Zoya Lyric

Happy post Game of Thrones day!

Wowza, I've watched episode three twice now and I'm still whoa!

Today on the blog I have a very unusual polish

A Zoya a Day

Name - Lyric

Year - 2007
Number - ZP401
Coats - 2
Finish - Shimmer

Collection - Serendipity 
Colour - Golden Nude
Topcoat - None

Lyric is a discontinued polish on the USA Zoya site but I managed to pick her up on the UK Zoya site.  The description they give is as follows:-

Lyric can be best described as a warm peach with orange and terracotta undertones and soft gold and champagne shimmer, which I was say is correct but as is typical with Zoya this polish falls into several different colour categories, I could put her with my nudes, my peaches or my golds.

Lyric came from the spring 2007 collection from which I also own Diem, Nevaeh = heaven backwards and Marilyn

The formula on this was perfection, no running or pooling and opaque in 2 coats, also this was impossible to get a colour accurate pic! The most realistic is the third pic and my fingers on the right, not sure how Zoya manage it but some of their polishes refuse to photograph colour accurately, looking at you Miss Stella and Miss Jack. the last pic shows up the gold shimmer beautifully though :).

Zoya UK Haul

Happy Friday!

Thank feck its the weekend and a race weekend at that, Formula 1 and Formula E :)

Over Easter Zoya UK had a 40% off code so, how could I resist, well I couldnt and I picked up 8.

I am still searching for the ultimate manicure hands polish, Zoya Sally came close but not quite.

From left to right we have the following

Ginger
Rica*
Evangeline
Deidra
Amminah
Lyric
Quinn*
Colette 

The violet shimmer in Amminah is stunning and I am hoping it translates to the nail!

Most of these are not available on the Zoya US website, the UK has quite a lot of older polishes that are discontinued, *are still available on the US site.

First pic is under my LED light and second is under natural indirect light.

Zoya Evette

Happy Thursday

Today on the blog I have a stunning red toned purple for you and its a one coat wonder as well!

I give you Evette, second picture is taken in natural indirect light and third picture was taken under my LED light, the swatch comparisons are in direct sunlight and the bottle shots are in the same order as the swatch sticks.

This is a gorgeous purple, very red leaning, perfect formula, no running or pooling and totally opaque in one sweet coat. If you love purples like I do then you need this lady in your collection.  She also stamps!

A Zoya a Day

Name - Evette

Year - 2019
Number - ZP980
Coats - 1
Finish - Creme

Collection - Innocence
Colour - Purple
Topcoat - None

Prism Polish Mani featuring Dry January and Trip the Light Prismatic

Today on the blog I have the stunning pairing of Dry January a tri-thermal with Trip the Light Prismatic a pastel multi-chrome.

I started with my usual base which is Zoya Anchor and 2 coats of that.

Then I did two coats of Dry January, I then added Trip the Light Prismatic over my middle fingers and thumbs, the formula on both of these is top notch, no running no pooling.

Dry January goes from a dark purple to a lilac to a light green, this transitions really well, you wont need a hairdryer to see the warm or hot states of this.

I also love that you can see through Trip the Light but you still get that multi-chrome goodness.

Easter Bunny Mani

Today on the blog I have some bunnies.

I've been struggling with nail inspiration lately, so thank goodness for instagram challenges!

Todays was bunnies! Every time I say bunnies I hear the Buffy the Vampire song I'll got a Feeling.

I started with a base of Pretty Serious Little Duckling :) love the colour and the name! It was opaque in two coats, no running or pooling, I then grabbed three Virago Varnish that spoke spring to me and they were Cannon Ball, She Cries Everyday and Bug Bites, my go to basecoat of Zoya Anchor was my starting point, I dont use anything else as my base unless I'm going to wear a glitter and in that case its Unt Ready for Takeoff peel off basecoat.

I then stamped using the Viragos, I used my Clear Jelly Stamper Big Bling and Born Pretty plate BP-60 plus Maniology plate BM-H10 I then topcoated with Barry M Plumpy topcoat.

Instagram Challenge from Claws for a Cause

Happy Wednesday

Today on the blog I have an Instagram Challenge for you from the lovely Claws For a Cause.

https://www.instagram.com/claws_for_a_cause/

April is stress awareness month and Tia wanted us to show stress on our nails, well that stumped a lot of us, me included, in my post I showed you the beautiful Zoya Cana, however, unknown to me naughty Cana stains! So I ended up accidentally with the perfect stressful thing on my nails.

