Shades of the Season

About a month ago, Keith and I were in CVS and I was looking through the nail polish area, as usual.  I was rubber-necking the Sally Hansen Crackle display, and almost ran over this...



It's a tube-a-plenty of polish!  Then I saw the sign, which alerted me to the fact that this whole tube was only $9.99.  Then I counted the polish and realized that was less than a dollar per bottle.  How could I pass up such a deal, even if it turned out to be a totally crappy product?  It would at least be fun to play with!  So, I bought it.  Keith rolled his eyes.  When we got home, I immedately took off my current polish and decided to try every single color at once.  I think sometimes it's ok to revert back to Jr. High.



There really are some lovely shades in the collection.  The light blue and the yellow caught my eye the most, though I rarely have high hopes for yellow polish.  I was still excited to try it.



The yellow surprised me a bit.  It wasn't horrible to work with.  It wasn't perfect, and there was a tiny bit of cuticle drag, but overall, I was impressed with every color that went on my right hand.



Even that ballet slipper pink on my thumb gave excellent coverage.  Not a streak to be found!  And even in the extreme closeup, you can barely see my nail line.



The light blue ended up being a real stunner.  It's a perfect shade of baby or sky blue, in my opinion.  And again, I didn't have any real issues with any of the colors that went on my left hand.



I'd say in the long run, my favorite ended up being that lovely bright coral red on my thumb.  It went on so smooth, and I probably could have actually gotten away with 1 coat.

Overall, I am very impressed with the Shades of the Season colors.  If you're in CVS and see this tube-o-polish, pick it up.  It's worth it for these staple colors.

Antiqued Gold

I've been waiting for a month to get one of the new Sally Hansen crackle polishes.  I have very good luck with almost all things Sally, so I figured I'd wait for hers to come out, to be my first crackle experience.

I went to CVS on payday, and looked at the display.  I decided on Antiqued Gold.  I knew I didn't want black or white, and this one seemed the most neutral out of the bunch.  But it's still special.  It's very sparkly too, so that was a big plus.



As soon as I got home, I had to try it out, so I just brushed it over the color I was already wearing, which was Zoya Adina.  Adina is a very pretty duochrome that goes from purple to silver to green.  I love it.







So I brushed a very thin coat (per the instruction on the bottle) of Antiqued Gold over my thumbnail.  It kind of just sat there.  It didn't really crack.  I was broken-hearted for a moment.  I went ahead and tried it on the rest of my right hand and it got a little better.  I noticed that the best cracks came from the thickest coats of polish.  Which, is basically exactly the opposite of what the bottle says.  Curious.

These aren't the best photos, because the sky was very overcast, but you can see the cracks.  They are decent, but the Adina is still barely visible through them.







After a day of wearing this combination, I decided to try the Antiqued Gold over a lighter or brighter shade.  I got in my drawer and looked through some of my favorite polishes, and settled on Fingerpaints' Tiffany Imposter. 

In case you're not familiar, here it is from the first time I tried that color.  Please excuse the accent nail.



It's a very light, bright, Tiffany blue.  I'm in love with this shade and right now, if I was only allowed 1 color of polish, this would be it.



And guess what?  It looks FABULOUS under Antiqued Gold.  I applied 2 coats of Tiffany Imposter and 1 fairly thick coat of Antiqued Gold.  And I've already had two compliments on the combination today.  I didn't get even one compliment with Adina.







I'm so much more impressed with the cracks than I was the first time around.  I really think you need to refrain from using a light hand when applying the Sally Hansen Crackles.  Go ahead and slap a thick coat on there.  I don't think you'll regret it.