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.

Banana Bamba

Polish - Maybelline Express Finish 50 Second Nail Color in Banana Bamba
Nubs - Days 10-15

I know you'll be shocked, but I got this polish on clearance at Big Lots.  I got it because it looked like a nice mellow yellow in the bottle, and I didn't have a nice yellow in my collection.  I had a possibly-school bus yellow (that's later on down the list of untrieds) but nothing soft like this one.

The brush was squat and very thick.  It really sucked up the polish, which you'd think would make it go on a lot smoother.  Well, it didn't.  It was kind of a streaky mess to apply.  But with 3 thin coats and some Seche Vite, it came out as well as could be expected.

The day after I put on this polish, I started reading about how horribly the Maybelline Express Finish polishes chip and don't wear well at all.  Well, at that point, it became a quest to see how long it would last.  I wore it for 5 solid days and it wasn't as awful as I'd expected.  I never reapplied my top coat, and it still ended up with just tip wear and just a couple of small chips.  I will say that the first of those chips came within 12 hours of application, though.  If you look closely, you can see it on the edge of my thumbnail.  But that was it until the last day.  I was impressed, for the most part.  But that doesn't mean I'll be flying out to scoop up anymore of this polish.  If I come across another color that I like the look of, and it's cheap enough, I'll probably buy it.  But I don't plan to start hoarding it or anything.



You can see the soft shimmer in this photo.  It gives it a little extra kick and makes it just a little more special, don't you think?






And this is after 5 solid days of wear.  It's not a wonderful photo - the sun was almost set by the time I remembered to go out and take it.  But you can still see the wear.  Not too bad.