad. : (

Of course, after a few days, I had to do some stamping!
Some ok, some not so ok.
Thumb - OPI DS Amethyst + BM20 Plate
Index - OPI DS Radiance + BM05 Plate
Middle - OPI DS Extravagance + BM20 Plate
Ring - China Glaze OMG + BM21 Plate
Pinkie - Sally Hansen Chrome Champagne + BM14

Addition: April 22nd

Check this out!  When I was removing this polish the first thing to come off was a blackened purple colour leaving a layer of metallic red.  Interesting!  I guess all the sparkly goodness settles to the bottom when applied.

Stamped Citrus Sparkle!

I did some nail art stamping on my Citrus Sparkle mani a few days ago.  I was having a bad stamping day and they didn't turn out very well so I've spent the last few days debating whether or not to post a pic.  I've decided to just do it!

My motto:  It doesn't have to be perfect to be pretty!

They are not great but they are not horrible either.  They just kinda suck.  My nails are at the length where the bundle monster plate full patterns are too small for anything but my pinky.  They are even about 1 mm too long for the Konad plate full patterns.  I used Konad black for the stamping and OPI Top Coat.  Guess I didn't wait long enough for the Konad to dry as it smeared.  : (

Plates Used:

Thumb - Konad M51

Index - Konad M60

Middle - Konad M60

Ring - Konad M73

Pinky - Bundle Monster BM16

OPI - Katy Perry Collection 2

This is actually Stage 3, picking up from where my last post left off.  Same mani with some Konad stamping on top.  I finally broke down and bought a tiny bottle of both white and black konad polish.  I think they do work better than the Alpine Snow (white) and Black Onyx (black) by OPI that I used before.  I also get great results with the old Sally Hansen Chrome Polishes. 

These first 2 pictures were taken under flourescent light using my phone camera.  This picture looks awkward.  I admit I am trying to hide a chip on my thumb.  This mani is a week old now.  I love stamping because I only put on new polish once a week.  Stamping allows me to change the look without changing the polish.  Mind you I have also been known to just add a coat of a sheer polish to change the colour.   I also love the contrast between the glitter underneath the not so glittery stamp polish. 

Uh oh! Experiencing technical difficulties!  Will have to finish this later.....
I'm baaaaaaAAAAAAAaaaaaack!   Here are a couple of pics taken with my camera under an Ott Lite.

Left Hand Fingers

Index - Konad Plate M60 - Sally Hansen Chrome "Champagne"
Middle - Konad Plate M64 - Konad Black
Ring - Konad Plate M65 - Konad White
Pinky - Bundle Monster Plate BM20 - Sally Hansen Chrome "Diamond"
Thumb - Konad Plate M64 - Konad Black

Right Hand Fingers

Index - Konad Plate M64 - Konad Black

Middle - Bundle Monster Plate BM20 - Konad White

Ring - Bundle Monster Plate BM20 -  Sally Hansen Chrome "Diamond"

Pinky - Bundle Monster Plate BM20 - Sally Hansen Chrome "Diamond"

Thumb - Konad Plate M65 - Konad Black

Ch Ch Ch Changes

I'm apologizing up front for unsightly bits you might see when your view the larger versions of the photos (click on them).  Macro shots show and magnify stuff not visible to my naked eyes!  Like the way the top coat smeared the alpine snow.  Can't see it in real life.  Anyways!  As of yesterday my purple polish was a week old.  No chipping, just tip wear.  Was planning on changing it yesterday but then I got some exciting mail! A few Konad plates and 21 plates from Bundle Monster!  WOOHOO!!!!!!!!  Since my paint job is a week old and going to be changed anyway it's ok if I do a crappy job stamping.  So I went for it. 

I used Alpine Snow by OPI for the stamping.  As you can see a few were really bad!  Some not so great and some pretty good.  The most important thing is to start on one side of the nail and roll over to the other side.  Seemed to want to start in the middle and then roll left then right.  That does not work!  Konad has a how to video.  Just google it.  Bottom line is it was fun!  Pretty darn cool too.

It wasn't sparkly enough so today I added a coat of Byte by Sally Hansen.  Gorgeous polish!  Pink with loads of glass fleck which is probably why it's kinda sheer.  Also lots of blue sparkle to it.  Quite like it!  Going to keep it on for a few more days.