Zoya Chyna Swatch

PixieDust week continues! But first - some funny thing happened yesterday. I went from no hits on this website to- well, a few. More than what I am used to. A few people found this little nail blog by searching for "taco glitter". As it turns out, OPI has given a reply to the Nail Network: "We have to admit, we were a bit confused as to what you meant by "taco" glitter, so thank you for clarifying. The slight scallop in the large gold glitter grains in "When Monkeys Fly" is intentional, as it adds a bit more depth to the sparkle. You'll want to apply two generous coats of Top Coat to smooth everything out. Hope this helps! Let us know if you are still having difficulties. #nomoretacos ;)" Funny stuff. For the record I bought the polish with my own money. I don't have hard feelings - but it wasn't the best polish I've used (as you may already know)!

On y va! I've got Zoya Chyna today to continue PixieDust week! This one was tough to photograph in a light box. Unfortunately Vancouver is the land of rain so I don't get the luxury to shoot my swatches outdoors. I'm also a night person so having a light box was the only way photographing swatches was going to happen.



Just like Dahlia, Chyna was perfect in two coats. One coat for a tacky foundation and the second coat just slathers itself onto the first coat for full coverage and opacity. Again, (I forgot mention this right away yesterday), textured polishes take a lot longer than normal polishes to dry. My swatches are photographed after one day of drying and wear. Zoya also recommends to not use base or top coat. I found the top coat an obvious one but why no base coat? I don't not like wearing base coat so I usually go with it anyway. Maybe it's related to the drying issues? Anyway, I've been using base coat under all of these.

Back to Zoya Chyna - I feel like my photos don't represent it as how it looks. I have a photo from it in natural light and it's a lot more ruby with the sparkle very prominent. My swatches show the overall colour but I feel like there are shadows that are seen when in the dark. Not in natural day light. In either case, Chyna was a last minute purchase because I loved Manicure Addict's swatch on Instagram so much. It did not fail me. I love this one - definitely one of my picks from Zoya's PixieDust collection.





Obligatory copy and paste: And for funsies, I'll show you what Chyna looks like with a top coat. As a disclaimer (I'm saying this because I've had not-so-nice comments on my Instagram feed), I would like to say that I do not believe in using top coats on textured polish. If a textured polish looks better or becomes more enhanced with the use of top coat, it is a bad textured polish. Top coat is not a fix for textured polish! (I'll be saying this with each of my reviews from now on.)

I used Essence's new "Gel-Look Top Coat" to gloss up Chyna. As with most textured polish, Zoya Chyna was thirsty for top coat. I believe I used 3 coats of top coat to make it look this way.







Anyway, that's Chyna for you. Definitely in the top shades in my books; I don't regret this impulse purchase at all! Tomorrow is the last day of PixieDust week (yeah I know - I only ended up buying three of them!) but I saved my favourite for last. Stay tuned and find out what it might be!