Zoya Anja

   Ah fall.  Time to watch the leaves change for about 2 weeks then all fall off the trees at once while the weather goes from 70s one day to 50s the next.  Oh, you mean that's just here in the south?  Hmm.  I may live in the wrong region.  But no matter where you live fall is the time to break out the dark colors.   Zoya Anja from the Fall Smoke collection is perfect for this. 

   Anja is a nice plum shade.  She dries darker on the nail to more the color of a very ripe plum- a blackened red/purple.  The formula on this one was just a little on the thick side so I recommend making sure your base coat is completely dry before applying the polish.  I didn't and my index finger is a bit patchy because of it.  On the positive side, Anja is pigmented enough that she's a 1 coat polish.  I used my standard Zoya base and top combo of China Glaze Strong Adhesion and Barielle Manicure Extender.  However because of the strong pigmentation there was a bit of staining on my skin from clean up.  So you might want to be really careful with application to try to minimize clean up needs.  Not that I'm one to talk about that.

Direct Sun

Shade

Indoor

China Glaze Mummy May I

   It's Halloween Week!  Anyone besides me excited?  I love Halloween.  It's one of my two favorite holidays.  Just behind Christmas.  
   In honor of Halloween, today I have for you Mummy May I from the China Glaze Awakening collection.   Mummy May I is a deep plum jelly-like base with lots of fuchsia glitter.  In the bottle and on the hand it looks like a black base, but I promise it is a deep plum.  This is more apparent with the first coat of polish.

   The formula for MMI was a little thick, but that is not unusual for a glitter polish.  Application was a little troublesome for me.  I had problems with the glitter particles becoming clumpy on the brush and therefore not applying smoothly to the nail.  I used one coat of Seche Base base coat, I believe 3 coats of MMI, and one coat Seche Vite top coat.  

Direct Sun

Indirect Sun

Shade

Indoor

   As you can see, the glitter is the star of this polish.  It shines through and makes a statement no matter what lighting you're in.  Look closely at my thumb.  See the small line of nail at the tip?  I painted my nails just before bed and took the photos first thing the next morning.  I normally don't experience shrinkage with China Glaze so this bothered me a little.  I'm not sure if it is a result of the clumpiness I experienced, or me still trying to adjust to short nails after a few bad breaks.  Either way, I wasn't happy.  But despite that, in the 4 hours I was at work with this polish on, I received many compliments on it.  

   So while with this application I had a few issues, it is clearly a popular color and I do like the look.  So I will give it another shot when my nails, hopefully, grow back out and I'm not stressed about travel.  What does everyone else think?  Like the color?  Has anyone else tried this one and have similar issues or did you have a flawless application?