Zoya Ornate Collection Holiday 2012 Swatches and Review

Zoya's Holiday 2012 collection is here and this year it's pretty special.  What's so special about it, you ask?  Well, this collection features the debut of Zoya's first ever holographic polishes.  Yep, that's right, ZOYA MADE HOLOS!

Zoya Aurora.  Aurora is one of the three new holographic colors and out of the three, Aurora seems to have the densest amount of holographic glitter.  The holo in this isn't chunky or rough like true glitter, it's the flat, smooth, flaky-looking type of holo particle like in the China Glaze Kaleidoscope or Ozotic holographic polishes.  The darker purple base in this makes the holographic effect really stand out.

Zoya Blaze.  Blaze is a cool-toned red holo. The interesting thing about this color is that the holographic particles seem to blend in with the red base, giving it an unusual depth while at the same time altering the colors of the rainbow effect.  The red base seems to bring out the gold, red and purple aspects of the hologram while muting the other colors. 

Zoya Electra.  Electra is two different bar glitters in a clear base.  There's a very fine, stringy light silver bar glitter and a larger, chunkier, holographic silver bar glitter.  It can be worn alone or layered, though in my opinion, it's almost too opaque for layering. 

Zoya Logan.  This one isn't holographic, but it's still pretty awesome.  It's a very vibrant green base with chunky gold foil shimmer.  Plus, when viewed at an angle, it has some pretty decent blue duochrome flash on it as well.  

 

Zoya Storm.  This is a black base with chunky scattered holo shimmer.  Of the three holographic colors, this one seems to have the least amount of holo glitter.  It's not weak or inadequate by any means, but it doesn't seem as densely packed with holo pieces as the other two.  This color has a starry sky effect in certain lights, showing mostly black and silver, but the holo comes out beautifully when the light hits it just right.

Zoya Ziv.  Not the typical gold foil, this one has a little something extra to it.  The base is a neutral gold with a grainy foil finish, but it also has some larger, warmer-toned gold flakes in it as well.  When the polish is fully dry, it's very shiny and reflective.  The gold flakes aren't the focal point of the polish, but they add a bit of extra depth and detail to the color. 

I swatched a coat of Electra over all the colors in the collection to give you an idea of how it looks layered:

Zoya Electra (one coat) over Zoya Aurora

 Zoya Electra (one coat) over Zoya Blaze

Zoya Electra (one coat) over Zoya Logan

Zoya Electra (one coat) over Zoya Storm

Zoya Electra (one coat) over Zoya Ziv

The formula on almost all of these was great.  Electra is the oddball. It seemed too thick and a little bit gooey; I think it just needs to be thinned.  Thinning it might also help sheer it out enough for better layering, too.  The rest of the colors were perfect.  Smooth, thin, free-flowing but not runny or pooling, no streaking, no bald spots, good opacity, good brushes.  I did three coats of each color and that's all they needed.  An interesting thing I noticed about these is that all of them (except Electra) dry completely smooth and glossy without any added topcoat. Electra is pretty chunky and needs at least two coats of topcoat to look smooth.  Dry time is fast on the holos, average for all the others.

I love this collection.  It's small but it manages to fit in almost all of my favorite things:  green, purple, glitter, holo and duochrome.  The new holographic colors are especially exciting because I've never seen Zoya do holographic finishes before.  My favorite would probably have to be Storm, followed closely by Logan, but I really like all of them.  I also like this comic book theme on the names in this collection (or am I just reading into them too much?)

I really, really hope that this means there will be more Zoya holos in the future, because the three in this collection are pretty awesome.

The Zoya Ornate collection is available now on zoya.com.

(This was sent for review.)