Sally Hansen No Chip Acrylic Top Coat

I am always on the lookout for cheap beauty tips.  A tip was to buy cheap nail polish and cover it with a nice expensive top coat to make it look and last like an expensive nail polish.  This sent me on the lookout for a top coat.  I found the Sally Hanson top coat.

 

Here are two photos taken on the same day after 3 days of wearing a cheap R10 nail polish.  The one hand had top coat, the other had nothing.  The nails both chipped and looked bad, but the chips were in different places.  With the top coat, the nail polish seemed to peel off from the sides and without the top coat the nail polish chipped from the front of the nail. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sally Hanson Top Coat made the polish look more professional and finished, but did not help it last any longer.  However, it had these weird cracks which you can see on the first photo.  All in all I am not very much impressed.  I did like other Sally Hansen nail products very much, just not this specific top coat.

Sally Hansen Dorian Grey

I have never used a Sally Hanson nail polish before and was really impressed with this nail polish.  The brush is big and flat and applies easily and smoothly,  The finish is glossy, smooth and very professional. I have never used a polish at home that had such a professional looking finish.  It also lasted quite well on my nails and gave me quite a few days without chips.  It lasted a lot better than many others. 

Image from: http://www.alllacqueredup.com/

The colour was Dorian Grey, an almost blue gray.  The colour is a bit dull and weird, not much to recommend there. 

I am keen to try this brand of nail polish again, in a prettier colour.

This nail polish is not exactly cheap.  It was more than R100, around R129 if I remember correctly.

Cuticle care

My mother gave me a Revlon nail care set years and years ago.  In this set were a few nail care tools, among them one thing I would never have known to use otherwise.  It looks like this: 

I develop tiny hard growths next to my nails.  These things hurt.  You can cut them with a nail clipper, but it works so much better with this handy tool.  Just make sure you cut against the growth and it is easy to remove them.  If you cut in the wrong direction you can sometimes cut into the skin next to your nail, which hurts.  Put it close to your skin and move the sharp end away from you, cutting the cuticle perfectly. 

Amazing little tool.  I wish I knew what it was called.

The photos are not very good.  The first one tries to show the hard growths next to my nails and the second tries to show how you use the tool, except that the tool needed to have the growth in the middle.

 

Definitely recommended.

 

Are all nail polish colours created equal?

I have declared war against nail polish that chips quickly.  I hate having less than perfect nails and do not have the time to do my nails every day.  So I have been looking for great nail polish.  The way I do this is to buy one bottle of a brand, use it and then decide whether I will ever buy that brand of nail polish again.

I bought a nude Essence and thought it was just horrible.  It does not even last a day.  I was so unimpressed that I threw the bottle away before I used all of it. 

And then I got a grey bottle of Sally Hanson and loved it.  After this, I read the following blog post about Nails Inc polish where the blue lasted much longer than the nude colour of the same brand.. 

 

My question is:  Does different colours from the same manufacturer last longer?  Is nude a colour that just does not last and I should not be painting all of Essence's polish in a bad light simply because the nude did not last.  And does it mean that Sally Hansen only impressed me because I tried a bluer colour?

Anyone out there who can solve this mystery?

My March Rubybox

This was a great box, and I am not the only one saying so.  On Rubybox’s fan page lots of people commented on how much they liked the box.  It made it even worse for me to keep waiting for my box.  And nobody said what was in the box.  They only said how great it was.

 

My box had the following.  (There are often more than one version of the box, so someone else’s box might be different.) 

1.       Rubybox hair head bands. 

These are said to cost R29.99 and I got two.  One is purple with little glittery bits and one is turkois.  These hair bands look like oversized hair elastics and you slip then on and they function like an allice band.  It is meant to keep hair out of your face, while washing it, but could also be great for going to the gym, working in the garden, or just being lazy with your hair.

2.      Giorgio Armani Acqua di Gioia

I have previously received this perfume, but like perfumes so much that I do not complain.  I like trying new perfumes.  It has a fresh smell, but is not something I would buy. 

3.      Giorgio Armani Acqua di Gio

This is a male perfume.  My husband hates wearing perfume.  (At least he showers often!) so I will use this myself.  Some male fragrances are perfectly fine for me.  I hope this one also is.  It is great to receive two perfumes.

4.      Rimmel sexy curves mascara R110

Wow.  A full size mascara.  This is great.  I have not tried it yet, but simply receiving this mascara made me throw out two old mascaras.  One was hard and the other was very sticky.

