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.)