Zoya Kalista

Hi!
Today I’m sharing swatches of  Kalista by Zoya. I could not be bothered to go the gym today and ended up watching ‘Castle’ episodes whilst painting my nails.
Zoya has gotten some press from magazines like Marie Claire and Instyle but finding their products in the U.K can be a little tricky. It isn’t really widely distributed here and isn’t as available as OPI products for example. Still I love the variety of colours they offer and the fact that their products don’t contain the toxic nasties toluene, formaldehyde and DBP. Cosmetics containing these products are already restricted in Europe. I don’t care how small the percentage of these products absorbed through nail polish is, I don’t want them in my system.
So, back to Kalista….I have to say that this is probably one of my favourite “vampy” polishes. I ordered it expecting a dark brown espresso colour with gold shimmer which was an interesting enough description but I would describe it as a warm mahogany with wine undertones, packed with red shimmer. The colour was applied over my usual basecoat, OPI’s Start to Finish which is a base and top coat. Kalista needs two coats to be opaque but you might be able to get away with just one depending on how thickly you apply your polish. I then added a coat of Seche Vite but I should add that the colour is super glossy all on its own. I just hate waiting for my nails to dry!

I took this picture in my kitchen while there was still enough daylight outside and as you can see in the picture, before I did my nails. The polish almost looks burgundy in the bottle.

This picture was taken without flash. The colour reminds me a little of red kidney beans…

Kalista with flash. Please ignore the state of my cuticles!

Another picture taken with flash. The colour a lovely bronze toned brown colour in the light.

There are definitely some golden tones there when viewed in bright light but if you look closely you’ll see the shimmer is red, not gold. I don’t know how they achieved that but it is pretty clever. Someone once asked me, “Is that brown or is that really dark red?”. You know what? Sometimes, it is a little hard to tell!

Until next time nail addicts!
The Lacquer Queen x