Manic.Monday: Wednesday by Zoya

It's time to share with you what my BNFF (Best Nail Friend Forever), Zoya and I have been up to lately. If you've read my blog before you'll know that Zoya and I are the best of nail buddies, nothing can come between us. I do spend time with some of my other polish pals as well -  e.g. Sally and Barry, but Zoya and I make sure to catch up regularly. This Manic Monday we're going to confuse matters slightly (something which is fairly easy to do on a Monday morning), and talk about Wednesday. I'm not referring to the day of the week, but a gorgeous creamy and warm muted eton blue color from Zoya, which is like a mix of blue and green, but a lot softer than teal. It's a beautiful sunny and opaque color that would suit most skin tones, but I don't love it just for the color - let's talk about all the other great qualities of this polish. 

I have raved about Zoya before, and I apologise for what's going to happen - some more raving... Let's start with the fabulous flat and wide brush that makes application a dream, even for those of us with little patience or time on our hands. The brush fans out over the nail at the gentlest press so you rarely need more than 1.5 brush strokes per nail to get a perfectly even non streaky coverage. Regardless of which out of the more than 300 different shades you decide to wear, the pigmentation is great and with a lot of the colors you can get away with wearing only one coat, although yours truly usually applies two coats to really enhance the creamy glossiness of the formula, which by the way is light and with just the right density. I've tried a variety of shades from Zoya and even the lighter pastel and sheer shades have a lovely subtle shine to them, which means that you could even go without topcoat if you wish. The polishes dry quickly and are long lasting - on me the finish will last about 4-5 days of normal wear and tear before the chipping is noticeable, and to me that's a pretty good long wear. Let's finish this repeat rave of Zoya's excellent qualities by saying that the polishes are very easy to remove; even the Pixi dusts come off quite easily since the coats are so thick that you can easily peel them straight off the nail without doing any damage at all to the nail surface.

The magpie in me was longing for some sparkle, so I added a coat of Ciaté's Locket (£9) which is a gorgeous sleek silver metallic glitter polish, that gives an amazing brilliance and lustre. For me it's enough with just an accent nail of Locket, but you can of course also use Locket on its own, applying at least two coats, and you'll get a lovely rich and opulent crystal effect, especially if you finish with a high shine topcoat. If you do decide to go all out with a couple of coats of Locket on its own, you should know that it is a little bit tricky to get off, like a lot of other glitter polishes.

Wednesday was part of the Zoya Beach collection from 2012, and for me it captures perfectly the look and feel of warm and loungy summer days and I imagine the color would look amazing with a tan. If you want to bring summer forward a few months, get yourself this fantastic polish from LoveLula (they offer free delivery worldwide) and I'm sure you'll start to love Zoya as much as I do. Which is your favorite nail polish brand?