Comparison: Zoya Neeka vs. Zoya Lotus

Zoya Neeka is from the fall Smoke and Mirrors Collection. Zoya Lotus is from the new spring True Collection. Some people were worried they might be dupes, so here they are in a comparison.

Zoya Neeka is on my pointer and ring fingers, and Lotus is on the middle and pinky. Neeka is a darker purple and has more shimmer.


In the bottle comparison, you can see that Lotus has pink glassfleck shimmer and Neeka has gold.

Zoya Lotus

Zoya Neeka

The polishes definitely aren't dupes, but maybe sisters. Lotus has a lighter creamier base and pink glassfleck shimmer, compared to Neeka's deeper dustier base and full gold glassfleck shimmer. Lotus is Neeka's happier sister.
Which do you prefer?

Zoya True Collection Swatches

The True Collection is Zoya's new line of polishes for Spring. Aren't they gorgeous?

LtoR: Farah,  Lotus, Bevin, Skylar, Cho, Tru


Zoya Bevin - Dusty sage green creme. I haven't seen anything like this and I absolutely love it! This is my favorite in the collection, and I usually prefer anything but cremes!


Zoya Skylar - Beautiful sky blue with silver glass fleck shimmer.


Zoya Cho - Light beige with yellow undertones and silver shimmer. This one is truly both beige and yellow. They both show their faces often. The shimmer is there, but not prominent. And yes this makes me think of Harry Potter :D.


Zoya Farah - Light creamy camel beige creme. This is similar to Farah but a bit darker and more beige, with no shimmer.


Here is Farah's darker side.

Zoya Tru - Bright rosey purple creme with a touch of electricity and packed with pink glass fleck shimmer.

Zoya Lotus - Dusty purple with grey undertones and pink glass fleck shimmer.

Do you have the Zoya True Collection? Do you want it? Which is your favorite? Every one of these had a great formula and application, and the pictures are two coats without topcoat.
You can order them on Zoya.com for $8 a piece. Be on the lookout on their Facebook and Twitter for promotions, if you're thrifty!
I was provided these polishes from Zoya for review. It's my first review from Zoya, my very favorite polish company, so I'm very excited! :D

Birchbox January 2011

Here is my Birchbox for January 2011.

As you can see on the card I got Borghese Moisture Intensifier, Juicy Couture Viva La Juicy perfume sample, Jouer Body Butter, Stila eyeliner, and a mini Larabar.

I kind of liked the perfume, and I'm sure the liner is nice. The Larabar sounded good but really wasn't. It was also 100 calories at about two bites. The body butter is fine, but boring and flowery. Moisture intensifier...wtf is that? So it's official. I'm cancelling my subscription as soon as I get around to using my points. It's not that Birchbox is bad, it's just okay. I wanted more than just okay. And I feel like the $10 a month I spend on this would be better saved and spent on fewer products that I'll actually use.
How do you feel about Birchbox?

Happy Feet With Ginny

As I told you ladies last week, I had to quit my job with Ginny (if you haven't met her, read our first post) for my internship. It was really sad, but we had a good time polishing one last time! I used the color that you all voted for!

Revlon Grapefruit Fizz won by far!

It is a sheer pink jelly with pink glass flecks and shimmer. This is two coats applied to a moving child lol. 

Aren't those pretty pink toes?

Happy feet! I asked her to show me her toes haha. I love this pic! You can still see the pink toes in the excited blur. 

Here we have the dainty foot model pose :P. 

This is the last time we held hands. It's one of her greatest forms of affection.

The only thing better...

...is when she puts her face close to mine for a kiss on the cheek. She has only done this for me maybe 3 times in over a year. I'm so happy she wanted a kiss on my last day with her. A lovely kiss goodbye :). It's bittersweet. I love her and will miss her. Thank you so much for loving Ginny :). 

Zoya Neeka

I've been wearing Zoya Neeka for a few days and I love it. I wore it when I volunteered at the homeless shelter just the other day and got like 8 compliments. I told everyone it was named after my friend Neeka from In the Life of a MILF. You're pretty much famous :D. 

Neeka is a gorgeous dark dusty purple with glass fleck shimmer in gold and pink. 

The formula is a flawless two coater with no issues whatsoever. Oh how I love Zoya. 

Julep Maven

I got my Julep Maven intro box for 1 penny! They had a deal around Christmas time where you could get your first box for one penny, so I figured why not. This is the Boho Glam box. 

I got Julep Selena (pea green), Julep Boris and Nicole(brown with gold shimmer), red flaky glitter, a full size Facial for Hands, Age Defying Hand Brightener sample, and SPF 30 hand cream sample. Not crazy excited about Selena lol. I did end up cancelling after because it's $20 a month. It's just too expensive for my taste. It is nice though. I believe the monthly boxes don't have all the little stuff in addition though.
Did you get in on this deal? Are you already a Julep Maven?

Party Hearty Pedi

Yea yea, I know it's way past Christmas. It was actually only a little over two weeks ago. This pedi was just too cute to not post.

I started with two coats of Phat Santa - a dark but not too dark, rich red creme.

I had to use the lovely China Glaze Pearty Hearty for Christmas. I got it from my friend Jody :).

