Zoya Dahlia Swatch

Alright it's hump day but we're going to begin the week right here. It's Zoya PixieDust week! I ordered mine from Nail Polish Canada and received it in less than 48 hours - the glory of having NPC just down the street from me! (Well, they're not that close but they're certainly close enough.) Within the last couple of days, I did see that the price is a little higher than regular line Zoya polishes but I bet this is due to trend and demand.

The first thing I noticed with these PixieDust polishes was the cap - it's a smooth, almost-silky matte finish. I love them. I love Zoya's bottles enough as it is but these are supreme!

I'm kicking off PixieDust week with Zoya Dahlia. Dahlia is a textured black polish that has a fine gritty, shimmery sugared finish. I had no problems with application and was able to get full coverage and opacity with 2 coats. The first coat always acts as a foundation and due to the texture, the second coat will always naturally cake on because the first coat acts as a tacky surface.

(Note: Textured polishes take a lot longer than normal polishes to dry. I've seen far too many textured polish swatches that look jelly/tacky/moist but this is due to the polish not being completely dry! These swatches are photographed after a whole day of drying and wear.)







And for funsies, I'll show you what Dahlia 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 Dahlia. As with most textured polish, Zoya Dahlia was thirsty for top coat. I believe I used 3 coats of top coat to make it look this way.







On another note, I've been told that the Essence Gel-Look Top Coat can cause your polish to bubble (I haven't used it on a regular polish) so textured polish might be a good polish to use it on as bubbles aren't very possible.

Because I know we all asked the same question: "how does Zoya PixieDust compare with OPI Liquid Sand?" I will say that so far, I find that Zoya's PixieDust is much more refined, yielding a more, fine sugared finish. The colour combinations are simple, yet effective with a base colour, smaller micro gritty texture and a micro glitter. On the other hand, OPI Liquid Sand explores more colour combinations and glitter mixes like holographic features or bigger hexes, but the texture is more sand-like. In the end, PixieDust is more sugared-dust and Liquid Sand is more sand-like - who would have ever thought!

Alright one PixieDust down, and two more to go!