A few weeks ago, while browsing looks created for the fall 2012 runways searching for inspiration, I stumbled upon this photo from Cynthia Rowley with a fabulous yet simple nail look:

…Also – how happy and cute does this model look?!

As a fan of the random alternate shade as part of a manicure, this appealed to me so much.  I also loved the cocoa shade the model wore, which was surprizing to me since I usually have nointerest in brown nail polish.  Brown skin + brown polish = bo-ring!  However, this one seemed somehow elegant on her (although I’m sure her long, slender fingers helped immensely), and the juxtaposition of the dark accent nail really made the entire look.  When I found out that the polish used was by Zoya, and that I owned one of the shades already – Cynthia, an deep teal from last fall’s collection – I knew I had to buy the other color, stat!

And so I came to own Zoya’s Dea

Indoor light, no flash

Dea is a milk chocolate shade with a hint of red in it’s base, which seems to really flatter my olive-leaning skin.  It’s not so close to my skintone as to look like a ‘mannequin hands’ shade, but not so dark that it looks drab, which is how I usually find brown or brown-leaning shades to look like on me.  While I love a good dark chocolate shade on fair skin (see Temptalia), on me it just falls flat.  Not so with Dea!  Its the very first brown polish I’ve owned and I absolutely LOVE it!

Indoor light, flash

Formula on Dea was typical Zoya cream, which is to say it goes on a tad bit fussy but overall dries to a lovely, self-leveling finish.  Lately I’ve been noticing that the base coat I pair with my polish makes a difference in the wear of the polish, so I’ve been accumulating various base coats from each brand.  This time around when I ordered Dea from Nail Polish Canada, I also ordered Zoya’s Anchor base coat, and it made a HUGE difference in how long the polish lasted on me.  Normally I get about 3 days wear with most polishes before it starts to chip, but I wore Dea for almost a week with only minor tip wear (the photos below are on day 4, I believe).  I attribute that to pairing the base coat and polish of the same brand together – though I will do a few trial runs with other brands and the Anchor base to see how they fare.

Indoor light, flash

As this was my first time wearing Dea, I didn’t do the accent nail because I wanted to wear the polish on it’s own to see how I felt.  As you probably can tell, I was totally pleased with it as is and so now I can’t waitto wear it with Cynthia as I think it’s going to be the most amazing combination ever!  I’ll be sure to post pics when I do

For anyone wondering, I did a quick bottle comparison of this shade with OPI’s San Tan-tonio, because at first I thought they might be similar.  However, as you can see, the two are NOT dupes or even close, with OPI’s shade being obviously lighter, and I find it leans more yellow overall.  And, erm…Dea is all kinds of more awesome, guys!!!

I think you’re probably getting the picture here now – Dea is totally awesome!  It’s always the best when you have little or no expectations, its much easier to be pleasantly surprized and impressed   I will concur that it may be a shade that doesn’t work for everyone…but in that instance, I’d say to investigate the brown shade I linked to above, or some other similar colors – I’m totally a brown polish convert now and think everyone should own at least one!

What shade of polish has pleasantly surprized you in the past?  Do you care for brown polish at all, or steer clear?