Zoya Zang Toi Imperial Russia Collection

I mentioned in my last post that I had ordered and received the Zoya Zang Toi Imperial Russia collection. Who wants to see pictures??


First up, the packaging. It's a Zoya white box trio. Very pretty, and makes you feel like you've just received something extra-special and exciting:

First up, Imperial Russia (that's the purple one). It's a gorgeous shade, light-catching with a dark violet blue tone around the edges, the exact kind of color that *always* grabs my attention.

 

Love the color? Don't want to buy the limited edition trio just for that one shade? Don't worry...if you own A-England in Avalon or Wet N Wild Fast Dry in Buffy the Violet Slayer, or Sinful Colors in Let's Talk, you've got this shade covered. If you want to see bottle comparison shots, leave a comment and I'll pop a couple up here for your viewing pleasure.

Next up, Peterhof Palace. Kids, apparently I was so excited over the final color that I paid little to no attention to the actual words on Zoya's website, because it very clearly says Peterhof Palace is Ziv, renamed for the Imperial Russia trio for use in Zang's show at NYFW. I have Ziv. I got it when I bought the entire Zoya Ornate collection. I didn't do swatches of this one, because you've seen it. It's a lovely gold metallic foil. But color me upset, ok? I dropped $33 on a polish I own and a polish for which I already had three dupes, all because when I saw this next guy I immediately impulse bought. 

Chinoiserie Fantasy. I don't even know how to say that word, so I'm pretty sure that what goes through my head is 1000% wrong. Chin-OY-sir-ree Fantasy. It makes me giggle just to see it spelled out that way. Anyway. LOOK AT THAT COLOR. It makes me swoon. I feel faint. It's gorgeous. It's deep and rich and shiny and went on like a dream. I could have gotten away with one coat, but I went for two anyway.

Then my fat girl, Lucy, insisted on having her ears scratched. She can be very persistent and very demandy, so I ruined my not-wet-but-still-kinda-smooshy polish. I took it off with the intention of just redoing it with the same color. Until this happened:

Do you see the staining, my friends? This is after I took the polish off. Then cleaned my nails a second time with the polish remover and another pile of cotton balls. Then I cleaned them again with straight acetone. And then I took soap and a nail brush to them. This is what I was left with. I said "screw it" and got in the shower. Apparently the shampoo and body wash mostly did the trick, because I was able to go ahead and do the Color Show mani without too much trouble or anything looking bad.

So yeah. Although I love every single color in this collection, overall I am disappoint. Dupes galore, already own, stains like crazy. And they didn't come cheap. Alas. Oh well, just add them to the stash! Oh...and wait for the fall collection to show up in 6 months, so I can have the other Imperial Russia color, Catherine the Great. It's a gorgeous sapphire blue and I already can't wait to get my mitts on it.

One question I have though--have you spotted a dupe for Chinoiserie Fantasy? I almost feel like I've seen that color before, but if there's similar in my stash I can't find it. Leave a comment if you can think of something similar!