Zoya Summer 2009 La-Di-Da Collection

In case you missed it, part one of Zoya's two-part summer collection was Ooh-La-La, a collection of six bright metallics.

La-Di-Da is a collection of six bright cremes, and bright is an understatement. Oh yeah, we're talking about NEONS!

One disclaimer and then on to the swatches. Since three of the six shades are neon, there's almost no way for me to truly capture the brightness and glow of the polish on camera. Neons just do weird, weird things to a digital camera, and I have yet to find a good way to photograph them. I've tried my very best to give the most accurate pictures possible, but they're just not as good as real life. Use your imagination- picture the color like in the picture, but so bright it looks like it's glowing and possibly burning your retinas.




Ali. Ultra-bright neon pink. Wicked, wicked bright. It looks like it would be warm if you touched it. Neon sign bright. Think of the 90's. It's 90's pink!



America. Clean, pure, light red. Love the name! This one was surprising for me- I'm not a red person and I didn't really care for how this looked in the bottle, but when I put it on I immediately changed my mind. It's bright and clean, but at the same time is has a soft retro feel to it, like something a gorgeous pin-up girl would wear. I love this red. It reminds me a lot of my other favorite (sadly discontinued) red, Maybelline Juicy Tomato. Less orange than Juicy Tomato.




Dita. Soft dark pink berry creme. Another polish with a retro feel to it. Young and ladylike but still mischievous. It reminds me of those illustrated old advertisements about how women should match their lips and nails. This is somewhat hard to describe- it's pink, but it's more than pink. It's not red... or is it pinkish-red? I think it's more berry-colored, but toned down, softer, not as dark.





Paz. Ultra-bright neon orange. Picture a traffic cone. That's Paz. I think you could see this color from a mile away. That's always a good thing in my book! I can't get enough!





Pippa. Soft yellow creme. Another color I can never get enough of- yellow! Pippa is delightfully cheerful and sunny. It's a lot softer than I expected. I expected a neon yellow, a highlighter yellow. Pippa isn't neon and that's okay with me! It's soft but not pastel. It's paler and less bold than, say, Zoya Creamy or Essie Shorty Pants.




Renee. Ultra-bright warm neon pink. Another incredibly bright and glowy neon to round out the collection, but this time there's a touch of coral in it. Ali is more pink with a touch of red and Renee is more pink with a touch of orange. Both are blindingly bright. You know, these would look really cool as a polka-dot manicure. A base of Renee with dots of Ali? A base of Ali with dots of Paz? I think it would really make anyone think they were seeing spots!


All pictures are three coats of polish with one coat of Seche Vite. Since half of these are neon, they dry to a matte finish. If you want a glossy finish, you must use a topcoat. Any topcoat will do, I just used my usual Seche Vite and it worked beautifully.

The formula on these was awesome. Not a single one of these polishes gave me trouble. They practically applied themselves. Pippa was a little bit streaky on the first coat, but that is to be expected of a yellow creme polish. Another upside to the neon formula is that they dry almost instantly. Even the non-neons dried quickly. No complaints at all.

You know, I think this is the first time I've seen a neon Zoya! I know that they have the Nocti Nano-Brite line, but those aren't exactly Zoya. For their first release of neon color, they really nailed it. Haha! Get it? Nailed? *ducks flying tomatoes*

I really hope Zoya decides to do more neons. These new ones have such a great formula and easy application, I might even like them more than my beloved Color Club neons. That's saying something. I'd love to see a cobalt blue creme neon and a lime green creme neon to even out the pinks and oranges.

Overall, strange mixture of colors but an exciting collection. Three neons with a not quite neon yellow? Sure, that makes sense, you almost wouldn't notice it. But four super-bright shades with two red cremes? Strange combination! I think I've noticed a trend- they do a collection with four or five shades that go together and then add one odd duck! I actually really like that. Who says you have to stick to one color palette? You always have to have a lone wolf. Right on.

One thing worth mentioning about neons: Even if you think they're too bright, they make awesome pedicure colors. I know not everyone's a neon lover (YET!!!) but I urge you to at least give a hot pink pedi a try... You might like it :) And I've never seen a person that looks bad in neons...