Fall Polishes: CND & Zoya

[cf-shortcode plugin=”acf” field=”press_sample”]

The last two days I’ve walked outside and considered going back in for hoodies. In my mind, that’s good enough to start thinking about fall. Seasonal changes mean seasonal releases, and this time I have not one but TWO fall collections to show you. Well, three if you count the Zoya ones as separate. Here ya are:

Zoya Flair

In the Flair set you get six intense colors, split between metals and bright jewel tones. The wear time on these is the typical 5-7 days. The consistency is pretty standard for Zoya polishes too, except I did find it easy to overload the brush on the red shade.

• Tris – asphalt grey with a definite olive cast and a metallic finish
• Cinnamon – aged copper/bronze metallic
• Aggie – gold with a greenish holo shift that reminds me of copper patina
• Ember – garnet red with a fine metallic finish
• Giada – royal purple – the finish on this one is almost more pearl than metallic
• Estelle – bright metallic cobalt

Zoya Focus

The Focus collection is a set of six saturated cremes. Some of these actually strike me as a little more summery, probably the most appropriate use of “transitional shades” I’ve ever seen. By all means, go ahead and start wearing them now!

• Sia – bright royal blue. It also happens to be almost a dead ringer for U of Kentucky blue, so I’m sure I’ll be painting some white cat paws on top of this come fall (#bbn)
• Lidia – if this isn’t true aubergine, I don’t know what is
• Hannah – bright scarlet, though it pulls a tiny bit orange in some lights
• Janel – bright crimson, deeper and possibly a little more neutral-toned than Hannah
• Desiree – rich black walnut
• Charli – dirty taupe with a strong olive pull

Here we have the swatches, shown in the same order they’re listed above.

The Zoya Flair and Focus collections were provided for review by the company. The opinions and descriptions are my own and I have not been compensated for this post. The Zoya fall collections are available now at zoya.com

CND Vinylux

CND is actually a new brand for me, since most salons around here only carry their Shellac line. My nails are fragile enough as it is, so I try to keep far far away from soak-off polishes. The Vinylux line, on the other hand (pun not intended, but I’m leaving it there anyway) claims 7 days of wear without having to chisel it off when you’re done. Sounds like a winner to me! The idea is that the top coat cures with exposure to UV light, so even though you don’t need a UV lamp to dry it, it should harden just from being in normal sunlight.

The shades in the fall Contradictions collection are:

• Safety Pin – bright tinsel silver with white shimmer
• Grommet – dark steel blue (this one did try to show brush strokes)
• Peacock Plume – vibrant cerulean blue with fine blue and silver shimmers
• Couture Covet – deep teal creme
• Naked Naivete – soft powder pink
• Tartan Punk – warm, bright red with extremely fine red shimmers
• Rouge Rite – rich mulberry red creme
• Poison Plum – blackened cherry jelly with chunky red confetti; the confetti texture shows up loud and clear on this one even with multiple layers of topcoat (not a fan)

I was fairly pleased at how well these lived up to their claims. The picture above is after six days. I had some tip wear, and two chips on my middle finger – one of them was from actually cracking my nail though, so I can’t really blame the polish for that. At that point a bit of nail growth was showing so it was about time to take them off anyway. And unlike a lot of polishes, the surface of the nail didn’t get all scratched up and cloudy. All of them were opaque in two thin coats (except Naked Naivete, which took three) and not runny or goopy. Thumbs up for these.

The CND Contradictions collection was provided by the company for consideration; topcoat purchased by me. As with the others, the thoughts and descriptions are mine and I received no compensation. The Contradictions collection will be available Fall 2015.

Have you tried these? What collections are you looking forward to for the fall?