[REVIEW] Zoya Gemma

So sorry for neglecting my blog, All!

If I'm completely honest, I bought this colour because of the name. Gemma is just such a pretty name! The colour itself is pretty, as well. Zoya describes it as having a bluish-purple shimmer, but I've only really noticed a purplish shimmer.

What Zoya has to say:

Zoya Nail Polish in Gemma can be best described as: Light muted olive green with an overlay of blue and violet duochrome shimmer. Unique, hip and cutting-edge yet subtle enough to suit any wardrobe.
Colour Family Greens
Finish Dual Tone Metalllic
Intensity 4 ( 1=Sheer - 5=Opaque )
Tone Cool
Original Collection Intimate

Gemma is such a gorgeous colour; it's a muted green, yet it becomes bright. I love how the way it catches the light. It is very sheer though, so it took three coats for it to cover completely, which can be kind of annoying. I like nail lacquers to cover a bit better in maybe two coats. On the bright side, it's not streaky which is nice!

Now, aside from the review, another little bit of life update. We've traded one part of the family for another, and now my grandparents are visiting! Oh well. At least it's not a ton of screaming children! Also, I have everything ready (and most packing done!), so now I'm just sitting and waiting until it's finally time to head to school! To fill the time, I've issued myself a bit of a challenge.

I want to join a couple of clubs at school, but mostly I think I want to join the Trampolining Club. It's been so long since I've bothered to do any sort of exercising, so I've started a bit of a workout plan! Hopefully I can keep keep up with it! Sometimes my laziness gets the better of me, especially when it comes to exercising!

Expect some pictures from around school and my new city within the coming month! I will be in my new home the 30th of September!

Also! Check out Sam's 100+ follower giveaway! There are some really cute items that she's put together!

[REVIEW] Zoya Veruschka

Veruschka was my first matte colour. I ordered it when Zoya was having a promotion for buy 2 get 1 free, I believe. I was unsure about a matte colour and wanted to make sure I liked it before I would really spend money on more. Now I wish I had bought Savita when I had the chance! It was a gorgeous, rich purple.

I love that the matte lacquers have a matte bottle, too. It certainly makes it easy to fish them out of my lacquer box!

Zoya Veruschka is a metallic deep green matte shimmer nail polish color. From the Zoya MatteVelvet Winter 2009 Collection.
Colour Family Greens
Finish Metallic
Intensity 5 ( 1=Sheer - 5=Opaque )
Tone Cool
Original Collection MatteVelvet

Unfortunately, because Veruschka is from a past collection, there is no description for it on the website, nor is it available for sale! I hope they bring it back this winter so I can get another bottle!

When did I get so messy doing my nails?! Wow!

Matte lacquers have definitely become my favourite. Though they do show wear and chip easily, it just glides on so smoothly, and I love the way it looks. It helps, too, that it dries pretty quickly! I have the unfortunate habit of doing my nails in bed (even though I always tell myself next time I won't!), so anything that dries quickly immediately jumps to the top of my list.

What I love about Veruschka is that even though it's a matte lacquer, it still has a bit of shine to it. Not a glossy shine, but it has a metallic shimmer in it that catches the light so nicely. It's a nice understated shine. For a time I was unintentionally sporting school spirit! Veruschka matched my old uni's colour exactly! The colours were green and gold. Every time I wore this colour, I was reppin' my school!

Fortunately after some searching, Amazon makes it easy to find past Zoya colours.

June Haul

Happy June! This year is just flying by. Only a few more months until school starts up again! So much to do. Anyway, when I was cleaning out my wallet the other day, I found a F21 gift card. Such a surprise. I forgot all about it, but for my birthday my friend had gotten me a gift card. So I figured, 'Why not?' and did a bit of shopping. I'm surprised at how much I was able to get. I haven't been in a F21 store in ages, and it's been even longer since I've been on the website. I was pleasantly surprised at what they had, and just about everything I got was from the sale section, with a few exceptions.

I was unsure of this bag. I took it in and out of my cart so many times before finally deciding to get it, and I'm glad I did. I thought it would be a lot smaller than it is, but it's actually quite large! Perfect for travel.

Picked up some cosmetic items. I've never needed an eyelash curler because my lashes are naturally quite long and curled, but I thought it would make using falsies much easier, so I thought why not!

The two lashes on the right I bought for my mum. She expressed an interest in falsies when she saw mine, so I bought her some to play with!

I love this dress, but unfortunately it's a bit too big. I wish they had a smaller size, but they didn't have the option online, so I will have to take it in a bit! Fortunately, the seams are in such a place that it will be easy to take in the top a bit and take up the skirt a little! The fabric was amazing though. I was expecting for the quality to be lower, and the fabric to be a lot lower quality than it is, but it's so nice and soft. Love the bandeau, too. A lot of the ones I've tried in the past have been ill-fitting, but this one fits perfectly. I want lace everything this season!

