Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Cherry Red

On days when I am undecided about what to wear on my nails and what polish would work best with an outfit I’ve been planning to wear for days, I rely on the red polishes from my collection to get me through.

Red polish is classic – transcends time and age, works with almost everything, and is perfect on both tips and toes.  With all the red hues out there in the nail polish market, the perfect red polish seems to be as elusive as the perfect red lipstick.

Let me present one of the best reds I’ve applied and worn on my nails:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red

If you need a primer on how my rating system works, please read this.

Formula: PERFECT.  ‘Nuff said.

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Opacity: Standard two coats and looks perfect.

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Removal: A bit of remnant polish that is to be expected of red polishes, but didn’t pose any major problems.

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Color: I know, I know.  This isn’t the most unique color in the world.  But this kind of red is the type that works wonderfully with my skin tone so go ahead and call me biased – I give this a perfect THREE.

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Extra! Extra!: This is from the widely-available drugstore line, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear available for a little under $3 and often goes on sale (keep your eyes open for Sally Hansen promotions in your favorite drugstores).  For Manila-based gals, there’s a limited selection available in Sally Hansen counters.  In today’s economy, cheap quality polish is a winner in my book!

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To close this short review, sharing a family pic of my Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear collection (missing around 3-5 polishes from what I recall) – proud members of my nail polish stash.

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear stash

You could definitely look forward to more swatches from this line in the near future!  Thanks for visiting!

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Grape Going!

I have a love-hate affair with Sally Hansen products.  I love them because they carry variety and make the polish selection at the drugstore more interesting with their offerings.  I hate them because 1) they keep on increasing prices every so often 2) the collections they release are distributed so sporadically that it’s so hard to find them and 3) ironically, because they have so many lines of polish (Xtreme Wears, Hard As Nails, Opals, Salons, HD, Insta-Dri’s etc etc) it’s so hard to keep up!

I swore to myself that I will never buy any of the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri polishes because the bottle has a weird shape and I’ve heard horror stories about the brush.  But this polish made me buy my first Insta-Dri’s:

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Grape Going!

Grape Going – pure purpley goodness in a bottle.  This is one of the most interesting polishes I’ve seen from the drugstore and I got a ton of compliments when I wore it.  The base shade of purple is unique and it flashes so many colors, depending on how the light hits the polish.  I couldn’t keep my eyes off my fingers while I was wearing this polish.

For this polish moving forward, I finally decided on adding another category into my polish review format (if you haven’t heard of it yet, check out my primer on my rating system).  I am calling this category EXTRAS that will allow me a bit of leeway into mentioning anything that is worth mentioning about the polish – ranging from bottle shape, brush characteristics, drying time, or even something as trivial as the polish name!  So I’ve finally completed my review criteria so I could use the acronym FORCE.  Sorry, I’m really bad at this (that’s why I didn’t pursue a career in marketing)!

Anyway, on to the review of my first Insta-Dri:

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Grape Going!

Formula: Only a few things that made it quite tricky to apply this polish: 1) the extra wide, stiff brush that takes some to get used to and 2) the brush strokes.  For those with small nail beds, be wary of the brush – you might have trouble controlling it.  The brush strokes, in my opinion, actually add to the “interesting” quality of the polish in the sense that it lends texture to it.  It’s not as visible and disturbing as brush strokes in frost-finish polishes.  The consistency of the polish is a-ok though, with all these being said.

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Opacity: Two coats might still give you visible nail line, three coats recommended.

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Removal: Not as easy to remove as I thought but not something that will give you serious trouble.  Somewhere in the middle of OPI Suedes and regular creme polish.

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Color: This started my love affair with Sally’s Insta-Dri’s.  I’ m not fan of the brush/bottle, but the uniqueness of this shade made the $5 or so I spent for this polish worth it.  It flashes green, purple, a bit of blue, too in different lights.  Definitely eye-catching!

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Extras: The bottle and brush is not for the faint-hearted.  It’s difficult NOT to worry about the bottle tipping over when wiping the brush off excess lacquer prior to applying on the nail.  The triangular base is not a stable foundation for the bottle, IMO.

The brush is also something that might pose as a challenge.  It’s very wide and stiff and is not so easy to control.  Once you get used to using the brush, however, I think it’s quite easy to achieve a 1- to 2-stroke application!

That’s it – my first review of one of Sally Hansen’s core polish lines.  I will definitely post more about these colors soon.

Thanks for visiting BB&B!