Zoya Fire and Ice Collection for Winter/Holiday 2010

I've been complaining that almost none of the recent collections have really excited me very much and saying how much I hope someone would release a collection that totally thrills me... I think this might be it! I've had these for a couple weeks now and I'm still giddy every time I look at them!


Now that it's fall my lighting situation has been less than ideal. I've had to re-do these twice and still I'm not happy with how they look. That warm autumn sunset light does not make for pretty pictures. I apologize in advance for the gross lighting but I've tried to take more pictures to make up for it.

Here we go. Fire and Ice.

Crystal. Light blue foil with gold foil flecks. I have heard that this is similar to OPI Reflecting Pool, but I don't have it to compare so I can't say for sure, but I thought I'd mention it just in case. This is a really gorgeous icy looking polish. Great winter shade. I love the way the gold sparkles against the blue.



Gloria. This one is a little more complex. It's rose based foil with warm pink and iridescent gold reflections. There's a lot of different tones in it so it has a nearly duochrome look when it's on the nails. Every time I look at it I see more colors sparkling at me. It's a pink I would actually wear, it's that beautiful.



Lisa. My pictures of this didn't come out so well despite me taking dozens of them, so I'm going to try to explain it the best I can to give you a better idea of how it looks in real life. It's red-based, a lighter shade than Sarah but with sort of a faint pink tone to it. The finish is extremely sparkly glass-fleck type glitter like the shades in the Sparkle collection. It's much more saturated in real life, not so faded looking like it looks in my pictures. Very, very sparkly.



Sara / Sarah. I don't know which it is- my bottle says "Sara" without the H, but the spoons say "Sarah". The color is really rich in this polish. It's so festive and pretty. It's a really great deeper shade of red, not quite the bright candy red of Lisa, more of a fruit punch type of red. Cool toned. Super mega sparkly. Same sparkle finish of Lisa, just a deeper, cooler red. The perfect Christmas red! My pictures don't capture how nice and colorful this is, if you're thinking of ordering spoons, take a look at this one!



Tiffany. A peach foil! I don't think I've seen many of those. It's a little coppery but on my nails it looks more peach and champagne with some soft gold and silver than reddish copper. I keep using the word 'sparkly' but that's really the best way to describe all these colors. They sparkle like crazy. It's like opening up a treasure chest full of gold and jewels. They need one of those chime sparkle sound effects to go with them when you wear them. Kinda like this:





Valerie. This is really an amazing color. I like all the colors in this collection but this one is just... wow... I mean, look at it! It's purple, it's sparkly, it has gold and pink duochrome... What's not to love? This may be my favorite Zoya color of all time. It takes all the elements I love from sparkly duochrome purples like Zoya Mimi, Claire's Magic, Milani Totally Cool, et cetera but it gets rid of the sheerness and darkens them into a dramatic, sparkling vampy purple that has my name written all over it. It's a red based purple with pink sparkle and depending on the light and angle at which you view it you'll see red and gold sparkle as well. You can see some of it stuck to the bottle. So gorgeous.

There are two distinct finishes in this collection: foil and sparkle.

The foils: Gloria, Crystal and Tiffany

These are the foil shades. If you're unfamiliar with a foil finish, a foil is made up of tiny smooth metallic particles and they combine on the nail to create a sparkly metal effect. They're reflective and smooth, they don't show brushstrokes and they look just fine without topcoat. The foils in Fire and Ice are all multi-tonal- you can see lots of iridescent color when you wear them. Top notch, very complex.

The sparkles: Lisa, Valerie, Sarah.

And these are the sparkles. If you have the Zoya Sparkle collection from this summer you'll be familiar with Zoya's sparkle finish. It's glittery, but not in a traditional glitter type of way. Traditional glitter is a very defined particle, usually round or hexagon shaped, made of plastic with shiny coating. They almost always have texture in a polish- think Zoya Roxy, OPI Absolutely Alice or China Glaze Atlantis. But the glitter in the sparkle finish polishes is a smooth shiny pearl particle- almost like tiny glass beads embedded in the polish. They don't have much of a texture and won't feel bumpy like a traditional glitter particle. I'm not sure what exactly they're made of but they make me think of glass or crystal.