Now I'll bet youre saying whats so stressful about that if you wear polish all the time, well sometimes I dont wear polish, I'll go a couple of days with only basecoat on. But I cant do that if my nails are still stained bright pink, I mean look at them. This picture doesnt do the colour justice either, they literally still looked like they had a polish on. So after this I put a white polish on without basecoat as that can help draw the stain out, I wore that for 24 hours and it did help a bit.

TENS machine

Good morning and happy Easter Monday

Today on the blog I have a TENS machine for you.

Tens stands for Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation and its used to treat pain symptoms, You attach the pads directly to your skin. When the machine is switched on, small electrical impulses are delivered to the affected area of your body, which you feel as a tingling sensation.

The electrical impulses can reduce the pain signals going to the spinal cord and brain, which may help relieve pain and relax muscles. They may also stimulate the production of endorphins, which are the body's natural painkillers, I have to say this last part really works for me, I suffer from arthritis in my hips, knees and left foot.

I purchased mine from amazon and here's the link -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07J58515T/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It comes with 4 large and 4 small sticky electrodes, instructions, charger etc.

Very easy to set up and use, I put all the large electrodes and all the small electrodes together but you can put them in any combo you like as they are a snap on atachment.

There are 16 modes and 8 levels with the one I purchased, I really like mode 4 and 16 the best. Its really helped back the arthritis pain off, I've used it on my lower back and hips, shoulders and on my left foot. The timer mode means you can have it on as little as 10 minutes or as long as an hour, its batter powered, I used mine every day since purchase on the 12th April and it still has 2 out of 3 bars lit.  If you have any kind of pain issue this will be good, although I'm not sure how fibromyalgia suffers would get along with this, but at only £20 its worth a try.  This unit is also very small, think of your old MP3 player from the 90's or a bar phone from then, in fact my hubs seriously thought theyd used old MP3 player cases. The cables for the electrodes are nice and long as well.

This is the best thing I've bought for my arthritis ever, forget your copper bracelet or wheat bag.

One note in the last picture I have not shown the USB plug that came with it, mainly because I have several of those being used for various phones and tablets so didnt need another when I can just unplug a cable. It really does come with everything you need!

Zoya Cana

Today on the blog I have a stunning hot pink for you :)

This gorgeous Cana from Zoya

A Zoya a Day

Name - Cana

Year - 2016
Number - ZP865
Coats - 3
Finish - Neon Matte

Collection - Ultrabrites
Colour - Pink
Topcoat - None

I switched out Zoya's normal precision brush for the Z-wide brush to give a better application, Cana is one of Zoya's safe neon's in that it doesnt have a lot of nasty chemicals in it.  I love that Zoya have now gone 10 free in their polishes, they are my absolute favourite brand and I always buy their whole collections from.

This was my first time using this polish so I had to do three coats and it could have used a forth but I draw the line at three.  This dried really fast as its neon so the coats were not a pain tin the ass to apply and it didnt run or pool either.

I'm taking part in an Instagram challenge and one of the prompts was feathers so I stamped over Cana with Sally Hansen white on and a two bundle monster aka Hello Maniology plates BM-XL209 & BM-XL212, top coating with the only top coat I use for stamping which is Barry M Plumpy Topcoat. If you own Zoya Ali she is a hair brighter with a bluer undertone.

Please be advised this little madam stains! so double up or triple up on your basecoat!

Migraine, depression, Game of Thrones

Hey guys

Long time no blog, I've been struggling a bit with some depression, I had my eyes tested at the beginning of April and my contact lenses reading is now minus 19.25 and my glasses are now minus 24, specsavers want to charge me over £400 for my glasses lenses which I cannot afford, so now I have to ask specsavers to write a letter to the hospital and hope that they take me on and provide me with glasses.  So sick of fighting for help. My migraines have been a bit dodgy as well, think it took a bit for the March botox to finally kick in as well.

Anyway, really I should be happy, I've been managing to walk 2 miles on my treadmill in under an hour which is bloody fantastic given I couldnt walk half a mile at the start of January. I've also lost 4kgs in weight with the walking and watching what I eat.

Today I am wearing the stunning Flowie, its like I dipped my nails in toffee!

A Zoya a Day

Name - Flowie

Year - 2000
Number - ZP139
Coats - 2
Finish - Creme

Collection - Classic
Colour - Brown
Topcoat - None

Miss Rosie is really enjoying the conservatory now as its getting more and more sun and is very warm, which she loves!

