Dahlia Darling

I do not like Sally Hansen's bajillion different nail polish lines. It makes life incredibly difficult sometimes. It would be so brilliant they were just condensed into just one line. Then again, maybe we wouldn't have like 80,000 variations of pink or red available for us.

Even though I give SH a lot of flack, it's easily one of the best and usually affordable drugstore nail polishes. That's because while I adore cheapo brands, Sally Hansen usually has a lot of variety, especially of late. But really, sometimes pink is just pink. And I say that as a polish whore with about 50 different shades of the same pink or red. But then again, I easily every color in the rainbow, even the colors I can't see.

Anyway, I LOVE Sally Hansen Lacquer Shine in Dahlia. It's one of the most multifaceted, "sophisticated" (read: not crazy BLING BLING IN YO FACE) glitter topcoats around. It's multicolored, fine shimmer with tiny gold flakes. I tried it over, what else, a pink Sally Hansen color, and fell in love. It was cloudy that week so I don't have fabulous pictures but you can see the results:

Oh, and True Tulip is a straight creme, so all this beauty is all Dahlia

See what I mean about the sophistication? It's so subtle, but wonderful.

As with all good things though, there is a downside. Dahlia is not a clear glitter topcoat, so it will slightly alter the base color to be a bit lighter. So, it works best with lighter colors and black. You can layer anything over black.

Here it is over a darker color, LA Flare Green (a beautiful green creme PS)



As you can see, the glitter also shows up a bit differently over LAF green. It's not unpleasant, but it does make a difference in color. That's really the only downside to this. But then I think about how great it goes over black and over lighter colors and I'm won over again. I'll have to play around some more but I'm definitely loving Dahlia.

SH Salon Navy Baby & Comparisons

So the other day I was browsing Ulta and saw a special display for Sally Hansen Salon line polishes. Imagine my surprise when it was a display specifically for Navy Baby, a navy blue that I've heard about but never seen in person (and wasn't expecting to, all the stores around me at school are very slow when it comes to new polish displays). Take a look at this beaut:

In sunlight:

In shade:

After swatching them, I realized it looked a bit like Nina Out of the Blue, which reminded me of Chanel Blue Satin. So here they are together...please ignore a) the messy application and b) the weird positioning of everything because this was the best picture I got.

Here's Blue Satin up close:

A close-up of Out of the Blue...

And a close-up of Navy Baby

As you guys can see, they are all very similar. I will have to say though that the Chanel has a more vibrant/noticeable shimmer up close and in real life that didn't translate to the pictures. Here are Out of the Blue and Blue Satin by themselves:


All in all, if you're not crazy like me and don't need all three, I would pick the Nina one to own. Not only is it the cheapest option here (I think around $3 at Sallys? Compared to $6 for the SH and $19 for the Chanel), it's also easiest to find and once thinned the application and wear is pretty great. But, I will say that there is just something about the Chanel, a unknown WOW factor that just makes me love it. If it weren't so expensive I would buy more backups of the Chanel for sure. Good thing there are dupes!

PS: Has anyone been watching Shark Week on the Discovery Channel? I love it!

Pinktastic!

I know I've mentioned a couple of times that I used to not be adventurous with my nails at all...I used to ONLY wear pink nail polish. But, well, given this batch of swatches can ya blame me? Pink is pretty hot!

Sinful Forget Now is a bit more on the fuchsia side, but it's still a gorgeous color with sparkles:


Sally Hansen 10 Day in Forever Mango is a pinkish mango color:

If you want a lighter pink, Sally Hansen Salon in You-Gurt Style is perfect, though it was a bit streaky. It's a great milky pink though, just requires a bit of patience:


L'Oreal Trust Fund Baby is a great slightly pearly pink, not super frosty but adds a bit of extra shine, a very classy pink:

Boots Rendezvous is a dark rose-pink with a punchful of gold shimmer:


Naturally, I saved the best for last. Rimmel Pop Apricot is a truly juicy pink color with a bit of pretty gold glitter:


I hope you enjoyed this mini picspam of delicious pinks. This post is dedicated to the very kind and very sweet duffimac over at MUA, who used to not like pinks at all! Hopefully this post will inspire her to give pinks a chance =)

Impressions: Sally Hansen Insta-Brite Nail Whitener

Hmm. Well, I've used this base coat for about a month now, and my nails are very, VERY dry. Like completely stripped of oils. I left them naked and bare for two days and it was still very very dry and my nails were peeling more so than usual.