I'm addicted to hats, and couldn't pass this one up.

Picked up the necklace for my friend! She loves Seungri from Big Bang, and seeing as his nickname is Panda, I thought it was a cute gift!

I was really pleasantly surprised about the quality of the items from F21. I'm so used to everything being quite low-quality and cheap, and really not durable at all. If I didn't have the gift card, I don't think I would have bought anything, but I'm glad I did. It was a pleasant surprise, and looking online is so much nicer than looking in the stores. At least when it comes to F21. I hate stores that have all their product crammed together. It makes it so difficult to find anything appealing and takes so much time!

[REVIEW] Zoya Dovima

Matte colours are my favourite at the moment. Right now, I only have two (Veruschka and Dovima), but I definitely plan to add more. Right now though, Zoya only has super bright, neon colours, which personally aren't for me, I feel.

I've been trying to rotate through colours so I wear all of my new ones at least once, but I keep coming back to Dovima (and Veruschka).

What Zoya has to say:

Zoya Nail Polish in Dovima can be best described as: Smoky charcoal-black with strong silver shimmer and a velvety matte finish. This shine-free black is the must have shade for fall.
Colour Family Blacks
Finish Metallic
Intensity 5 ( 1=Sheer - 5=Opaque )
Tone Cool
Original Collection MatteVelvet

I like Dovima. A lot. I do somewhat disagree with their statement that it's shine-free. It does have a bit of a shine, in the light, but it's not glossy. That would be the silver shimmer at work. I love the matte colours because I've found they dry a lot faster. By the time I've finished my first coat on all nails, the first nails I've done are already dry enough for a second coat. Two coats is all it takes for me to get even coverage and a solid charcoal colour.

The only thing I dislike about the matte colours is they chip and show wear easily. Fortunately, I haven't experienced that with their other lacquers. Being a matte/velvet formula, it kind of defeats the purpose to use a topcoat. Though I have heard that there are matte topcoats somewhere out there? Anyway, no topcoat makes for easy wear and chip. I'm OK with that though. I'll sacrifice having to reapply, especially because it dries so quickly, for a cool, matte look.

You can buy Dovima here: Zoya

Barielle

The second half of my Haute Look haul has arrived! This time I bought nail colours. I originally had four colours, but because of inadequate packing, one of the bottles broke in shipment. It really broke my heart! Customer service for Haute Look was excellent, though. When I opened my package and saw the broken bottle, I immediately called them and it took no time at all to process a refund. No hassle whatsoever! I hope in the future they will ship things like nail lacquers in a small box with separators like Zoya does.

I've worn each of these colours already, and will write up a review and swatch for each of them! I'm so happy with my purchases.

Left to Right: Lava Rock, Enduring, Pink Quartz

Barielle's Philosophy
Since our inception over 30 years ago, Barielle has stood apart as the absolute first to practice a progressive “3-free” philosophy on formulation: absolutely none of Barielle’s products contain Formaldehyde, Toluene or Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)—chemicals that are suspected to be harmful. Instead, we have enlightened the world on safe, effective and natural alternatives such as Keratin, Proteins, Vitamins, and Oil and Plant Extracts.

Not a very long post, I'm sorry. As I'm going to review each colour separately, there's not too much to write about it!

Also, if anyone has any advice on taking better photos and improving blog posts, I'd be glad to hear it! Currently I don't have a camera aside from my phone, which I'm sure is noticeable that I've been using, and even though I've had a blog for a while, it's only more recently that I've been consistently blogging! I'm open to any advice that you have to give. Don't be shy!

Inspo Post~

Where did I go?! I totally disappeared.  I haven't read any blogs or commented or anything!  School's started and it's set me way behind on everything.  I said I'd never take another literature course, but here I am taking two!  Roman Literature and Russian Literature!  Oh I feel like I'm in way over my head.  I'm also trying to get some school applications finished.  Apparently I write too american.  How do you even write too american?! What does that even mean?!  I'm working on trying to fix that.

Anyway, just a bit of inspiration for this month.  A couple of these images are floating around on tumblr, they're not mine.  I have them on my phone, and they go everywhere with me!  Consulted often for shopping.  It's not much, but I'm slowly building it up.  It's all over the place, too!  I'm feeling big on spikes, studs, chains, and leather.  I've started studding and spiking a denim vest, when it's cooler weather, my outfit revolves around my leather jacket. I've been mixing it with a thin oversized scarf, and I'm always on the lookout for longer oversized shirts, and I've been wearing leggings with pretty much everything!  

But there are some days when I like to be a bit more girly, softer neutrals and dresses and so much the opposite of the leather, studs and spikes!

I've also started alternating between a more neutral, natural look, and a heavier black look with my makeup.  Depends on how I feel that day!  I recently bought a bunch of nail varnish, as well, so a lot of varnish design ideas have been making their way onto my phone.