Comparison: Zoya Ki vs. Essence Where Is The Party?

Evening people. I haven't posted a comparison for a while now, I know. And this one bugged me quite a bit. When the word got out Essence made a complete dupe of Ki, I was of course very interested, having Ki on my WL for ages. But experiences thought me most of the time I'm not satisfied with how close the so-called dupes are, when I put them on my nails. I don't consider them dupes at all. So I prefer to check them out myself. If I have the chance, of course. Since my dear Tevta has a really awesome stash, I often have that chance, the same was with this comparison. Where is the party? is mine and Ki is Tevtas. Thank you, darling, for letting me play with them!

 You can see here that if I would made just normal pictures, without the major close ups and pointing out the differences, they would look the same. They do, basically, on the nails. 

As you can see, I split the comparison by coats too. It was made by accident, I smudged Zoya on my index finger and wanted to fix it simply by putting another coat on and then I saw the colour went darker a bit, so I decided to put another on Essence too. 

To compare them:

• The main subject, the colour: if you look really close, you'll see Zoya is a tad bit darker. Ki has less purple part and the edges are darker. The difference is more obvious with three coats (while the first coat is completely identical). But the duochrome effect is the same on both. I went jogging just after putting them on and they both reflect the same on the everyday lightning.You really have to look carefully to see the slight difference in brightness and even that I suspect only a nail polish junkie would notice IRL. 
• Both are two coaters, unless you want a bit darker colour. 
• Essence is much more brush-stroky, especially with the third coat (i acutally needed to redo it), while Zoya is basically brush-stroke free. 
• Zoya has runnier formula, but both glide on nail easily, no major complaints. 
• Both dry really fast, no need for a top coat, although I'm experiencing a rapid tip-wear with both of them, so perhaps TC wasn't a bad idea. 
• Brush with Zoya is thinner, rounder, Essence has flatter, wider brush, but both are really easy to work with. 
• Price and availability I can only judge for Slovenia, but Zoya is undoubtebly a higher end brand, while Essence the cheap department store one. Zoya goes in Slovenia for around 14€ (roughly 20 american dollars) and Essence 1,50€ (rougly 2 american dollars). We can, of course, get Zoya a lot cheaper with a little imagination. (And I don't mean stealing!)

Hm, have I forgotten anything? I think not. Frankly, I think it's safe to say if you have one, you don't need the other. Essence is a very good substitute for Zoya, price-wise. Yes, the formula is not as superb as it is with Zoya, but it's not bad either. I actually like Color & Go line formula very much. It just gets beaten comparing to Zoya's, at least when it comes to the brush strokes on these specific colours, but I'm not complaining about it either. 

I don't know about you, but I'm erasing Ki from my WL. I think Essence gets close enough. I love deals like this. :) 

What about you, close enough for you?

Thank you for reading!