You already know that I’m a big fan of the OPI Liquid Sand polishes, but I’ve been itching to wear the Zoya PixieDust lacquers as well!
When this nail-polish monkey swung by a Trade Secrets store recently while shopping with friends, she ended up walking out with some Zoyas instead of bananas. (How did that happen? *Shrugs shoulders* *Twinkle can be seen in her eyes*)
Zoya Nyx from the first PixieDust Collection had to come home with me.
Why? First, it’s periwinkle. Second, it has that awesome trendy texture. And third, I’m a hopeless nailphile who occasionally can’t resist temptation when it’s winking at me from a beautiful nail-polish display. 😉
I had heard so many people rave about the Zoya PixieDust formula, and I held out for a long time. Now, I feel like letting go of the monkey bars in the playground. When the summer PixieDust Collection comes out, I want to get the entire set.
After wearing Zoya Nyx, I’m completely sold on the PixieDust polishes, and I love it just as much as the OPI Liquid Sands!
Zoya Nyx Pictures
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Flash
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Zoya Nyx Ingredients
Zoya Nyx Swatches
All swatches have:
- Essie First Base (Base Coat)
- 3 coats of Zoya Nyx
- No top coat!
Sunlight Photos
Natural Light Photos
Flash Photos
Claim: TRUSTED, but Product: HOLY GRAIL
- Periwinkle (Yes)
Key Notes
- Name: Zoya Nyx
- Collection: Zoya PixieDust Collection 2013
- Press Release: Click here to see the Zoya PixieDust Collection press release
- Colours Available in the Collection: Dahlia, Chyna, Godiva, Vespa, Nyx & London
- Amount: 15 mL (0.5 fl. oz.)
- What I Paid: $9.99 CAD
- Where to Buy: Zoya website, Trade Secrets & NailPolishCanada
Zoya Nyx Review
Colour
There’s a delicate quality about Zoya Nyx. It’s not one of those loud polishes that wallops you over the head with a cricket bat. Now, you know I love me some loud, obnoxious polishes, but sometimes Whack-a-Mole isn’t appropriate all the time.
It’s elegant and more sophisticated than a lot of the textured polishes I’ve worn in the past. This is the classy way to wear texture on your nails!
Periwinkle is a shade that I’m glad we’re seeing more and more of in nail-polish circles. It’s beautiful, flattering, and different than your typical bright-sky or dark-navy blues.
The perwinkle has a dreamy quality, and the silvery glitter mixed in adds to that effect. It’s almost ethereal, yet at the same time, because of the texture, it’s still edgy.
Finish
Nyx by Zoya has their special PixieDust finish, which means it’s slightly gritty (not sharp or scratchy) and it looks almost like the texture of a rock.
It’s meant to be worn as-is, but of course, if you really want, you can wear a shiny top coat over it and it’ll bring out the sparkle much more. I, however, prefer to wear these texture polishes as-is because I love the way they look and feel.
Since this is my very first Zoya PixieDust polish, I was excited to compare it to the OPI Liquid Sand nail polishes.
I noticed that the Zoya PixieDust formula has a finer grit, so overall, it’s a little softer. But the wear time and the effect were very similar to the OPI Liquid Sands.
They both have different shades to choose from, and the difference in formula isn’t enough for me to favour one over the other.
Typically, OPI usually goes for $9.95 CAD, and Zoya is typically $9.99 CAD in stores, so it’s a toss-up.
Application & Formula
Nyx by Zoya applied very sheerly with the first coat. I was actually surprised since I was used to the OPI Liquid Sands providing very opaque coverage with even one coat. The first coat of Zoya Nyx looked watery and very thin, but the formula is very buildable. The second coat made a drastic difference!
Then, I added a 3rd coat because I wanted to maximize the colour pay-off and also ensure that there was absolutely zero nail line visible. Mission accomplished!
The formula was very easy to control, and because the grit is fine, I found that it applied smoothly (as smooth as a gritty polish can be), and I didn’t get any bald patches – it went on evenly.
