Flashy Zoya

I've been dying to try out these sparkly Zoya colors since before Christmas. I have "Luna" (Silver glitter) and "Nova" (bright pink glitter), and got out my Migi black/white pen and Essie "Matte About You" to experiment too. I started with two coats of Luna over Zoya basecoat. As you can see, my middle nail finally grew long enough for the break in the middle to tear off, so I'm stuck with a super-short middle nail for a couple weeks. I can't actually cut my nails that short anymore - the skin underneath has grown out past the tip of my fingers (presumably to support my normally long nails). I had to trim the skin off where my nail broke for that one - a painful proposition. You can actually still see the part I couldn't cut sticking up a little past the nail. Thank goodness my nails grow very fast!

Then two coats of Nova on the diagonal (I don't know why, but I'm really drawn to diagonal designs).

As you can see below, I experimented with the design I had in mind on my pinky finger. I often do that because if I need to redo it, it's a very small area to remove/re-polish. I liked it, so I started with white curving back and forth across the colors. 

Then I put black over it, going the opposite way. My lines aren't perfect by any means, but I think the "squiggles" give the design movement and a little dimension.

Then I tried the matte top coat over my pinky nail, just to see how it would look. You can see how the matte is definately a little different below - it accentuates all the little bits of glitter, rather than just being super-shiny. It doesn't really affect Luna much, but I liked it over Nova. Just not with this particular design. I'm still a high-gloss lover at heart.

So I went over them all with two coats of Zoya topcoat, and cleaned them up. Aside from a white mistake on my right hand middle finger, I think they turned out pretty well. They're quite eye-catching and flashy.

What's on your tips this week? Anything fun for these wintery days?