Zoya Fall 2013 Cashmeres & Satins Collection — Starting with the Satins

Think of the most sumptuous, richest, sophisticated, luxurious fabrics associated with the autumn and winter season, and you’ll likely conjure up images of jewel-toned satins and soft, skin caressing cashmeres. With that in mind, then, Zoya created its outstanding new collection: the Zoya Fall 2013 Cashmeres & Satins nail lacquer collection. The collection is divided into two families: six shades deemed to be “satins,” all featuring lustrous finishes and formulated in divine metallic gem tones; and six shades in the “cashmere” family, all featuring opaque cream formulas in cool-toned shades.

Since it’s such an expansive collection, I’ll be doing a two-part review, focusing this first installment on the “satins” portion.

The Zoya Satins Fall 2013 collection incorporates six nail lacquer shades, all available for $8 each at Zoya.com: Giovanna, an emerald green color with a lovely sheen; Neve, a metallic sapphire blue with violet undertones; Mason, a reddish violet with a lovely lustrous finish; Channing, a coppery red with golden bronze swirls that give the shade a fiery quality; Claudine, a stormy, steely gray that nears a gunmetal tone; and Maria Luisa, an elegant top coat with a clear base saturated with yellow gold glimmer to create an effect reminiscent of gold foil .

Below, you’ll find swatches of the six shades in the Zoya Satins collection. Hopefully, you’ll see why I’m so incredibly smitten with this collection. It feels so opulent!

GIOVANNA

This color is exquisite. It’s a cool-toned emerald green, and the tonality is reminiscent of the gemstone in its rawest, most crystalline form but with more of a color saturation payoff. When you think of an emerald green satin and silk gowns, this is precisely the shade that comes to mind (just think of that fabulous Vera Wang dress Mila Kunis wore to the 2011 Golden Globe Awards or  the Carolina Herrera gown Diana Agron wore to the 2012 Met Gala). It’s such a stunning shade that, during New York Fashion Week, while I was at the Colgate Optic White Beauty Lounge, a male bartender said to me, “Are you getting your nails done? Don’t change that nail color!” I reassured him that I was getting a complimentary blow-dry, but I had to chuckle to myself because rarely does a heterosexual man ever comment on someone’s nail color — much less that of a complete stranger. But that, folks, is how amazing this shade is!

MASON

This is another slam dunk from Zoya. The Mason nail lacquer has a rather unique tonality — it’s not quite a magenta shade nor is it a true purple, but instead, it combines reddish pink and violet tones for a final shade that feels otherworldly, like the Eagle Nebulae was plucked from the cosmos and tucked inside a bottle. The finish, meanwhile, is a sophisticated metallic sheen, and there are tiny flecks of glitter to add to the magical quality of the polish.

NEVE

I’ve tried a gazillion metallic blue shades and I don’t know that any have been as lovely as Zoya’s Neve nail lacquer. Again, there’s a jewel equivalent to this shade: a sapphire stone. The dark blue polish has silver glimmer  and tiny violet and silver micro pearls mixed into it for added sheen. It’s such a posh color! It reminds me of the blue Armani Privé gown Anne Hathaway wore when she hosted the 2011 Oscars (one of her eight dresses that evening!).

CHANNING

Inside its bottle, the Zoya Channing nail polish looks like a coppery, metallic rust color. When applied to nails, however, the shade’s reddish tones are more readily apparent and the coppery tones seem secondary. Also, the molten gold swirled into the formula and the tiny copper and gold pearls magnify the fiery luster of the nail lacquer. The final shade feels like an homage to the changing autumn foliage, making it more striking.

CLAUDINE

If you’ve watched enough movies with steamy sex scenes, you’ve likely seen your fair share of bedroom romps in satin sheets. The Zoya Claudine nail lacquer reminds me of the dark steely gray satin sheets that pop up in so many cinematic bedroom scenes. Need another pop culture reference? Try this one: the dress Meg Ryan wears at the very end of Kate & Leopold, when she travels back in time to nab her prince from a bygone era.

MARIA LUISA

Last, but not least, we have Maria Luisa. This particular lacquer is meant to be used as a top coat in order to create a “golden cellophane effect.” The Maria Luisa polish, then, has a clear base but it’s saturated with glitter in an Etruscan gold shade so that, when you layer it atop another shade, it creates this foil-like effect. In the photos above, I applied two coats of the Maria Luisa polish over the Channing shade. In the first photo, you can see how dynamic the effect is — it reminded me of Katniss’ flaming dress in The Hunger Games! In the second photo, meanwhile, I turned off the camera’s flash so you could get a better feel for the textural juxtaposition and the seamless feel of the golden finish above the base color (it looks like my nails were painted with a single lacquer as opposed to two different ones, which is always a plus!).