Zoya Naturel Satins Swatches and Nail Art

Sample provided for review
The weather is starting to warm up around my part of Michigan, but there is still some snow lingering, the remains of the piles where walks and parking lots were cleared over the winter, so it seems a perfect time to share the winter to spring transitional collection from Zoya, the Naturel Satins. This consists of six subdued neutral and near neutral shades with a satin finish both on the bottles and the polish: Rowan, Leah, Sage, Tove, Ana, and Brittany.

I paired these up for swatching purposes to better show the differences between similar colors. First up are Ana and Brittany. Ana is the paler of the two that's on most of my fingers; Zoya describes this as "light toasted almond" but on me it pulls toward a light peach. Brittany is a pastel dusty rose. I used two coats of each, no topcoat in order to display the satin finish.

Leah and Rowan are the taupe contingent in this collection. The lighter Leah is on most of my nails below with Rowan as an accent; both were two coats and shown with no topcoat.

I alternated the last two shades; Tove is a greyed blue and Sage is a greyed green. Again, these were two coats.

Given that I can't turn to quick dry topcoat with these if I want to enjoy the finish, I was glad these were all two coaters. Still, I found myself a bit impatient waiting for them to dry. It's not that they're slow to dry, just that I hate waiting, and because these are smooth finish, the repercussions from not letting them dry thoroughly are more noticeable than with something like the PixieDust polishes, which can take a few dings and not show them. If I were in a real hurry, I think I'd be tempted to use a quick dry top coat then top with one my matte toppers that finishes satin to get the look. Yes, those additional two coats would probably take as long to apply as if I'd just waited for the color to dry on its own, but I'm better at keeping busy than sitting still.

I used the time I saved by swatching these in pairs to play with some nail art. Tove and Sage just seemed to be crying out to pair up with their PixieDust conterparts, Nyx and Vespa. I freehanded a diagonal block of the textures over the satins and loved the results (might have loved them more if I'd taken the time to tape off the blocks for neater lines, but see above re: impatience).

I did clouds (inspired, of course, by Nailside) with some of the other satins plus a glittery friend. I put down a base of Rowan, then freehanded clouds with Ana, Godiva (from the PixieDust line), and Brittany, smoothing clear topcoat over all to even out the layers and see how the satins would take to being shiny. I've said enough time that gold is not my color, yet I really like the bit of it peeking out here, adding some sparkle to the otherwise very subdued hues but not so much sparkle that it detracts from the overall look.

I think there's a color for everyone here, assuming you want something subtle. Tove and Sage are the least subdued of this quiet group and are therefore my favorites. Twenty years ago, I was in a different headspace and probably would have shied away from them as being odd—I love how things can change!

The polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider, and I get to keep the polishes for my own use.