In addition to the Sunshine and Summertime shimmer/creme sets for summer, Zoya has also released a mini collection of matte finish brights. They are:
Lolly. A bright pink creme matte. I like this shade of pink in the matte finish. It's a cooler shade of pink than OPI La Paz-itively Hot Matte and it has no shimmer.
Mitzi. A yellowy pea green matte creme! This is my favorite of the set. It really stands out on the nails. It's bright but murky at the same time. More dirty and yellowy than OPI Gargantuan Green Grape Matte.
Phoebe. A bright blue matte with blue shimmer. The only shimmer finish matte in the bunch. The shimmer is very subtle but it adds a nice satiny glow to the matte color. Think satin ribbon. Also, I just noticed that I have foundation in my cuticles. Ew. Sorry about that.
Since Phoebe has some shimmer, I was curious to see how it looked with topcoat to make it shiny:
It's nice glossy, too! The shimmer is still subtle but it looks electric. The blue on blue with a touch of green is really eye-catching.
The formula on these was good. You seem to have more time to work with these than previous mattes and that helps application somewhat. Your best bet is still to completely load the brush and cover the nail in as few strokes as possible, but you don't have to do it as quickly with these. They do dry completely in only a few minutes and they don't require topcoat so they're great for when you're in a hurry. They are much more sheer than other mattes and I needed three coats to make them look perfect. The wear time is average for mattes; I wore Phoebe for two days with no chipping or tipwear until the end of day two when a large section of polish on my index finger cracked off unprovoked... It's so weird when that happens. It just goes POOF! and it's gone.
I love the mod look of these. Very funky and even a bit psychedelic. It's nice to see more colors of matte, I'm getting a little tired of all the matte greys and blacks! Matte nail polish isn't over yet... wonder if anyone else will do more mattes this year?
(These were sent to me for review.)