Zoya Smoke and Mirrors Collection Fall 2011 Swatches and Review

Zoya's fall collection - Smoke and Mirrors - is a refreshing change of pace from all the brights and neons of summer. As usual, this collection is divided into two parts: Six creme shades (Smoke) and six shimmers (Mirrors). The theme for this set is smoky, sultry color and I have to say I'm digging all the greens and purples.

SMOKE

Anja. The second picture (with flash) shows the base color of Anja quite well, but the first picture is accurate to how it looks on me. This is a vampy dark red-toned purple, bordering on burgundy, in the same league as my beloved Casey. It's a creme finish, not jellyish like Casey. I love this color so much. It just looks so flattering on my hands and it has that sexy dried blood/wine vampiness that I crave in fall.

Dree. An olive green! This is the drab/dusty/smoky camouflage variety of olive green. It looks soft and dusty and has strong yellow tones. Yellow toned greens are my favorite and the dirty camouflage look of this makes me love it even more.

Codie. It is somewhat hard to tell from the pictures, but Codie is a smoky brown creme with a really interesting greenish tone to it. It looks near-black, but in the right light you can see the rich green-brown base color. The flash picture shows the base color pretty well. So murky and lovely. Makes me think of really old, worn dark brown leather.

Cynthia. This one's fascinating. The color is a very dark blackened smoky teal, leaning more toward blue than green. I've seen this color commonly referred to as "peacock", and it reminds me of MAC Plumage eyeshadow. The finish is the odd part- it looks like a creme, and for all intents and purposes, it is a creme... But when you're applying it, you can see little shimmer particles! It has those little beads of opaque color floating in a tinted base just like Envy has plus some extremely tiny silver shimmer. Once you're wearing it, you can't see the shimmer at all except in very bright light, but even then it's nearly invisible. How odd is that? Also, I can't help but mention, every time I see the name Cynthia, I think of this:

Come on.... don't tell me I'm the only one.

Jana. This color and Petra are really hard to capture because they change so much with the lighting. Jana looks like a pale purple-putty-nude in the bottle, on the nail it looks at least a whole shade darker and more grey, but in sunlight looks more purple and muddy. It's one of those very popular purple-grey-beige shades and this one is particularly smoky and muddy.

Petra. Ugh. How gorgeous is that? I didn't think I'd love it as much as I do. Yet another purple-grey, though this one doesn't have the beigey-browny tones that Jana does. Much more on the cool side, bordering on blueish in certain lights. Like Jana, this dries quite a bit darker on the nail than the bottle color appears. And, like the rest of the shades in the aptly-named Smoke collection, it has a smoldering smoky finish.

MIRRORS

Jem. This one deserves a million pictures 'cause it's so awesome. Following in the footsteps of Yasmeen and Valerie, Jem is a deep vampy purple with bright, shiny duochrome shimmer. This one has a lot of pink and gold in it and the colors shift with the light. It's so rich and velvety looking on the nail and it catches the light so perfectly. And maybe I watched too many cartoons as a kid, cause...

Marina. Marina is a blue-silver metallic. It's a little frosty, but once it's fully dried it has this look of really scratched metal. I actually find it to be really similar to Tao, but more obviously blue. I like the name... Marina was the name of my favorite cashier at the old Italian grocery store my mom and I used to go to every week. I miss that place.

Neeka. Click on that last picture (the one with the flash)- I left it gigantic so you can see the texture of the glitter. This color is freakin' awesome. It's a smoky grey-purple base with a slight pink duochrome shimmer and then super smooth gold glitter. The glitter isn't terribly sparkly for glitter... It gives the polish a speckled look with only a hint of sparkle. Really really really cool.

Nimue. This is the same frosty-silver based metallic finish as Marina, but Nimue is purple toned. I'd say it's more purple than silver but has that definite silvery metal undercurrent. Doesn't look as frosty once it's dried, though there are still some visible streaks, so be mindful of your brushstrokes.

Tao. This is a silver metallic. Not chrome-like and not particularly shiny, more of an old, worn steel machine grey. It makes me think of abandoned machinery or old mirrors where most of the silver backing has worn away. Smoky metal. This has a blue tone to it, but not as blue as Marina.

Yara. DUDE. I can't believe this. Is a smoky green with GLITTER. Gold glitter, to be exact. Go on and click the last picture to see the texture of it. It's flat, thin little flakes of gold. Like Neeka, it's not super shiny sparkly glitter, instead it adds a worn, speckled look to the green with little glints of shine every now and then. It's so nice and olivey... I'm so happy about this color. Can't stop looking at it.


The formula on these was great. Everything was really dense and opaque- almost entirely opaque in one coat on all the colors but Cynthia. I did two coats in all these pictures and didn't need more than that. They were smooth and not too runny. The brushes were even and fan out perfectly to fit my nail shape. Drying time was excellent and all the shades dried surprisingly shiny without topcoat. But... you should really use topcoat anyway. It makes them that much better. I didn't have any problems with the application, dry time or wear.

I am really excited about this collection. I love almost every color- there's some really amazing shades in here. I can't even pick favorites. I like the vampy cremes, the smoky purples, the GREENS, the glitters... The only things I'm meh about are the three metallics- Marina, Nimue and Tao. They don't have the same appeal for me as the rest of the colors. I mean... I don't even know silver frost exists when there's glittery purple in the room.

I have a feeling I'm going to be wearing the pants off this collection. I've already worn Anja twice and I plan on wearing Yara and Neeka until I've worn them so much I can't stand to look at them anymore. I'm really happy about how purple and green heavy this collection is. And they're not the usual types of colors- they're dirty and smoky. The super dark nearly-black cremes are also extremely appealing to me right now.

These will be available on Zoya.com starting July 15th.

(These were sent to me for review.)