China Glaze Rodeo Diva Fall 2008 Revisited

This collection was released in 2008 but to this day, even after the dozens of new collections that have been released since then, China Glaze's Rodeo Diva remains one of my favorite collections of all time. This is what a fall collection should look like.

When I posted my swatches two years ago I was so excited about these colors that I rushed and posted pretty crappy pictures. I just couldn't wait, I was so thrilled that I had to post them immediately! But the lighting was bad, my application was shaky and I had some broken nails. So, I figured it was about time I try to do these amazing polishes justice.

Here they are once again, the incredible China Glaze Rodeo Diva polishes.


Branding Iron. A deep blackened red shimmer. One of my favorite kinds of colors! See how it looks dark on the edges and light in the middle? I can't get enough of those colors.



Cowgirl Up. Amazing red-purple shimmer. Possibly in frost territory? The shimmer is really fine like a frost but this is just too pretty and smooth to be a true streaky-silvery frost. This shade looks really amazing in the sunlight, it has hidden iridescent shimmer!



Golden Spurs. A warm light suede brown base with gold shimmer. This one doesn't look that great on me but I still love the color. So much pretty gold shimmer!



Gussied Up Green. I remember this being my favorite one when I first got this collection, but now I can't pick a favorite. This is a blackened blue-leaning green shimmer. Very dark but when the sunlight hits it it really sparkles.



Lasso My Heart. A mauve purple foil. Not as dense or silver-toned like most foils, this one is pure color and very smooth.


Midnight Ride. Extremely dark purple shimmer. Dark and dramatic. Looks mostly black indoors but in the sunlight you get glints of glorious purple.



Prize-Winning Mare. Similar to Golden Spurs in concept- a light brown base with gold shimmer. This one is much more shiny and metallic, though, and not as warm. The overall effect of this one is actually more of a bronze foil metallic look than just a plain shimmer.



Red Stallion. This color never photographs right for me! It's so metallic and shiny that my camera freaks out. It's a bright metallic red, very glowy, almost radioactive.


Rodeo Fanatic. Medium blue shimmer. Seems to be a tiny bit on the teal side- doesn't look like straight pure blue to me. Maybe there's a touch of green in the formula?



Side Saddle. The base of Side Saddle is a dark brown-toned plum shade. Raisin perhaps? Brown and purple, a bit like Lancome Lizzie Jagger. The shimmer in this is very shiny light gold.


Wagon Trail. What a cool color. It's a black base with gold shimmer but it combines on the nail to look like a olive green. Looks amazing in the sunlight.



Yee-Haw! Orangey, coral-ish pink and gold shimmer. Quite warm. Has an almost duochrome look to is because the pink-coral-peach base and the gold shimmer are each so strong that you see more gold where the light hits it and more pink where the light is indirect.


This was during the area where China Glaze's formula was on the iffy side. Runny, drippy yet thick. Remember those days? The formula on these was actually not bad, but not the easiest to control. I did three coats in all these pictures. Drying time is on the long side for some colors but not for all of them.

Still love this collection... Still get excited about it every time I see the colors. Not very many polish collections have that sort of effect on me!

I don't think any of these colors are particularly hard to find even though they're a few years old. I wonder if any of them have been made permanent? I'll have to find out!

Intro to Spooning: How does it work?

Here's a little step-by-step guide to help you get acquainted with the idea of Spooning with Zoya. It may seem a little strange at first, but you'll end up hooked on Spooning in no time!

First, you visit zoya.com and pick out spoons of colors you're interested in- I am using Tosca as an example because it's the first search result, but Zoya Spoons are available in every color.

http://zoya.com/content/38/item/Zoya/TOSCA-SPOON.html <-- First step: get spoons! Then, in a couple of days, they'll arrive in a pretty little Zoya envelope!


Oooh, aaah! Neat! So... step 2: open the envelope! (With these particular spoons, Zoya demonstrates how to pick your perfect red).

You don't need to take the spoons out if you don't want to, but when you do they look like this:



Note the item number and shade name clearly printed on the handle. No hand-scribbled sharpie smudges here, these are neat and professionally labelled, bar code included!

Step three: Try on the color!


Here's the beauty of spoons: they fit over your nail to give you a clear idea of how the color will look on your actual nails! They're on the large side so I am using my thumb as an example. Hmm... not sure I like the oval nail shape on me! Haha!

With the spoons you get a true-to-life representation of color. Here's a closeup:

The color you see in the spoons is what you get on your nails. No more confusing or misleading stock photos that make you buy the wrong color!

Spoon color is even more accurate than bottle color because sometimes a color can look different when it dries. Here's how they compare to bottle color:

Jade, Nidhi, LC, Ruby, Carmen, Andi.

When you purchase Zoya Spoons (50 cents each), Zoya will email you a code for the value of the spoons. It will also be available in the "My Account" section on Zoya.com so you don't lose it. So say you order $3 worth of spoons like there are pictured here... You'll have a $3 credit toward your next purchase via a one-time-use code. That leads me to step four: Order your polishes with the spoon credit!

You don't have to buy the same polishes that you picked spoons for. You can pick any polish. Maybe some of the colors didn't work for you, or maybe you want some Armor topcoat instead of another polish color. The Spoon credit code will go toward any color or treatment. The spoons end up basically becoming free previews. Pretty sweet, eh?

I think this is an awesome idea for online polish shoppers and I wouldn't be surprised to see other companies 'borrowing' this idea in the future. It's way more useful than that completely inaccurate color picker with the photoshopped hand that you see on some other salon brand polish websites. You get to see the actual color, in person, against your very own skin.

Here's Zoya's spoon explanation (taken from Zoya.com):

"What's a Zoya Color Spoon?

Zoya Color Spoons are clear plastic, spoon shaped devices with actual nail polish poured in the nail shaped tip. Before you order a bottle of a color you are not sure of, order a color spoon of that color instead. You can order as many (or as few) colors as you would like. When you receive the Zoya Color Spoons, simply hold them up to your nails and see what the actual color will look like on your nails as though you applied 2 coats and a clear top coat. You never have to worry about ordering the wrong color again.

Ok here is the best part: Zoya Color Spoons SHIP FREE (Economy Ground). That's Right, weather you buy 1 or 200 spoons you do not have to pay for shipping unless you want to upgrade to faster shipping.

So how much are the Zoya Color Spoons? Well they are basically FREE. When you place an order for Zoya Color Spoons you are charged $0.50 per spoon, but as soon as your order is invoiced and ships you will receive an email with a personalized promo code for a discount in the amount equal to the amount you spent on spoons to be taken against you next order.You can use your coupon code towards the purchase of the real color you want to buy or any merchandise on our websites. You can even use it to buy additional color spoons."

Though, I am slightly confused about that last line because in the fine print on the press release it says you can't use the code to buy more spoons... Here it says you can use the code to buy more spoons. I'm not sure which is correct!

Color spoons are available now on Zoya's website!

(These were sent to me for review.)