5.      Sally Hansen complete salon manicure in Dorien Grey R130

I love nail polish as well.  At first I gave this sample a duh look.  It is a brand I would love to try and the description sounds lovely.  It is also not a cheap nail polish.  (I have recently decided life is too short for cheap nail polish that chips after one day)  But Oh my.  The colour.  It is grey!  Who wears grey nails.  I did however try the polish on.  I can happily say I am on Day 4 now and the nail polish is holding on well.  The finish is smooth and professional.  I might have a new keeper.  The grey looks OK on, better than in the bottle.  It is almost violet; which would have been just marvellous.

 

Thank you Rubybox.  This was a great box.  It was a treat; lovely things, usefull things, a perfume and a brand I have not tried before, but might just like. 

Here is an update to include a review by Becoming you.  She received a different version of the box than I did.  And yet another version of the box is reviewed here.  I also added another review a bit later.

Sinful colors professional nail polish - Gold glitter: All about you.

My sweet sister gave me a handful of different nail colours for my birthday.  One of them was this gold.  I would not have bought it for myself, but really found it quite nice.  The glitter was fairly uneven, with a lovely texture, and a kind of fleck.  It was also a fairly dull gold, not glittery at all.   It did chip fairly easily, but it worked well to just touch up the little chips. Since the glitter was uneven, it did not look funny when you just touched up the chipped bits.  You can see on my first finger what a touched up nail looks like.  I tried using a top coat over it, but that was a complete disaster.  The nail polish just jumped off in large chunks within a day;  sometimes almost the whole nail at once.  Yikes.  I have no idea why.  You need a few layers to get this kind of coverage.  One coat gave a completely see-through glitter that looked nice over other colour nail polishes.

The colour was called:  All about you (921)

This nail polish comes in a very small bottle (a plus), is really cheap (like about R10) and I have seen it in DisChem, but not in this colour.  I have no idea where my sister bought this colour. 

Tip top glitter nail polish

I recently tried Tip Top nail polish for the first time.  I also tried my very first glitter nail polish. 

 

The silver glitter pieces are a combination of small and large hexagon glitter pieces.  The largest has about a 2 mm diameter.  It reflects light in green, pink, blue, orange and yellow.  The silver glitter pieces are suspended in a colourless medium.  The glitter pieces are fairly sparse and you would not get a completely silver nail using this polish.  It needs to be applied over a background colour.  The background colour plays a large role in the final look of your nails. 

The thickness of the glitter on this nail was achieved with 6 coats of glitter. 

Only one coat of glitter looks more like this.

 This stuff is strong.  It lasts. I have worn it for a week.  Because the glitter is irregular, slight chips and imperfections are not really visible.  My only complaint:  This nail polish is really hard to remove.  This stuff sticks !   

It was my first experience with glittery nails.  I loved it.  I was popular with all girls under 10, even impressed a boy or two.  But a colleague did tell me that I would never again be taken seriously. 

Other reviews can be found here, here and here.  This is my New Years nails.
Tip top also has a very nice facebook page. 

Essence french glam nail stickers

 

 

These stickers are lovely and dainty and detailed and easy to apply.  I liked the look of a flower or sticker on one of my nails.  Some of the stickers come with a little bit of bling.   It was very cheap, around R25.  However, as with the essence nail polish, it basically only lasts 24 hours.  It lasts as long as the nail polish with a top coat applied over it.  Cute!

New Year's Nails

This is what my nails looked like for our New Year's Eve Party!

 

The bottom colour is "Sinful Colors; Let's Talk" and the top is "Tip Top Rocky Road Glitter".

Yes, it is over the top glittery, but it looks like a New Year's Party should look.

The Tip Top Glitter is lovely, mostly silver, with multicoloured flecks - there is a bit of red, yellow and blue depending on the light. 

Essence nail polish

Nude nails are all the rage now.  And it looks lovely and sophisticated.  I also decided to try nude nails and bought Café Ole from Essence.  I love the colour.  It is the only colour I want to wear now. 
 

But I am less than impressed with Essence.  In all honesty it was cheap, and you probably got exactly what you pay for.  The nail polish cost all of R25.  It is a dream to apply.  The paint brush is wide and works well.  The consistency is perfect and it applies easily, dries quickly and does not smudge while applying.  The other great thing was that it was fairly opaque, even though it was a light colour.  One coat looked decent.   Two coats gave a lovely finish. 

However, it does not last even 24 hours.  It chipped really badly after one day.  I will definitely buy a nude colour nail polish again, but I will not buy Essence, unless I want to experiment with an unusual colour.  It is cheap enough for experimenting.



This is what the polish looked like after 24 hours.  Not good ! 
The colour also looks funny on these photos; it i a lot more like the photo on top.

I found mine in Dischem, but think it is sold elsewhere as well. 