Because I've been struggling with my eyes and had moved my chair even closer to our 65 inch tv my hubby went and got a projector and 106 inch screen, we got it set up last weekend and I have been marathoning Game of Thrones on the giant screen, the battles have been epic! I cant wait for April 15th for season 8. We did remove those hideous ceiling lights.

Zoya Cadence and Everly

Today on the blog I have the two new winter holos from Zoya for you.

First up is the stunning Cadence, this is the pink version of Zoya's scattered holo line, great formula opaque in two coats and no running or pooling.

The full list as of today 28 March 2019 is

Storm - Black
Dream - Blue
Finley - Blue toned Purple
Aurora - Pale Purple
Payton - Red toned Purple
Merida - Green
Alicia - Silver
Brighton - Nude
Blaze - Dark Red
Cadence - Pink
Everly - Red

I am hoping that Zoya come out with a grey, orange and yellow to complete the rainbow.

A Zoya a Day

Name - Cadence

Year - 2018
Number - ZP885
Coats - 2
Finish - Scattered Holo

Collection - Winter Holo
Colour - Pink
Topcoat - None

The red version is called Everly, she is stunning, perfect formula, opaque in two coats and no running or pooling.

A Zoya a Day

Name - Everly

Year - 2018
Number - ZP884
Coats - 2
Finish - Scattered Holo

Collection - Winter Holo
Colour - Red
Topcoat - None

Rainbow crazy computer

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was building myself a new PC due to no longer being able to see the screen on my laptop, well its finally finished :) its amazing!

Below are a couple of videos of my crazy rainbow keyboard and my rainbow lights within my PC case :)

The keyboard and the PC Lights are completely programmable to do all sorts of light effects.

The lights under my monitor just do static colours and rainbow swirl per strip.

Zoya Carmen and Shiloh

Happy Friday, today I have two reds.

I love the look of red polish but I hardly ever wear it because the clean up can be awful. I did have to do clean up on these but they cleaned up very well and no red stained skin.

First up is Carmen, this is listed as ZP001 meaning its the first polish Zoya made, Carmen is a medium blue based red, formula was great no running or pooling, opaque in two coats.

A Zoya a Day

Name - Carmen

Year - 2000
Number - ZP001
Coats - 2
Finish - Creme

Collection - Classic
Colour - Red
Topcoat - None

Then we have Shiloh who is a slightly deeper red with red shimmer, again great formula, no running or pooling, opaque in two coats.

A Zoya a Day

Name - Shiloh

Year - 2007
Number - ZP409
Coats - 2
Finish - Shimmer

Collection - Smitten
Colour - Red
Topcoat - None

Louis Vuitton Nails

I'm on a role with posting,

Today I have some Louis Vuitton nails for you, I ordered several plates from Nail-Artisan by Alex by the brand Mundo De Unas, I'd not tried their plates before and saw a post on facebook where someone had the Louis Vuitton plate and I thought thats cute, then fell down the rabbit hole of stamping plates.

Alex's shop https://www.nail-artisan.co.uk/

Alex is fantastic, her shipping is fast and very well packaged and she always has interesting items, be that plates or polish.

I started with two coats of Zoya Anchor my go to basecoat, I've switched out the normal brush for the new Z-wide brush and I have to say that it makes doing my basecoat quicker and I dont seem to be getting the bubbles I was with the old brush. The only down side is I have tiny nails so I have to be careful.

I then did two coats of Agnes, this could have been a one coater if I'd been a little more careful.  Then it was on to the stamping, I decided to go with a smooch of Aire (Blue), Evette (Purple) and Danica (Teal) for the small graphic and then did the logos in the different colours for my thumbs, the Mundo De Unas plates are slightly bigger than a credit card, they are very well etched and the pickup was really good, I dont tend to use polish thats been made specially for stamping as the ones I have tried I didnt like, when I went to do clean up the acetone just seemed to smear the colour over my skin instead of removing it. I topped the stamping off with my go to topcoat which is Barry M Plumpy Topcoat. The shine from Agnes is all her own doing.

You can see on my left hand ring finger I didnt quite float the top coat over my nail and its smeared a bit :( I also think I need to change my scraper, the one I am using now is a little old, I think a bendier scraper would work better.  Overall I am really please with how they turned out :)

Interesting things you use when polishing your nails.

Hey :) 

So today I thought I'd sure some items that you might not think of when you polish your nails :) 

So from top middle we have the following (I say so a lot!! even in real life) 

Watermarble tool

Plastic pipette

Clean up brush

Small dappen dish aka small glass dish

Very small funnel

Large funnel 

Watermarble tool, this isnt quite necessary to do watermarbles but if you do a lot of watermarbling its very nice to have a specific tool.

