Zoya - Blaze (swatches and review)

     Hey guys, I have a nail polish swatch for you today. This is Zoya's Blaze from the 2012 Ornate Collection. I thought the way to spell the name was "Blaise", because of the similarly named Harry Potter character, but the variation does make sense. I think that if you have the balls to name your kid Blaze, you're either a pretty awesome parent or you were trashed at the time of the naming process and your child will hate you for the rest of her life. Either way, it's a cool name.

     Out of all the polishes I bought out of this collection, I was probably the least excited for this one. Although this is a great color on it's own and Zoya hasn't yet disappointed me with regards to formula/texture, I have a veritable ton of polishes in the red color family and this one didn't pop out at me as anything special. It was, however, a holo finish, which I do like so I picked it up. It certainly looked nice in the bottle.

     Like most other polishes in this particular collection, this is a holo. The base is a deep maroon bordering on magenta with tons of micro holo pieces packed into the suspension. Surprisingly, I don't have a dupe for this. Even with my ridiculous number of reds, I could not find another polish in my collection that came close. Also initally, the base for this polish reminded me of the essie color leading lady. I thought that they were the same base with one holo glitter and one small hex glitters. After comparing the two, it seems as though even the bases are different. LL is more transparent and jelly-like while Blaze is more of an opaque color. I will probably have some pictures of LL up soon so you can see the differences better.

     The formula on this polish is on par with Storm since it seems to be similar in both texture and finish. The color is sheer on the first coat and becomes opaque with the second. The dry time is pretty fast and I was able to paint on a second coat with no balding right after finishing the first. Since there aren't any glitter pieces, removal was a breeze.

Swatches:

(natural lighting)

     Overall, this is a good polish to have if you're into this type of color. I liked the formula and the texture and feel that the quality of the product is well worth the price. Blaze is available on Zoya's website, at ulta and various other salons for $8.

If you have any polishes you'd like to see swatched from my stash, let me know and I'll put it in my queue.

Thanks for reading!

-seal