Long-Term NOTD: Sally Hansen Spun for You

I am now caught up to my vacation nails. I figured one of the Sally Hansen strips Halloween designs would be perfect for my trip and decided on Spun for You, which is black spiderwebs on silver. I applied these late Friday night, the 14th, before we flew out the next morning. My nails were still short enough to use only one of the two packets of strips, so I packed the other in case I needed to replace a strip or got a sudden hankering to do my toes to match. (I'd painted them earlier with OPI Your Royal Shine-ness topped with OPI Crown Me Already—blingy silver for our silver anniversary trip. If feet don't freak you out, you can click here to see; the combo was so shiny it confused my camera when trying to focus.)





I was especially tickled by how the webs fell on my right hand; the center of one on my ring and other sections of the web radiating out on the other fingers.


On the plane out to California:



With a ginormous leaf I picked up off the ground on one of our strolls around L.A.:



With a Halloween balloon at Disneyland:



I would have bought one of these shirts, with silver spiderwebs on black, if I could have found one in my size:



And now we've come to the part of the story where sensitive souls might want to look away ... Thursday evening I zipped out of the hotel to buy a gift bag to put a little present for our future grand niece in (we were meeting my niece and her husband for dinner), and getting back into the rental car, I reached for the door without paying attention and this happened:



And I thought the rip I got a few weeks back was bad? This was way worse. We were running a tiny bit late for dinner, so I wrapped that mess up in an off-brand Band Aid from my toiletries kit and did my best not to think about it. After we got back to the hotel, I sat down to do damage control, only to find this in my purse:



Because I am a crazy nail person, I was traveling with two glass files, so I didn't even have to deal with the not longer in one piece one when I sat down to deal with the broken nail and shorten the others so I wouldn't have one odd finger out. (I didn't even consider trying to patch it, since I didn't want to have to baby it for the rest of our trip.) When I removed the broken tip, it took a lot of the strip with it, but I'd brought silver polish (and silver glitter, and orange and black cremes, and matte top coat, just in case) so I was able to touch up the bare spot with that and it didn't look too bad. I even continued to get compliments on my nails the rest of the week.



We got back late Sunday night, ten days after I'd put these on, and they were still in darn good shape (not counting the break, which wasn't their fault). I've been so busy since then catching up that I still have them on my nails today. Yep, that's right; two weeks since I put them on and they're still hangin' in there. There's tip wear, sure, and a rather horrifying gap at the base of my nails where they've grown out, but all in all I'm amazed at their longevity. (The OPI silver I used for touch up is not holding up nearly as well, and it's only been on there half the time.) Here's a pic I snapped in the parking lot on my way into the office this morning:



I was so skeptical about these strips when they first came out, and I still won't pay full price for them, but I am a convert now for sure. I won't always wear them until they're so tackily grown out, but it's nice to know I can if I have to!