Zoya Color Lock System & Upcoming China Glaze Collections

June 17, 2008

Zoya Color Lock System & Upcoming China Glaze Collections

First is first: Checkout Scrangie’s Post on Upcoming China Glaze Collections. Can I just tell you guys how ridiculously excited I am for all of these collections!!!!!! FORREST GREEN!!! (Well ok, I wish it were creme but I can deal with shimmer!), BLUES… A WHOLE COLLECTION OF BLUES. EVERYTHING LOOKS AMAZING. So…overwhelmed…with… joy… *gasp* cannot…. contain… self… *dies.*

*revives*

Ooook then.

Now for the main topic of this post – the Zoya Color Lock System. This is kind of long so bare with me.

Where to start? Zoya contacted me about some of my negative reviews on the Polish Addict concerning their polishes. I felt in general that their polishes took too many colors to achieve bottle color and I’d heard from other nail board girls that Zoya polishes chipped easily. My hatred for Zoya was infamous, and so the joke about Zoya having killed my family began.

I decided to give Zoya the benefit of a doubt and try out their polishes using their Color Lock System. Scrangie got really bad bubbling with her test run. (I swear I’m not blog-stalking her but for a full feel of the product I recommend reading both reviews.)

My results with Anchor and Armor were very different. I only got bubbling on two nails and as you can tell from the picture it wasn’t very noticeable. Scrangie’s bubbling was so bad she actually had to change her polish. I only changed my polish because I have Nail Polish ADD, the bubbles bothered me in principle but they were subtle enough that I didn’t feel the need to whip out the remover. Like Scrangie, I got good wear results after two days. No tip wear at all, I usually get tip wear instantly because I type like my life depends on my word per minute count. I did get top layer scratches which is a problem I don’t usually have with Seche Vite, my holy grail top coat.

I think application style accounts for the difference in results. I usually do very fast manis, but the night I tried the Zoya Color Lock System I was also watching Stephen King’s Misery (my other beat is horror movies, go figure). So I applied a coat, got distracted by the movie for a while, then applied another coat, so on and on. The nails that I got bubbling on, left hand middle and ring fingers, were also the nails that I had to redo due to an unfortunate denting incident that occurred after the movie ended. I redid them quickly because it was getting late. Speed of application is definitely the bubble culprit here.

I also disagree with Scrangie about Hurry Up. It dried my nails to the touch fairly quickly. However, my nails were still vulnerable to denting within, I’d say, about 15 minutes after application of the drops. That amount of time is not unreasonable but I wish it worked faster. I don’t usually use drying drops so I didn’t like the way it made my nails feels after using it. I think people who usually use drying drops would be pleased with the Hurry Up’s results.

Finally, Remove is, hands down, the best nail polish remover on the market. I received a mini bottle of Remove as a gift with a Zoya purchase in the past. I loved it then too, but there was only enough in the bottle for 2 or 3 removals. So when it ran out, I just sort of shrugged and went about using my regular off-brand cheapie remover. Then, I swatched 12 different polishes this past Sunday. I used Remove after each one and my cuticles are intact. Granted my cuticles are shockingly resilient to my constant abuse even though they do dry out a bit during swatching. Normally, after and during a marathon swatch session I have to double up on cuticle oil, creams, etc. Remove didn’t dry out my tips at all, *at all*. I think once this current bottle runs out, I’m just going to suck it up and splurge on the huge bottle of Remove. To me, it’s worth it because I change my polish a lot more often than the average bear. Plus, it smells good.

As an aside, I really like the names of the these products: Anchor, Armor, Hurry Up, and Remove – very clever.

Those are my preliminary results. Before I can say anything more definitive, I will need to do a comparison between the wear time I get with the Zoya System versus my usual base and top coats.

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