Zoya Remy

Remy was released by Zoya as part of the Ignite collection for fall 2014. Buying a complete collection all at once is something I've never done until now, but every single polish in the Ignite collection appealed to me so much that I actually got them all. It was criminal! I'll probably never do it again. 

Remy wasn't the polish I was looking forward to the most in this collection, which is surprising because it's blue and I'm such a fan of blue polishes and Remy got a lot of hype, along with Sansa and Yuna, when Ignite came out. Zoya describes this one as a "brilliant indigo with a strong green flash and gold liquid metallic glitter." I wouldn't call this blue an indigo, it's more of a deep well-saturated royal blue that reads as cerulean or teal from the abundant fairly fine golden shimmers it carries. It possesses a near-duochromatic appearance on the nail, semi-metallic and slipping from royal to cerulean to teal, with flashes of sprucey green as Zoya describes. When you look closely, the tiny golden shimmers show as blue and green, depending how far they are from the surface. It's similar to the foily shimmer finish that Zoya does so well, only with more finely milled shimmers than the typical larger-sized flaky ones you usually see in polishes from Zoya with this kind of construction. 

Application would have been better if I weren't having a shaky hands day and didn't need the amount of cleanup I did afterwards, since Remy is a cuticle and skin stainer. Looking at Remy in the bottle, I swear I could almost see the blue-ish tinge it would leave behind. Self-fulfilling prophesy much? The formula is actually very nice: fluid, smooth and dense with a bit more body to it than I expected. It has an easy, self-leveling flow over the nail. Pigmentation is excellent, almost a one-coater but I used to for completely even opacity. Cleanup was a bear. Not only does the pigment run at the touch of acetone, but the shimmers do also. Careful application is the best way to go with this one, leaving as little cleanup to do as possible. Remy dries naturally in average time to a smooth shiny finish.

Photos show two coats of Remy over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Zoya Remy

Zoya Remy

Zoya Remy

Zoya Remy

Zoya Remy

Zoya Remy

Zoya Remy

Zoya Remy

Zoya Remy

Zoya Remy

Zoya Remy

Zoya Remy

Zoya Remy

The green flash proved too elusive to be captured by my camera so you'll just have to trust that it's there. Even without it, Remy is about as perfect a fall/winter nail polish as you could find, I think. It's got the lush, evocative, sparkling jewel-toned color that always seems to go so well with this time of year. It caps off the dark end of the foily oceanic blue category of polishes that includes Zoya Charla, OPI Catch Me in Your Net and Orly Halley's Comet. 

There's a mysterious elegance to this polish, as if each nail was wrapped in a cloak of silk velvet. Pretty stunning! I like it much better than I thought I would, and it's continuing to grow on me. We'll see how I feel about it when time comes for removal -- if I find it's a nail stainer I'll add a postscript to that effect, but I suspect any staining will be to my fingers and nail environs rather than the nail itself.  

love,
Liz