Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear New Releases

You may recall that last week I said I'd scooped up six of the ten new Sally Hansen Xtreme Wears when I spotted the display. Today I have swatches of those. I also once again have shorter nails, because Mr. Peelies is still giving me trouble.

Let's start with Purple Fiesta. Of course I bought this one—both purple and fiestas make me happy. It's a deep plum shimmer with a smattering of holo glitter in a mix of shapes, including bars. Unlike a lot of polishes, I can see where this one got its name; the base is indeed a shade of purple, and the random glitter looks rather like brightly wrapped candy that's fallen out of a piñata onto the floor. If one leaves off top coat, as I do for swatches like today's, it's even bumpy like floor candy. As pretty as the base color is, and as much as I like blingy glitter, I am unconvinced that the two should have been combined like this.





Moving on, we have Blue Icing, which I think they should have named Frosty Blue Fiesta; it's a light blue shimmer with the same sort of glitter as in Purple Fiesta. I see this as an updated version of some of the old SH New Lengths polishes which had silver glitter buried in brushstrokey frosty base colors. I should swatch some of those sometime so you can see them.





Golden Child, a.k.a. Golden Fiesta, is a golden yellow frosty shimmer with the same glitter as the first two. Or maybe not quite the same; it didn't seem as holo-y, but maybe that was just due to the lack of contrast between the glitter colors and the base color.





These three polishes show that there's a reason almost all glitters have a clear or jelly base; shimmer and frost compete with the glitter and cover up some of it, and when the glitter is sparse to begin with, that's not a good thing in my opinion. Maybe they were going for a deconstructed look a la Deborah Lippman. If you like this sort of thing, it's also available in two other colors, Cosmic Blue, a royal blue shimmer, and Cherry Punch, a red shimmer. Since those are darker base colors than Blue Icing or Golden Child, they might be worth a look, since Purple Fiesta is the best of the three I got and it has that darker base.

Moving on to something completely different, here's Concrete, a purpley greige creme. What this is doing in the same collection with the shimmer glitters, I do not know, but I'm glad it's there because it's lovely. The other creme in the display is Plum Burst, a bright purple creme, which I might end up getting at some point because you know how I am about purples.



Purple Gala is purple, yes, and packed with so much small glitter in gold and several shades of purple that it's almost a foil finish. This one is very blingtastic in a tasteful way. There's a red in the collection that looked to have a similar finish, though without the gold glitter; that one's called Fireberry Red.





Finally, I have my favorite in the collection, Mystic Lilac. It's a greyed lilac creme that leans a bit toward the jelly end of the spectrum, but the really special thing about it is the green shimmer. I know that sounds sort of awful, but it's not. It's awesome. It's Demure Vixen in Outer Space.





Mystic Lilac took three coats; the others were all two. While the shimmers with glitter are not so much my thing, I really like Concrete, Purple Gala, and Mystic Lilac. Which are your favorites from this collection?