Zoya Kimmy

Kimmy was released by Zoya as part of its Sunshine collection for summer 2011. According to Zoya's marketing machine, it is a "gleaming metallic candy apple red brightened by gold sparkle," but I totally disagree with what they seem to think candy apple red is and although I can see Kimmy being classified as a red to me it walks the line between red and orange. I'd call Kimmy a deeply saturated blood orange with strong flame-colored undertones and a glass flecked semi-metallic finish. It's just a fabulous brilliant color, even if my pasty pinkage maybe doesn't show it off to its best, with a lava-like dynamic quality to it that is jumpin', baby! 

Application was delightful. I used to detail cars in a previous life and by far my favorite car paint to work on was red so a color like this with it's powerful reddish tones and lively sparkling glass flecked finish is music to my eyes (so to speak). Kimmy's consistency and coverage are similar to it's sister color Reva of the same collection: fluid, light and easy to control with excellent pigmentation. Kimmy can be worn happily at one coat but the deeper tones of its coloration are enriched and strengthened by a second. This polish dries naturally in good time to a smooth shiny finish. 

Photos show two coats of Kimmy over Seche Rebuild treatment and Butter London Nail Foundation basecoat with a topcoat of Poshe. I think I'm going to try and seek out a new fast dry topcoat that is more to the liking of Zoya's polish formulas. Seche and Poshe, if not applied to completely cover every square millimeter of a Zoya polish on the nail, result in what I call the Zoya Eeek! Corona Effect, where the uncovered Zoya pulls back in horror from the edge of the topcoat. The two formulas just do not play well together. This most frequently and noticeably happens for me around the cuticle edge of the polish and if you look closely at the photos you can see what I'm talking about. 

Yak yak yak... on to the pics of the fiery gloriousness that is Zoya Kimmy!

Zoya Kimmy

Zoya Kimmy

Zoya Kimmy

Zoya Kimmy

Zoya Kimmy

Zoya Kimmy

Zoya Kimmy

Zoya Kimmy, with bonus rogue black dot on the closest edge of that index fingernail... not sure how that got there or what it is even but it got in under the topcoat and while it's most noticeable here it's in all the rest of the photos of this nail also, dammit... plus this photo's as good as any to point out the Zoya Eeek! Corona Effect, visible along the cuticle edge of the polish where I failed to overlap all of the Zoya formula with my topcoat....

Zoya Kimmy

Zoya Kimmy

Zoya Kimmy

Zoya Kimmy

Zoya Kimmy

Zoya Kimmy

Zoya Kimmy

Zoya Kimmy

Zoya Kimmy

Zoya Kimmy

So, whaddaya think? Pretty lava-liscious, no? Reminds me of something that the goddess Pele would wear! I mean, the color is so bold and bright it that in person, at least on me, it makes the rest of the world look a little like that photoshop effect where you make the image all black and white except for one color. It stands out that much! You can see why it was included in a summer collection of course but I think it'd also be awesome for holidays like the ones we just had or Valentine's Day. 

Orange polishes may not love me as much as I love them but I'm not gonna hold that against them. Zoya really knows how to make brilliantly colored polishes that while mind-expandingly bright never go over the top into gaudiness. They always seem to retain their dignity. In the case of Kimmy I think it does so in part by means of the gorgeous depth and beauty of the glass flecked finish.

Kimmy's a keeper, for sure!

love,
Liz