Since this is PixieDust formula, it also dried very quickly, so you can complete your manicure in hardly any time at all. I love wearing PixieDust polishes and Liquid Sand polishes when I’m under a time constraint. It’s fast and easy!
Pros
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Cons
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Final Verdict: 10/10
Yes, Zoya Nyx gets a perfect score from me! I didn’t want to remove this polish when I wore it for several days. It was beautiful to behold, and the periwinkle mixed with silver really had a fairytale effect that I really appreciated.
I can’t wait to buy the summer PixieDust shades when they come out! 🙂
Have you tried any Zoya PixieDust nail polishes? If so, which are your favourites? If not, which would you like to try? Or do you not like the texture nail trend?
It looks lovely, that shade between blue and lilac with the tiny silver sparks, beautiful! *sighs* Can’t wait to see the other colours on the collection.
Hey Stella!
It’s so delicate and elegant. Now I want to try all the other PixieDust polishes. I had my eye on the green one (of course) and the red. Plus all the new summer ones look promising!
Love this shade, your pictures are gorgeous. I also recently jumped on the Picie Dust bandwagon & I was pleasantly surprised! 🙂
Hey Tiffany!
Thank you so much! 🙂 I’m glad you’re also enjoying the PixieDust polishes!
Love this! I’ve been wanting to try these sugary looking ones; they seem so nice and subtle compared to the other texture polishes. I also think I’d prefer to buy from Zoya than other companies (better [for me and environment?] formula, no niggling social-justice concerns about the names of polishes, nicer-looking bottle imho…). Glad to see you back, by the way!
Hey Tiffany!
I love how you described it – sugary! 🙂
They do have a slightly finer grit, but I didn’t notice a big difference in the way it felt when I touched it with my finger. The appearance looks slightly finer, but it wasn’t too significantly different than the Liquid Sands to make me declare it the winner.
Thanks! I’m glad to be back to blogging, and I’ll be on a new Monday through Friday schedule instead of a daily one. It’ll give me more breathing room. 🙂
Love, love, love it! Pixie Dust, the name matches the look haha 🙂
Hey Renee!
Definitely – reminds me of fairies at work!
Aaaah so you CAN buy Zoya in Canada! Do you know of any other Canadian stores/shops that sell it (besides nail Poish Canada?). I love periwinkle too (LOVE!) And I can NOT wait for Alcatraz rocks by OPI to hit shelves!!
Hey Norma!
Yes, it’s very tricky to find Zoya in Canada, but the one major retailer that carries their polishes is Trade Secrets. There are some small beauty-supply stores, but Trade Secrets is the most reliable if you want to get stuff from the core or latest collections.
Stay tuned in the coming week – I’m having a little OPI Week here. I’ll be reviewing a new OPI nail polish a day (Monday to Friday) from the upcoming OPI San Francisco Collection due out in August. 🙂 Alcatraz…Rocks is one of the polishes I’ve scheduled for the line-up.
Yippee!!
YES!!! *tacklehugs* I love the PixieDusts and am just aching to get my dirty little digits on the summer collection. Stupid me didn’t save in time to pre-order. 🙁 Once I do see them, you can be sure that bananas (or anything else) will be the last thing on my mind. lol
Lizzy recently posted: Illamasqua: Taint & Nails Inc: York +Plus
Hey Lizzy!
Hehehe, I just love reading your comments. They always make me smile, and you inject just the right amount of humour, too! 🙂 Hehe, thanks for the tackle hugs! 😀
I’m also looking foward to the summer PixieDust collection – the happy colours combined with the textured finish is right up my alley!
I love this polish:) sparkly, unusual and sophisticated:)))
I really thought you’d pick up Vespa ( knowing you’re a green lover just like me:))) I’ve bought nyx, godiva and solange. and maybe I’ll also get Vespa:) just need to see more good swatches:)
Hey Anna P!
