Zoya Monica and pals - Shop le Stash Part 2

Are you ready for shopping my stash Part 2? Well let's get on with it…

You certainly aren't surprised to find a purple in the basket I brought from my vault. This is Zoya Monica, released in Zoya's Designer Collection for 2012. A wonderfully dark purple with a hint of dustiness. The formula was Zoya perfection: creamy, perfect consistency, flawless application - I am swooning here. Dry time was fantastic and look at this beautiful shine!!!

I have observed some more brown shades ranging from camel to dark brown in many of the Collections. Now camel and I are one of the few absolutely totally no-no-no go combinations. Wearing this color on my nail brings forward the most unflattering shades in both of us - polish and my skin - LOL! I therefore went for a middle toned brown that got little love when it was released as some less appealing associations with its colors were made but look:

These are two coats of China Glaze Mahagony Magic, released in the Hunger Games Capital Color Collection for Spring 2012. The formula is thin but since the brushes of China Glaze are thin as well (I think by now they are the thinnest out there) application is easy though certainly not to be achieved in those famous three strokes with nails as wide as mine. Dry time is normal. Browns are usually not the shades I tend to gravitate to but walking the planet for a full day with Mahagony Magic I found the shade really grew on me. In the sun it looked as if I would have muck on my nails - very glossy and edgy muck that is - and I LIKED it!!!! (I can hardly believe I write this…)
perfect consistency, flawless application - I am swooning here. Dry time was fantastic and look at this beautiful shine!!!  Note: Polish dries darker on the nail.

Lastly one of those dark pine greens had to be included in my vault-basket. Guess what - I own exactly one bottle of bottle green cream polish - this being Illamasqua Kink - and it even isn't your regular cream but dries to rubber finish. Today though I show it with Essence Better than Gel Nails High Gloss Top Coat. I applied two coats of Kink over Essence XXL Nail Thickener. The formula is thin and Kink is not self leveling so an even application helps to prevent bold spots or pools of polish. Now the dry time is a bit peculiar - it dries relatively fast to "dry to touch" level but from there drying goes downhill - it takes FOREVER to thoroughly dry and to be honest, I wasn't really all that exited about the rubber finish in the first place. It is whether a satin sheen, nor matte nor I don't know what. Whenever I wore this polish I always applied a high shine Top Coat as the rubber finish also is not very lasting and you collect dents and marks throughout the day, not to mention the tips turning shiny half way through your day - eeeeks.

Final thoughts: I am more than happy with what I came up with to mirror this years fall collections and I don't feel the need to add any polishes of the new collections to those four I bought. However, I clearly want to state that while I didn't buy any creams from Zoya, Opi, Essie or China Glaze I like the fact that they release staple colors in their spring and fall collections - not everyone is frantic for Indies like me or having such a vast collection. Also the fact that some colors seem very close to each other is very nice - isn't it often enough, that you like a shade of let's say purple but it is just this Yota off the range that would look just stunning against your skin? Having more than one (in this case) purple available to choose from and to find YOUR perfect shade is clever thinking I find.

So, these are the finds out of my vault - are any of them also in your Collection? How did you feel about the uniqueness of this years main stream brand collections?

I look forward to reading your comments - thanks for visiting!!!
Christine