Day: July 13, 2012

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear

Good, affordable nail polish that comes in loads of colours.

Previously, I have gone years without painting my hand nails. Yes, years. I think the last major time was in 2010 or 2009. The reason for this is that nail colour chips often on my hands. I knit, cook, wash dishes, and I just wash my hands a lot. I am not obsessive compulsive, but I am good at keeping my hands clean. I do paint my toe nails more though because they don’t chip as often and my feet are rather boring so I like to spruce it up for myself.

Lately, since the start of this year, I have been needing retail therapy. Then I saw that these went on sale, looked up some reviews and sort of went crazy and bought 6 including the Invisible colour way as a base and top coat. These will last me years.

The bottle recommends 2-3 coats. I will usually just do 2 because I have no patience for 3. I found too much makes it take forever to dry. I will apply a top coat using the Invisible colour. I never use to do this, but it really helps the colour last on my nails mostly on my left hand. I applied a base coat with the Invisible once, but I find it actually makes it easier to chip so I just do a top coat now. I find these last a good few days without major chipping and the pigmentation is really good. On my left hand, I went a good five days without a major chip usually.

The biggest con with this line seems to be that it takes awhile to dry and if you apply too much. Make sure your coats are very thin. Otherwise, they will smudge or dent easily even if you allow more than 10-15 mins drying time between coats. I am also not a big fan of the brush.

Price: Got these all on a Buy One Get On Free (BOGOF) sale so down from a regular $3.49 each to about $1.79CAD before tax.

Pros:

  • Affordable and widely available
  • Good colour selection
  • Very pigmented and sparkly (in the case of the Celeb City)

Cons:

  • Drying time can be a bit slow compared to some other lacquers.
  • Brush is not the best quality

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