You know, I would normally not describe textured polish as being sophisticated, but Zoya Nyx really does have an elegant personality. 🙂 Very interesting how many different takes on the textured trend nail-polish companies can put out. I’m impressed!
Yeah, I was going to get the green PixieDust, but I wanted to only try one, and periwinkle is a colour that I don’t have too much in my collection, so it actually got to the front of the line! (Sorry, green! Hehehe)
I don’t normally bother taking a closer look at Zoya polishes as they are more expensive and harder to get hold of than other brands like OPI/CG/Essie, but darn, this one is pretty…..tempted now :p
Cal recently posted: Cherry blossoms / sakura flowers on China Glaze Hello Gorgeous and Essence English Rose
Hey Cal!
Zoya is definitely worth the price tag – their range of colours are gorgeous, the formulas are usually perfect, and the bottle is esthetically pleasing. I highly recommend them. Just wish they were easier for Canadians to get hold of.
This looks a little softer than the OPI polishes, I wonder if I’d feel the difference?
I actually spent several hours yesterday trying out a ton of different things with my one and only texture polish, I’m hoping to make a post out of it soon! It’s a lot of pictures to clean up and cobble together, but I found some really interesting uses for liquid sand (hint: holos *do* work!)
Hey FedoraHarp!
It looks finer, but I wasn’t able to feel a noticeable difference when I ran my finger along the grit. Maybe there was a slight difference, but it wasn’t so obvious.
Hey! I’m really curious to see or hear more about your experiment with holos and Liquid Sand! That sounds amazing!
I love Zoyas Pixiedust. I have four of the polishes, and they are great. The two I didn’t get were the green and the grey, but I do love the ones I got, they are beautiful and so easy to work with. I didn’t like OPI’s first collection of Liquid Sand polishes, so Zoyas were an experiment for me, and I loved them, and now I’m getting the Bond Girls collection, -I liked those better than the Mariah Carey collection. 🙂 Love your blog and try to peek in every once in a while to see great swatches and such in depth information.
Hey Jenny!
Thanks so much for stopping by. I’m glad that you find my reviews helpful! 🙂 I love sharing my thoughts with readers, but I love it even more when readers leave comments. I learn a lot from you all, too!
I LOVE Pixie Dust! Unfortunately it’s darn expensive here in the UK, around £10.50 a bottle at it’s cheapest and that’s on ebay! However I treated myself to Dahlia a few months ago and it’s been my go-to fancy pants polish ever since 🙂 (ps glad to see you back in your blogging ways again! I’m just catching up on your posts after a busy month at uni)
Bathelen recently posted: Truth is .. My nails are Iron Man (and Barry M Nail Art Pens review)
Hey Bathelen!
Wow, that IS expensive! Sigh, figures that it’s on eBay – sometimes the prices on there scare me!
I’m so glad to be back! It felt weird not blogging!
Yeah there are only a few UK Zoya stockists and they are all around the £10.50 mark but on ebay it’s similar prices but more likely to get free postage 🙂
Bathelen recently posted: Truth is .. My nails are Iron Man (and Barry M Nail Art Pens review)
Well, as least there’s free postage. Always a silver lining, right? 🙂
As a lover of Liquid Sand I am excited to try the Pixie Dust polishes. Thanks for swatching this one it looks great in your pics, this is actually one of the ones I picked up (along with the red one, Chyna). I kind of wish i would have got the green (Vespa) or beige (Godiva) but I can’t seem to find them in any stores now when I went back to look. Nyx is definitely on my list of polishes I’m excited to try!
Hey Molly!
Zoya Nyx is such a photogenic polish – I loved photographing it! Haha!
This looks sooooooo pretty on you! I love how this looka but I wore one of the OPI liquid sands and I kept touching it. But in one of those this is annoying ways 🙁
Kas recently posted: Gone. But at least I have my very first piCture pOlish!
Hey Kas!
Thanks so much! Zoya Nyx really is very photogenic and would look wonderful on anyone. It was fun to wear – I kept looking down at my nails and admiring them like a polish peacock!