Swatch & Review: Zoya Yara

Zoya Yara is one of the 6 nail polishes from Zoya Mirrors Collection for Fall 2011. I’ve heard a lot about Zoya nail polish, but I don’t have access to it in Taiwan or Belgium. Wait, that’s not true. I can order it from Amazon.fr, but one bottle would cost me 12.95 euros. Considering a bottle of Chanel nail polish is around 20, the price is REALLY steep. Luckily I got to swap for it on MUA (Makeupalley for those of you who don’t know this amazing site yet)!

As with eyeshadows, the “color colors” of nail polish I like to wear are green and purple. However, while I find it easy to find purple nail polish that flatters my skin tone (I can pull off both warm- and cool-toned purple), green is a bit trickier. The first one I own is China Glaze Jolly Holly. While I don’t dislike the color, I don’t find it amazing, either. It’s mainly something I would wear on Saint Patrick’s Day, or to make the boyfriend happy because he has a thing for green nail polish (I think he got this obsession from his favorite movie, The Big Lebowski. Otherwise why would a guy who has NO interest in makeup find green nail polish sexy? But anyways). When I saw the swatch pictures of Yara, however, I was impressed by the color AND I knew it will highly possibly work for me.

Packaging: I really like Zoya’s no-fuss packaging. It manages to pack 15ml of nail polish in a slim-looking bottle, compared with OPI and China Glaze’s chunkiness. The square bottle of Chanel nail polish only contains 13ml!

Color: Yara is a murky mid-tone olive green polish with a crazy amount of golden shimmer. I would say it is pretty warm-toned, as it is heavily yellow-based (which can only be a good thing for me since I am very warm-toned).

Formula and application: Yara is actually a bit thick. I don’t know if this is what the formula is intended to be like or if it is because I got it in a swap. From what I read the formula should be on the thinner side. The brush is not my favorite, but it works better than that of Chanel (you heard me, Chanel? An 8-dollar polish nails it better than you do). The first coat was pretty streaky, to my surprise. I own about a dozen nail polish, and I can tell you this is about the streakiest I’ve seen. Luckily for Yara, applying the second coat was easy breezy, and it achieved seamless opacity. It also dries fast enough, which is a bonus!

Wear time: I’m going to test it out now, and I will report back in a week!

Final thoughts: I am very impressed with the color. It is very sophisticated AND fun. It is interesting enough for play, yet reserved enough for work. Definitely something very versatile. If olive-green is your thing you should grab a bottle while you still can!

EDIT 26/01/12: I have had to use my OPI nail polish thinner in Yara after two unsuccessful trials during which it chipped all over the place on me after a day. Now that it’s been thinned out a little it’s working better. I wouldn’t say it’s the Zoya formula. It’s more than likely because I got this bottle in a swap!