Plastic pipette, now this one is my own finding, I was forever spilling my pure acetone when I was trying to put it in the small glass dish, our vet had asked us to get a urine sample from our cat and provided the pipette, we never did manage to get a sample from the cat but the pipette struck me as very handy to transfer a small amount of acetone to my dish, less waste and no spilling stuff all over my dish and usually in the process ruining my manicure.

Clean up brush, if you are not great at painting your nails due to either shakey hands (me) or very bad eye sight (also me) then a clean up brush is essential, once you'll done your manicure, if you have a bit of cleanup then you dip your brush into the acetone and clean up your nails.

Glass dish, you need something to put your pure acetone in and you cant really use plastic unless you know its acetone resistant so glass it is, now you can get profession dappen dishes but I found that the glass tea light holders from Ikea to be the perfect size, mine is super mucky but it cleans up ok with a rub of acetone.

Small and large funnels, if youre obcessed with doing your nails you need a lot of nail polish remover, either pure acetone or my favourite is Zoya Remove plus, buying the bigger bottles is more economical value wise but miss shaky hands over here needed help getting the acetone or remove from the large bottle to my small bottles and the funnels are perfect, I use the very small one to put acetone into a nail polish bottle if I have used up a basecoat, treatment or topcoat.

The last item is my nail polish silicon mat, while I  dont mind getting polish etc on my desks, you can use the matte to make decals or test designs out before you go trying to put it on your nails.

Thanks for reading my ramble :) 

Zoya Colour Comparisons for Innocence Spring 2019 and 4 Random polishes I Picked up.

Hey, happy Monday

Sorry for being away for a while, my migraines where really kicking my ass, I had my botox appointment on the 12th March and have now managed to go a few days without a migraine, so hoping that continues.

Theres going to be a lot of pictures so keep going down. All pictures where taken in natural light with the comparison polish always first left in the bottle shots and top in the swatch sticks, also please do excuse the cat fur! I was using Rosie's window blankie as a back drop.

First up Theo from the Innocence collection, Theo is described as a summer thunder storm, yip thats accurate, I dont have anything similar to this in my Zoya's as they've never done anything like this before.

Left to Right
Theo (Innocence)
London
Dahlia

Left to Right

Fern (Innocence)

Sage

Evvie

Ireland

No dupes here, Fern has that gold shimmer and a touch more blue than Sage, Evvie much darker and Ireland with a large amount of yellow.

Left to Right
Aire (Innocence)
Jo
Danielle
Saint

No dupes here, the bottle I thought Aire was close to Jo but you can see the swatches are totally different, with Aire being much darker than Jo and Danielle showing that Aire has some green in there, Saint is way brighter than all of these with that pink shimmer.

Left to Right

Evette (Innocence)

Keiko

Audrina

No dupes, this would make the perfect gradient mani though as they are all just a hair lighter than each other. 

Left to Right
Cadence (Winter Holos)
Reece
Kiki
Everly

Cadence and Everly are the new winter holos they released, I didnt have another like them so I did colour comparisons only, I chose Reece and Kiki, Reece has gorgeous gold shimmer while Kiki has blue shimmer both opaque in 2 sweet coats.

Left to Right

Envy (Dare)

Tabitha

Evvie

Danica

No dupes, Tabitha while a similar base colour has that golden shimmer, Evvie has a really grey undertone and Danica and a really blue undertone, Ency is going to look black in most lights but I wore her for St Patricks day and she was stunning.

Left to Right
Birch (Innocence)
Megan
Vickie
Abby

No dupes, in the bottle Birch and Megan looked very similar but when you put the swatches together you can see how grey Megan pulls compared to Birch, Vickie is also very grey leaning and Abby is way brighter and lighter than them all.

Left to Right
Agnes (Innocence)
April
Ana
Rue

No dupes, this was another were I was sure Agnes would be a dupe of April but no once on the swatch stick you can see that April has a peachy undertone to Agnes and Ana is lighter, Rue is a classic Zoya shade and shes much deeper pink than the others.

Left to Right
Grace (Spa Essentials)
Scarlett
Leigh
Lulu

No dupes, Grace and Scarlett are the closest but not dupes as Grace has a peachy undertone and Scarlett has a pinkie undertone, Leigh is much deeper in colour and Lulu is a very pale peachy orange.