The directions are: Apply one coat over clean dry bare nails; let dry. To maximize effects, apply a second coat. Perfect under nail color or wear alone for natural nails with a healthy radiance.

It's supposed to:

• Brighten and Smooth Natural Nails.
• UV Protection to Resist Yellowing; Enriched with Natural Extracts.
• Instantly whiten and brighten nails for a fresher cleaner appearance.
• Helps correct the visible effects of staining and other discolorations of the nail and intensify the white of natural nails.
• Ridge-filling action creates a smooth flawless finish.

As a ridge-filler, it's pretty good. I've also tried this by itself, just using two coats. It did make my stains look lighter in some lights because it has very fine, sparse micro shimmer...but in other lights it just made my stains more obvious.

As a basecoat itself, it actually did prevent staining which is something even the almighty Barielle Camouflage can't do. Also, my stains did fade a bit. However, given how the negatives outweigh the positives, I can't say I'll ever buy this one again. It does make a decent top coat though, because of the micro shimmers.

SH Insta-Brite Nail Whitener retails for $4.99 and can be found at Target

Tribute

Sometimes the best way to express your mood is through color. Yesterday marked the last day of China's national three-day mourning period for the victims of the recent earthquake. Since I'm Chinese, I felt that it was appropriate to honor those who died and those who gave their lives to help save potential survivors by wearing black on my nails.

This is no ordinary black though, for me at least it's pretty symbolic. Sally Hanson Lacquer Shine in Glossy is a black with red shimmer. Since China's national flag is red, it was the perfect color for this occasion. Sadly there was no sun today because Southern California's weather was crazy, and so I couldn't get any good pictures. There were actually tornadoes in the county!

Anyway, for the most part Glossy just looks like black.

*edit*: I'm viewing from another computer and using IE and the above picture was pretty horrific because it has the darkness and the abundant yellow tones going on so I removed it. When I'm able to get a better picture of it that doesn't make me look jaundiced on some screens, I'll post it.

The gorgeous red shimmer comes out more noticeably in sunshine but here's a bottle shot of the shimmer:

Luckily Glossy is still part of their core collection so it's very easy to find.

For more information and ways to help both the Chinese earthquake and their neighbor who also suffered from a natural disaster, the Myanmar cyclone, check out their Red Cross pages:

• China Earthquake relief
  
• Myanmar Cyclone relief
  

Early Morning Hotness: SH Prisms Coral Amber

Yes, I know it's another early bird post. I have bad sleeping habits in general but also because of my class schedule. I slept in today, but as my friend pointed out earlier, hours of sleep don't work like Cingular (now AT&T)'s rollover plan! I'm sleeping soon but before I sleep I'd like to introduce you guys to the magical world of holographic nail polishes.

Sally Hansen is a pretty popular drugstore nail polish brand. Like Essie, they have many pinks and neutrals that are great for conservative workplaces or if you want low-maintenance colors. However, Sally Hansen does do something odd that Essie doesn't....it has many lines within its core line. There's the Hard as Wraps line, the Opal lines, the Salon line, the Xtreme Wears line, the 10 Day No Chip line....is your head spinning? Well, I'm pretty sure I've forgotten a line or two. I don't really know why SH decided to go with this particular marketing strategy because it does make our lives harder as bloggers since we have to type more but it's a shame that their best line to date (in my opinion) has been completely discontinued.

