Back in January, I ordered the Zoya New Year New Hue promotion (now over).  They were offering your choice of any three shades of nail polish (normally $9ish each) PLUS 3 “all new” mystery mini shades for “free”, just pay $15 shipping.

I just received it, so I figured I’d review it.

It took about a month for me to get this order, which I know is not normal for Zoya.  Since this was a “free” promotion, they didn’t exactly put a rush on the orders.  They also claimed they waited for the promotion to end to begin mixing the mystery shades.  I wasn’t terribly bothered by this, though I do wish they had emailed me when they order finally shipped.  I had to search their site for my tracking code to get any updates.  Since people were confused by this and a marketing mistake they made on their end, they gave everybody who ordered it a free bottle of their new Naturel Satins polish with any new $15 order, which I think was above and beyond.  I knew it was free, so I had no expectations, but people being people, a lot of folks were pretty angry that it took a month for Zoya to fulfill this order.

Anyway.  I picked Yuna, Sansa and Savita.  I’d rate my satisfaction at an 8/10.

All three shades are much more vibrant on the Zoya website.  I was a little disappointed by that, but I figure that’s more or less the nature of the biz.  Yuna was the most different from the website representation.  I love that Zoya includes real photos of people wearing the polish.  I feel like that represents the polishes much more accurately.  I wish other sites would do this!

They came packaged with the three I chose in one box and the three mystery shades in another.  I think this was a really smart choice that kept everything safe and sound.

The regulars:

Yuna: I’d describe this as a murky greenish charcoal with gold microglitter.  In daylight, it takes on a much more green tint.  One coat was very spotty, but two coats offered prefect coverage.  I love this one slightly less than I expected because it’s just not as bright as it looks in the bottle, but I still feel like it’s one of the most unique shades I’ve ever seen.

Sansa: This is a reddish purple with gold microglitter. I think this turned out to by my favourite.  It’s really stunning and a really complex shade.

Savita: Much more purple than my photo shows!  It’s meant to be a matte, but I feel like the formula is a bit streaky.  It covers nicely with one coat.

The Minis: (Can’t tell by the photo which is a mini and which is a full size?  The minis are exactly half the size of the full size bottles!  They’re the one of the far left, and the two on the upper right.)

Severine: A pretty, simple gold. I would not have chosen this from their website, but it was actually a real winner with me.  It’s slightly streaky, but very shiny and a really nice coverage.  It’s not an original shade by any means, but it’s a solid bottle of polish that I’ll use.

Charlott(e): This was a bit of a dud with me.  It’s somewhere between beige and pastel yellow in a creme formula.  It took two coats to get solid coverage and still looked a bit streaky.  For whatever reason, it made my fingers look very red.  Blah.

Anais: I actually really loved this shade in the bottle.  It’s a deep, deep, mucky brownish black with greenish twinge that reminds me of really rich dirt.  Unfortunately, it’s very sheer.  Three coats wasn’t enough to completely cover, which is such a bummer!  If they can figure out how to make this a creme, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.