Zoya Crystal blue nail polish swatches, photos, review

So I've done my nails after two whole months. Why would a nail polish fan (got into polish years before makeup) avoid polish for eight weeks? Just take a look at my index, middle and ring fingers, even beneath all that nail polish, and you will know why. Since I was feeling blue over the breakage and peeling, I decided to go in for Zoya Crystal as my comeback polish. It is an older polish, but one of my favourites.

Here are swatches of Zoya Crystal nail polish in natural light and direct sunlight, and the story of my nail break.

The moment I got on that flight to the Middle East in December, my nails began peeling and breaking off like nobody's business. And I kept making them worse, by accidentally getting them in the way of doors, zippers and knife-edges (chopping veggies). Throughout January, I suffered the most horrible nail damage, as bad as the time I epoxied my fingers together with superglue and didn't do my nails for a long while (click here for that post and photos).

I have managed to buff the roughness out and they have grown a bit, but the surface remains super-uneven near the edges, where peeling has been the worst. See the unevenness in the photos? That is after smoothing, buffing and getting the nails to shine till I can see my silhouette on them.

Crystal is part of Zoya's Fire and Ice (later renamed Flame) collection for Winter 2010, which is a long time ago. The collection comprised metallics, foils, frosts and shimmers. Crystal (along with Jo, Shawn and Avril) was one of the first Zoya nail polishes I picked up, wowed by the shade.

This is an icy denim-ish blue nail polish with a foil finish, containing fine gold, teal and blue foil glitter. It has a smooth finish - unevenness due to nail damage - and swatches a tad darker than my camera can capture it. I keep thinking of Jack Frost when I see this nail polish. Very wintry. The formula is thin and streaks on the first coat, but the second coat puts things right. Here, I have worn two coats over Rimmel All White Now, which is the only base coat that will not let the colour above stain my nails. Drying time is quick enough. This is in direct sunlight; the previous photos are in natural light.
Next week, I'll have some polishes I picked up recently and hopefully more decent nails.
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