The formula on these was great. The sparkle shades were nearly one-coaters, extremely opaque. The foil shades were more on the sheer side and needed two coats. I did two coats of everything. The sparkles dry to a dull finish so topcoat is a must (topcoat is a must regardless, though!). The foils dry glassy even without topcoat. Application is smooth and even. Drying time is good. Removal isn't difficult but you'll likely be left with some sparkly stuff on your fingers afterward.

Overall, this is a kick-ass collection. I crave sparkles. I love every single color and I'd wear them all. Obviously, Valerie is my favorite. These are nice winter shades, icy blue and festive red, but no reason at all you couldn't wear them year round. I think Tiffany is actually a nice beachy looking shade for summer. All the shades are packed with life and sparkle and magic and they make me want to stare at my fingertips all day. Distracting!

(These were sent to me for review.)

Zoya Fire and Ice Collection Winter 2010 Sneak Preview

Oh my... look what just arrived:

Tiffany, Gloria, Crystal, Lisa, Sarah, Valerie
(Click to enlarge)

And blurred to show the fantastic sparkle:

This is Zoya's Fire and Ice collection for Winter/Holiday 2010. I'm not allowed to post swatches just yet but I have already tried them on and I can assure you they absolutely rock. Tons of sparkle. And Valerie? Words can not describe how excited I felt when I tried on Valerie.

Finally, a collection that excites me! Looks like it's going to be a sparkly winter!

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.)

Zoya introduces "Spooning"!

Zoya's been teasing us all week with this 'spooning' thing and now they've revealed the secret!

I'll post the press release below, but I wanted to weigh in on this too.

Honestly, I think this is an AWESOME idea. No other company does this! Seriously! A lot of us like to buy online (and for some it may be the only option because Zoya can be hard to find in stores) and a lot of people complain about how they can't tell what the color looks like from a company's online photos... Now they don't have to complain anymore! You get to see the real color in real life and hold it up to your own skin to see if it will look good on you. And then, the money you spent on the Zoya Spoons goes toward the polish you buy (or if you ended up not liking the polish, you can use it toward other things like treatments too), so it's like they're free. Genius, Zoya, genius. I think this is going to help a lot of people buy polish!

Anyway, this is it:

Zoya Nail Polish wants to Spoon with you!

Do you REALLY love nail polish? Have you ever purchased a color online or from a color chart only to find that it doesn’t match the picture? Have you always wanted to be able to try on nail polish the way you do clothing?

Well, what if you could see EXACTLY how any Zoya color would look on YOU before you buy it? What if you could make sure you ALWAYS get your perfect pink? Or perfect red. Or purple! ANY color! Any shade, EVERY TIME! Well now you can...

Zoya presents a new way to shop for nail color - The Zoya Color Spoon!

Every incredible Zoya nail color made will now be available as a spoon so you can try it before you buy it! This is a revolution for the online nail polish consumer and salon and spa buyers alike who previously only had online color representations or printed color charts as a guide. Never before have you been able to try so much color for so little money out of pocket. This is same Zoya color that comes in the bottle poured into small nail shaped wells to create a tester color spoon - you can see every subtle detail of the color and hold it up to your nail to see exactly how it will look. Plus, the amount you pay for the spoons will be added to your account in the form of code that will be available for use on a future Zoya purchase and BONUS Zoya will ship the spoons to you at no charge. “It’s amazing that we will be able to do this for our customers - there really is nothing else like it in the nail polish market today” stated Leo Reyzis, VP of Marketing at Zoya.

So quit the color guessing game when purchasing nail color online and try any one of Zoya’s over 300 formaldehyde, toluene, dibutyl phthalate and camphor free, vegan friendly shades. Now you can be sure that the color you try is the exact same color you buy!

See it - Try it - Buy it!

Zoya Nail Spoons - $0.50 ea. (free shipping on all spoons - value of spoon(s) will be added to your account for a future zoya.com purchase).

Zoya Nail Spoons will be available at www.zoya.com starting September 1, 2010.

Here’s how it works...

Simply visit www.zoya.com, select a color(s) to try, click on the coordinating Zoya Color Spoon option in the product ordering area to add the color spoon to your shopping cart. Order as many as you would like. After your order has been approved and processed, zoya.com will ship your selected color spoons out for you to try and email you a confirmation along with your spoon value code (code will also be available under the “my account” section of www.zoya.com so you never have to worry about losing it).*

* All Zoya Color Spoon sales are final. One time personalized spoon value code. Zoya Color Spoon value code can be applied to any polish or treatment item at www.zoya.com. Code cannot be used to purchase additional spoons.