Revlon Top Speed Nail Enamel

I love nail polish.  I like wearing it not only because I like it, but because it can hide many sins.  I often have paint or ink or grout (I tiled a large part of my house in the evenings over a few months – trust me tiling is hell on hands and nails) under my nails.  I can either paint them or struggle to get them perfectly clean.  I often choose to paint them.

I have never used Revlon nail polish before.  I wished I did.  I will definitely buy it again.  This product is amazing.  It goes on smoothly and lasts and lasts.  If you do not garden or tile, you almost get a week out of it. 

The colour I tried is a bit odd.  It is called lingerie pink, is very visible and I am not sure that it goes with my skin tone.  It felt a bit Barbie-ish for me.  Maybe if you are very pale it would look better than on my slightly tanned hands.   The colour is also very light and needed 3 coats to give an even cover.  And I think the polish got a bit thick with 3 coats, thus scratching more easily. 

Summary – Lingerie Pink :  No

Revlon Top Speed – A resounding YES !

After a week of wear

Rimmel nail polish

I have to wear a very, very red uniform to work.  (And I hate it!)  So I bought some very, very red nail polish to go with it.  I bought Rimmel Lasting Finish and the colour was called Double Decker Red. It is a lovely colour.  A bright true red, not as orange as it looks in this picture.  The application is easy and perfect.  One coat was enough.  While I love the very, very red, the quality of the nail polish is really not good.  It chips after one day!  With a top coat it lasts 2 days !  I expect a little bit more from a nail polish.  Maybe this is good enough for something you pick up for R10 at a flea market.   

Incoco nails

I received one set of Incoco nail wraps in my March Rubybox.  I have been saving them for a time when I would want to have my nails looking nice for two weeks, since that was what the package promised.  At first I did not do it because I was going diving, and that would be hell on nails, then I was tiling a spare bathroom (yes, I tile, and grout) and then ….. And then when I decided I had to use them NOW, I broke a nail and had to wait for it to grow out.  So I can attest that Incoco nails do not spoil in the package while waiting for you.

I would seriously suggest that you read their instructions on the website, there is a video to watch and also read the instructions that come with the nail strips.  It is not super hard to use, I only messed up one strip on my first try.  The nails stick really well and you are not able to move them once stuck down properly.  The fronts are filed kind of under your nail and break easily.

They claim that these strips last for 14 days.  I removed mine after Day 9, when a giant chunk broke off my thumb nail while I washed my hair.  There were small cracks near the tops of most of my fingers and a chip on one other finger.  I must say that 9 days is the longest any nail polish has ever been on my fingers, but it was not quite the 14 days promised.  My nails also seemed to grow fairly fast and it would have needed to come off after 14 days if nothing had chipped simply because the nail bed would have grown out to much by then.

These pictures were taken just before I took the polish off, on Day 9.  It shows where it started chipping and it shows how my nail beds have grown out. 

I love the more intricate patterns. 

It is expensive.  It costs R100 for a set (and is sold by the Rubybox boutique and in Red Square stores).  A set comes with 16 fingers so that you choose the appropriate sizes for your nails.  That means that if you cut some of the strips in half and use all the sizes you are able to get two applications out of it.  I saved the one half, and went to a great deal of trouble to seal the packet, but when I came back to it 3-4 weeks later, the strips looked fine, but they would not stick to my nails and chipped almost immediately.   Moral of the story; this cannot be stretched to two applications.  I guess it is a good deal for a special occasion, in stead of a salon manicure or when you go for one of the intricate patterns (which I love).  Unfortunately I had a plain colour, a very very cerise pink. 

The application was neat, no smudges, scratches, or other imperfections; in any case, not if you managed to stick it on straight.  It took about twice as long to apply than it takes me to apply nail polish, but it was MUCH neater and you did not need to worry about touching things before it was properly dry.   If money was no object, this would be the only nail polish I used. 

See how much my nails grew in 9 days, you can see that the nail polish does not go all the way to the nail bed.

Chips on my nail: Day 9

You can read some reviews of it here:

http://jangsara.blogspot.com/2011/11/review-incoco-non-liquid-nail-polish.html

http://www.makeupalley.com/product/showreview.asp?itemid=98102

http://skincare.about.com/od/handcareproductreviews/fr/Incoco-Nail-Polish-Strips-Review.htm

http://www.geewhiskers.com/2012/04/manicure-monday_30.html

http://rubybox.co.za/incoco-oscar-night-nail-strips.html

http://www.beautybulletin.com/directory/discussions/review/?id=4947

http://www.beautybulletin.com/hands-and-feet/nail-polishes/incoco-dry-nail-applique

http://www.tailsofamermaid.com/2011/08/latest-obsession-incoco-nail-polish.html