Zoya Sansa

Sansa was released by Zoya as part of the Ignite collection for fall 2014. It's officially described by Zoya as a "deep eggplant with a metallic gold sparkle," and I agree. This is a very dark purple bordering on violet filled with golden shimmers. The shimmers produce a variety of colors as they sparkle through the base color: gold, copper, bronzey brown, bronzey green, and purple. The copper, bronze and gold push some warmth into the color, and give it a unique look on the nail. I'd been thinking that I wouldn't like this polish because of it's very dark tone and because I was afraid the contrasting shimmer would make it look muddy on the nail, but I was WRONG! The combination of depth and sparkle give it a secret squirrel quality that I appreciate, and even though it is deep and complex, it remains recognizable as a purple to the discerning eye.

Application was Zoya-tastic! The consistency of Sansa is classic Zoya: fluid, creamy and dense with a buttery, self-leveling glide over the nail. It is easily manipulated with Zoya's round, flexible brush and should you mar your polish it allows itself to be patched in a very user-friendly fashion. Pigmentation is very good with evenly opaque coverage and full, rich bottle color in two coats. Cleanup is fairly straightforward and although the shimmers are partial to sticking to cuticles and skin they will give up the ghost with just a little persistence. Sansa dries naturally in very good time to a finish so glossy it feels redundant to topcoat it. But since I topcoat ALL THE THINGS, on it went. 

Photos show two coats of Sansa over Seche Rebuild treatment and Pretty Serious All Your Base basecoat (if I had it together enough to do any best of the year lists, this basecoat would surely be at the top) with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Zoya Sansa

Zoya Sansa

Zoya Sansa

Zoya Sansa

Zoya Sansa

Zoya Sansa

Zoya Sansa

Zoya Sansa

Zoya Sansa

Zoya Sansa

Zoya Sansa

Zoya Sansa

Zoya Sansa

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How about that shimmer, eh?

Darker colors are always so much harder to capture when the sun is strong and bright -- the contrast and warmth of the light makes them want to look even darker than they are, although Sansa is a very dark color anyway, sparkling shimmer aside. My aesthetic isn't well-tuned enough in this spectrum to call this vampy, although I think those with more sophisticated tastes might. It feels too lively, even spry, to me to be a vamp, which I think of as more brooding and moody. 

But I'm ready to be corrected at a moments notice!

love,
Liz