This is one coat of Party Hearty over Phat Santa. It's a clear polish with tiny gold square glitter, small green hex glitter, and large red hex glitter. It reminds me of holly.

I wanted to do a glitter sandwich so I added one coat of the only red jelly I have, Revlon Mystical.

I love how it turned out and only just recently took it off lol! I LOVE Party Hearty!

Vote for Ginny's Nails

Ginny says (in sign language) please pick what color to paint my nails!
A new semester is starting soon, my final semester in college, so things in my life are changing. I have to give up my job with Ginny, as I will be doing a 40 hour a week internship as well as another class. If you haven't met Ginny yet, she is a girl I've been taking care of on weekends for over a year. She has multiple disabilities, so things can be difficult. One thing she really enjoys is when I paint her nails. You can read more about her the first, second, and third times I painted her nails.

This weekend is my very last weekend working with her. Since I know many of you love my posts about Ginny, I thought I'd let you choose which nail polish I use. Because she can't speak to tell you if she's hurt or in pain, her mother prefers that I use a sheer polish so that you can see her nail through it. I went through my collection and picked out a few for you to choose from.

Diamond Cosmetics Gloworm Green (glow in the dark glitter), Nail Fetish Fairy Dust (holo glitter), WetNWild Party of Five Glitters, Barry M Pink Iridescent (glitter), China Glaze White Cap (gold and white frosty shimmer), CoverGirl Pink Twinkle, Zoya Soho Punch, and I totally forgot to add Finger Paints Twisted (multicolor flakie)

Zoya Astra (bright pink glitter), Zoya Nova (pinky purple glitter), Funky Fingers Manic Flamingo (pink jelly with blue shimmer), Revlon Dawn, Revlon Mystical, Revlon Grapefruit Fizz (pink glass fleck), Revlon Colada Fizz (blue glass fleck)

Please let me know which color you'd like me to paint Ginny's toes this special and final time. You can pick more than one if you want. Just comment with your choice or vote in the poll on the right sidebar. 

Ginny says thank you for loving us!

And we love you too!

Kat Von D Lolita

I got my first Kat Von D lipstick for Christmas and I love it!

I chose Lolita, a dusty rose pink nude.

 It's different than my other pinks because it has a much richer more natural tone to me. Considering the natural color of my lips, it seems almost a nude.  It's similar to my lip color but darker, richer, and more fabulous!

I love this lipstick! The packaging is super cool, it goes on great, doesn't get dry, and lasts a few hours. 

Blog Sale Update

I updated my blog sale (and swap list) again with more makeup and perfume samples. I also have some other random stuff that I don't know if I should add. How do you feel about used makeup? I mean I got an Urban Decay palette used from someone in a swap and I thought it was awesome. Technically when you try on makeup at the store they disinfect it. Lipstick seems a little more weird than eyeshadow, but they just dip it in alcohol and wipe it off. Is it eeww or not really? Would you ever get some in a swap or cheap from a blog sale? I just have all this stuff I'm not using anymore!

Here are a few of the things I added:

Force of Love, A DL Dupe

Icing Force of Love is a pretty good dupe of the luxurious Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe. This is two coats of Force of Love. It is a dark navy blue jelly with small silver glitter, medium sized bright blue hex glitter, and greenish blue hex glitter.
The formula was mediocre. It was kind of lumpy and not self-leveling. Like any glitter, you need to be careful of it hanging off the sides and free edge. To fix that issue I lick my finger and rub it along the free edge. The wetness of your finger doesn't cause friction and ruin the super wet polish, where a dry finger or tool would.

Here is a close up of the glitter.

 I think the green glitter in Force of Love is really blue with a slight green or tealy tinge. The Deborah Lippman seems to have green green glitter. The silver glitter is also less pronounced and more blue in the DL. Here is a swatch of Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe from my friend Stacy at ParlevouzOngles to compare.

Price is the biggest difference. DL: $18 at Nordstrom or online. Icing: $7.50 at Icing, often b1g1 half off for polishes.

I do prefer the DL. Is it close enough to kill the lemming?

Flakie Comparisons

With all the new flakies coming out, I wanted to give you a comparison of every flaky I currently own. Here are pictures on my swatch nails over black with color descriptions.

Bright blue, green, teal     Green, yellow, amber

   Blurple, emerald green    Red, orange, amber,
                                      yellow, green, teal

       Red, orange, amber,     Bright green and blue flakes,
yellow, green, teal, blue     round and square glitter 

Orange, yellow, green   Orange, yellow, green

                           blue, blurple                                                                                                                      

Pink, green, copper,     Yellow orange, copper

                          blue microflakies

Silvery white flakes

Many flakies are similar, so when I'm trying to decide between two that look the same swatched I go with the cuter bottle :P. And because the bottles and swatches often don't match up, here are bottle pics. 

Golden Rose 04                     Golden Rose 13

       Golden Rose 11                     Golden Rose 03

Golden Rose 15               Sinful Colors Green Ocean

Finger Paints Twisted                    Nubar 2010

Zoya Soho Punch                     CoverGirl Pink Twinkle

Sally Hansen Glass Slipper