I'm talking, of course, about the Sally Hansen Prisms line that featured holographic and duochrome polishes. Before OPI and China Glaze jumped aboard the holo train, SH was the brickmaker of every holo-lover's fantasy. And even though OPI and China Glaze do holos really, really, REALLY well, let's face it, they can get a bit pricey if you buy them retail (though sidenote, I am so happy that ChG is going to be available at Sally's! My credit card is going to get quite a workout when more colors are going to be added). Who doesn't love a drugstore deal?

Coral Amber is a gorgeous holo polish with a great coral base color. I'm a huge holo lover because holos are so expressive; it's a kaleidescope of colors and sparkle on your fingertips! It's like being able to wear a rainbow without being labeled a fashion disaster.




However, hope is not lost. Some drugstores still carry the Prisms line for full price (around $5, I think). I've seen some at local Walgreens and Rite Aid's. If you do manage to find them, don't be fooled by how unspectacular it looks in the bottle, this baby comes alive when it's on your nail! I'm sorry I didn't tried it sooner!

If you're so In Style, tell us something we don't know

I love reading fashion/beauty magazines! I usually get lots of my fashion inspiration and tips from these magazines. I finally got one of my free InStyle magazines from Ulta, and I'm already thrilled because Carrie Underwood is on the cover.....but imagine my utter excitement when right there on the cover it screams BEAUTY NOW! Cool nail colors, luscious lips and foolproof-self-tanners. So honestly, which of the three am I going crazy over? The cool nail colors part, of course!

Well, it's a bit of a letdown. The Cool Nail Colors bit can be found on pg. 343 for those who have a copy and it's pretty much a bunch of colorful, photoshopped (as to not show the labels, even though they are listed in the back) polish together in a net with this little bit:


Net Gains- Turn on the brights with Technicolor nail polish
Cobalt-blue nails? Perhaps you just want to stick your toe in. And that's OK. But trust us: Bold shades have mad the leap from tacky to trendy this summer. When it comes to matching, forget the rules. Nowadays it's just as cool to clash (picture red nails with a pink dress) as it is to match (we love a yellow nail with a yellow-and-black painterly print).
Polish pictured: OPI The "It" Color, OPI Dating a Royal, OPI Brights Power, OPI Red Hot Ayers Rock; Essie Bermuda Shorts, Essie Shorty Pants; Sally Hanson Lacquer Shine in Glow and Flash, Sally Hanson No Chip 10 Day Nail Color in Resilient Red; Jessica Great Sphinx, Jessica King Tut's Gem, and Zoya Yummy.

Well ok, maybe for the no-so-obsessed people who are only casual partakers in nail polish this is good advice. I think that bold colors in general have been on the rise for summer though. After all, summer is the time for playing and fun, so you'd want colors to match that right?

But, I'm more than a little disappointed on how slow InStyle is in picking up on the grey trend, as evidenced by their little blurb on pg. 343:

Grey Nails

So long, pale pink, Now that women are embracing bold nail colors, even neutrals are getting funky. The current rage? Dove grey. Rescue Beauty Lounge's Concrete Jungle has already sold out three times since it launched last fall. "It's a great neutral complement to all the safari clothes this spring," says the line's creator, Ji Baek.

Grey (or gray, whatever spelling you prefer) has been on the rise since OPI's India Collection launched with Moon Over Mumbai. Around the same time, Essie also launched a collection with TWO grey polishes, Body Language and Great Expectations (Body Language has a touch of pink while Great Expectations is more of a true soft grey).



As you can see above, grey is not a color that I can pull off very well, but I do like the paler greys. If you have the coloring for greys, definitely check out Stephanie's Gray Comparison Swatches too! Or any of the other greys I talked about above, they should still be relatively easy to find. The Toma, by the way, is pretty hard to find, I found it at a local beauty supply but it's pretty old.

Anyway, I think that sometimes fashion or beauty magazines can be slow to pick up on some trends, but then again they're probably not as crazy about nail polish as some of us can be! I wish that they could be faster on picking up nail trends, but at least they still feature amazing styles and clothes.