Zoya Charla

All my friends would know just how long my obsession with this particular shade has been. It first started when my friend directed my attention to a certain OPI Catch Me In Your Net in the sadly sadly limited edition of the Summer Flutter collection from '10. I probably only knew about this early this year so obviously it was all snatched up like nobody's business. I went on a hunt for dupes immediately, and found Zoya Charla and Orly Halley's Comet. I almost bought Orly from wowshop but then it went OOS before I could confirm my order. Cries! In a last ditch attempt, I finally made the move to place a big order from Zoya. Zoya doesn't ship internationally so it was really my last resort. I had to send it to a friend in the USA who then found a way to get it to me.

Finally. Finally! Chorus of angels sing as I test out Zoya Charla for the first time.

And the end result? WHAT CAN I SAY? If you're as obsessed over blue-green shades as I am, this should practically be enshrined and blessed. It is fast becoming my favourite nail polish of all time because of its sheer beauty! It's basically a blue teal base with green shimmer. The shimmer in it is just stunning. I've never quite seen anything like it and it's really hard to describe. The most apt descriptor I've seen so far is 'mermaid sheen'. It does remind me slightly of fish scales (not the gross types). It's not exactly duochrome but it's just - it's just - breath-taking.

OK, enough of the raving, I'm sure i need no further elaboration of its good points, let's take a look at its bad. Firstly, like all Zoya glitters, Charla does take a few coats to build up. If I'm not wrong, this was probably about 3 or 4 coats and you can still see the VNL. Sadly, the VNL is even more obvious in real life. You'd probably need to strike a balance between painting enough coats to cover the VNL, but trying not to have too thick a coat in the end. Secondly, it is HIGHLY HIGHLY LIKELY that Charla will leave you with smurf fingers. This is the main reason why I have not yet worn Charla for not more than half an hour. Despite layering on two layers of base coat, I still have difficulties de-blue-ing my nails at the end of it. I'm not sure whether it might also be because my nail polish remover is itself blue-green in colour (such is the extent of my obsession), but removal is nevertheless still a big problem. That is not to say your nails will remain permanently blue after an application, but you probably need to run through each nail twice with the nail polish remover in order to adequately remove the blue tinge.

Despite having some failings, Charla is, in my opinion, one of the must-get nail polishes of all time (that is, unless you have one of its clones).