Zoya Marley

The Time of the Lilacs, Sophie Gengembre Anderson (1823-1903) (source)

Marley was released by Zoya as part of its Intimate collection for spring 2011. Described by Zoya as the "lightest baby lavender touched with a hint of gray-silver and a subtle pearl finish," it is a whitened pale purple that leans toward the lilac side of the lilac-lavender spectrum, with gentle grey undertones and microfine pearlescent shimmers. It's a bit of a chameleon, ranging from a pale lavender pink to lilac to lavender grey depending upon lighting. I was surprised by all the different aspects that were picked up in my photos.

Application was a little bit of a study. I've come to the conclusion that my approach to the application of pastels and light colors generally needs a mental makeover. I think I panic a little bit about patchiness and evenness and react by overloading my brush. Next time I work with a pale polish, I'm going to try to focus less on the end result and simply practice what I know to be good polish-applying technique. That's my plan. It may not be cunning, but it is mine.

So, Marley. It has a nice consistency: fluid, creamy and dense. In my hands, it lay down a bit unevenly with patchy coverage on the first coat. The second coat resulted in coverage that while still uneven in my estimation, was nevertheless opaque. Marley actually has a outstanding formula for a pastel and is very well pigmented. I almost went on to do a third coat to try and even up the coverage a bit more but decided to leave smoothing things out in the capable chemical hands of the Vite. Marley dries naturally in fairly good time to a glossy finish. 

Photos show two coats of Marley over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of, what else, Seche Vitersehen. 

Zoya Marley

Zoya Marley

Zoya Marley

Zoya Marley

Zoya Marley

Zoya Marley

Zoya Marley

Zoya Marley

Zoya Marley

Zoya Marley

What a lovely color for spring, no? I can hardly believe I've got a pastel on my nails, because my fingers and hands actually look normal and not like they've been microwaved. I was a little sad about how much my ridges show under the polish even though I doubled up on my ridge-filling Butter London Nail Foundation basecoat, but that's just the nature of the beast sometimes. At least they aren't showing THROUGH the polish! No doubt I could try the ridge-defeating technique for holos and metallics that I mentioned yesterday the next time I venture into pale polish world. I think I'll do that tomorrow.

The pearly shimmers in Marley give it a very chic, sleek look with a touch of gossamer luminosity that is just as lovely and graceful as a soft kiss on the cheek. Sweet polish! It's actually making me feel like someone who has a clue.

As if!

love,
Liz

Lightest baby lavender touched with a hint of gray-silver and a subtle pearl finish - See more at: http://www.zoya.com/content/item/Zoya/Zoya-Nail-Polish-Marley.html#sthash.mCNJ7jZD.dpuf