Zoya Angel

I found few older pics of some pinks in my hard drive. Zoya Angel is one of my favorite pinks, very soft and super flattering to my skintone. The base shade is dusty rose with a hint of mauve in it. The polish is packed with shimmer that seems to be a mix of pink and perhaps pale gold or silver with warm tinge. The overall impression is grayed rose in my eyes. In the bottle the shimmer is very dominating, but on the nail this color can be surprisingly cremelike, especially in indirect light.

The light in the picture is warm indirect evening light and it gives a little too warm impression of this color - although it really has a beigeish nature in warm light. The bottle image gives a good impression of the color in more cool light.


This polish can be used with just one sheer layer or 2 to 3 layers for more opaque look. The consistency is thin and fast drying, easy to work with if you don't try to make thick coats.

Opi Tickle My France-y

Here's an older image of Tickle My France-y for comparison to Misa High Waist Hue. I still haven't decided which one of these should go. It might be that Francey is bit more flattering on me, but on the other hand I prefer Misas formula.

I have to say that I'm not too into nudes. Like my husband said, once you decide to paint your nails it would be nice to notice the result. These popular mushroom shades are perhaps just a bit more interesting than more traditional nudes in my records - but it does not justify keeping these dupes in my stash.

Misa High Waist Hue

Misa High Waist Hue is a very close relative to Opi Tickle My France-y - it has just a tad more pink in it and very secret blue shimmer, which I can't really see in the nail (got to check it out in bright sunlight, though). I prefer Misa's consistency, very nice to apply and perfect cover with two coats while Francey needed three. I know that I have a picture of Francey, too, I will publish it later for comparison.


I guess that these are so close, that I'll probably give another away. I try to keep my nail polish stash reasonable, so I keep only the shades I absolutely love and try to get rid of duplicates.

Rimmel French manicure

This manicure is made with Rimmel Nail tip whitener and Rose Praline. It is my first self made French manicure ever, so it's far from perfect, pardon for that!

It is also a start for my quest for a really good tip polish. Rimmel version is truly a bright white and it has a neat innovation: slightly slanted brush that eases the application, especially on the corners of the tips. Those are the goods. Bads: the formula. It is extremely difficult to apply evenly and slightly too thick for a tip polish. I strongly dislike thick nail tips... ...I will give this a second chance, though, but it definitely needs thinner.

Rose Praline is not a perfect choice for French mani, either. It was a bit streaky after two coats - and after the third it is too opaque for pretty French effect. But otherwise I have to say that this is one of my favourite nudes. The base is perfect soft bone white, enriched with beautiful pink shimmer and crystal twinkle. You can get a distant idea of the beautiful shimmer at least from the larger image, but the indirect lighting does not get the best out of shimmers. It is there, and it is beautiful, trust me! The color is pale, but not boring. Application is not perfect but evens nicely with the third coat.

My nail beds are quite curved and that is definitely a challenge for manicures. With too big brushes I'm not able to get to the side edges of the nails without staining the skin badly. On the other hand, cleaning that skin afterward is difficult, too. I easily end up ruining the polish...

A perfect pearl: Mavala Infinity

Mavala Infinity is a pearl finish light gray polish with a slight tinge of lavender in it and I really like it - I can't say that from many pastel pearl polishes. You see two layers here with no base or topcoat, but you can't see a single stripe or pearly blob, bubble or other imperfection so typical to pearl finish. The color is from spring 2009 Harmony collection, a small but nice range of slightly unconventional pastels. This color is quite bland in the bottle, but surprisingly nice and crisp on the nail.

Mavala has small 5 ml bottles, perfect for adventurous finger painter. I have somewhat mixed experiences about the quality, it ranges from excellent to quite hard to work with. But the basic collection and seasonal shades are readily available in virtually all local supermarkets and the nail care product range is good.

Zoya Lulu - that summer peach

I have some recent manicures photographed and ready to publish, so I will purge those pics here eventually.

This is Zoya Luly, a lovely, slightly jellylike peach + Mavala Mavadry topcoat. That jelliness makes a difference to the usual, chalky outlook of most pastel polishes and really sets this color apart in my records. I can totally see myself wearing this a lot in the next summer, it will probably be even more flattering when I get a hint of color to my skin.

Usually four coats is too much for my patience, but this particular color really needs them, and it really got prettier and prettier with each application. One coat made my nails look just stained. There definitely is a yellowish tone in this color - so there is no use for it in sheer manis unless you have a purpose to look like a chain smoker.

Otherwise this polish was nice to work with. The consistency is little bit in a thin side as with my other Zoya polishes, and it dries pretty fast. Except that four coats of polish never dries particularly fast...