Just Swatch Me - Zoya Promo

I'm finally getting this post up! It has been sitting half finished for almost a week since I got my Zoyas in from the promo. And if you didn't know about the promo, I'm sorry its over. BUT They do it every January - 3 polishes for free, all you have to pay is the $10 shipping. Normally Zoya's are about $8 in b&m stores (You can find them at places like Ulta and WholeFoods) but this promo knocked them down to $3.33 a piece! Can't beat that with a stick!

So I was having such a hard time trying to pick colors. I think I'm in a rut. I dont know if I want to wear wintery colors or springy colors. I'm such a seasonal oriented person, AND indecisive. So I'm pretty helpless right now haha! So I just randomly picked some colors based of suggestions from some nail message boards and ended up with Ibiza, Aurora, and Blaze. I quickly swatched them for you guys - swatches are a little messy since I dont take the time to clean them up afterwards with my brush and acetone, and I dont put topcoat over them. Its just to give you a good idea what the color looks like, and I hope it helps someone out there make a decision. Unlike me. (haha!)

On to the swatching!

Zoya Ibiza - 2 coats. Gorgeous! A deep navy blue with glowy shimmer. I really do love this one. I feel like its the navy blue cousin of Chanel Malice (This winter's "It" polish).

Zoya Aurora - 3 coats. A jelly base with holographic glitter. I ordered this one for the name since Sleeping Beauty is my favorite move. I wish Zoya would come out with a polish named Victoria so I could buy it. I was a little underwhelmed by this one though.

Blurred to show to holo sparkle happiness 

The one thing I do find interesting and unique about this collection (the holiday 2012 Ornate collection) is that the glitter is almost like a little shard or flakie, not a regular glitter piece, so it is equally gorgeous in the shade/indoors! 

Zoya Blaze - this is my favorite of the 3. I think I used 3 coats. When I was putting it on I thought to myself that it looked really similar to another polish I own - Barry M Slammin' Red - which I love the color of but HATE how bad of a topcoat eater it is. I could put on 5 coats of gelous and 10 coats of topcoat and STILL have bumpiness an hour later. So I dont wear that because im not into that kind of stuff (you won't see me swatching any of those sand finish polishes on here lol!)

Blaze (this was with topcoat since I decided I wanted this to be my mani for the day)

I love how this polish changes colors. In the sun its a bright cherry red, inside it changes anywhere from almost a deep oxblood color to a rich apple red.

Look how different this color looks from the first picture! Amazing! (or maybe I just have a shatty camera...which would also mean I have shatty eyeballs too)

So here is the comparison between the two. I have it labeled in the picture. Slammin' Red is significantly more holo and sparkly, but the formula on the Zoya is so much better. Its smooth, easy to apply, and its this shiny without topcoat! Love! I'm definitely keeping the Zoya and swapping away Slammin' Red. 

So lumpy!

Maybe I will hold on to Slammin' Red for a giveaway or blog sale when I get more followers - I'm up to 1400 page views! Woohoo!

Also, the NailzCraze contest has begun! If you remember the wintery sweater nails I did for the contest please go vote for me here! Just leave a comment at the bottom of her page letting her know how much you love and adore entry #9 :) 

Thanks for reading, enjoy!

-Victoria

A wonderful surprise!

So I guess this is the "something exciting" I was talking about yesterday, and one of the creating forces for this blog. I entered OPI's Halloween candy mani contest this year. I have always wanted to enter one of their nail art contests, but I feel like the people who enter the first day get such a head start on everyone else they have the best shot at winning - and I always ended up seeing the contest with 1 or 2 days left. So this year I was literally starting to do my nails as the contest started. And I was eating Dots. (And coffee....breakfast of champions haha!) I think I might have been the third entry as son as the contest started? Either way, here was my entry. I used Zoya Pippa as the base, Butter London Blaggar for the blue circles, white nail art paint, and some random colors that I dont remember for the actual dots. I just used my striping/dotting tool to do the art (which is getting kind of raggedy, I think I need a new one!)

This probably took me at least an hour to do. I was really frustrated that it wasn't perfect but I didn't  have time to re-do it. And at the time, compared to the other 3 candy corn manis that were already up, I thought it was pretty original, and since Dots are my favorite candy anyways, it was totally appropriate.

So as the week went on my votes skyrocketed. YAY! Complete strangers liked my nails! I was soooo excited I finally had a shot to win something! But at the last minute another entry shot to first place. Bummer. BUT I remembered that it was OPI who chose the winner from the top ten! I still had a shot! I know I didn't get first place in votes, so I wasn't getting my hopes up.

I found out when I got to work yesterday and it was a COMPLETE surprise! Soooooo excited! And then I started reading to comments below my picture. Really? Do people not realize that a real person did this? Put their heart into it and is now reading their hurtful, rude comments? People were saying they had no idea why I won, that OPI was crazy, it looked like a 9 year old painted my nails, etc. I cried. I really did. I put a lot of effort into this to make it look as crisp and clean as possible. Yes, you can go all crazy with over-the-top nail art but my end goal was to do something that was very clean looking and easy. Something that anyone would be able to do. And if you look back at the rules, OPI was going to judge based on the quality of the picture, the cleanliness of the manicure (no polish on nails, clean lines, etc) relevance to the prompt (you favorite halloween candy! I wonder how many people actually used their favorite? Or just did something that was cute?) and overall creativity. I took all of those into consideration to create a well-rounded entry. I was surprised with as many votes that I got how many people were so upset! And I also dont understand WHY people got upset. People were MAD. People that didn't even enter a photo! Maybe someone can help me out with that?

Ok, enough ranting. I'm over it, I'm very thankful I won. So thank you to everyone who voted for me and thank you to OPI! Happy Halloween everyone!

-Victoria