Recent NOTD: Sally Hansen Show Your Stripes

For my Thanksgiving week nails, I went with Sally Hansen strips as I am wont to do when I'm traveling. I chose the black and silver Show Your Stripes pattern, which was a one of the limited edition patterns for Summer 2011.



My nails are still short enough that I could do my whole mani with only half the strips in the package. I'm thinking of just keeping them this length even if I manage to stop damaging a nail or two every week by doing something dumb (usually reaching for something without paying attention and jamming a tip into a hard surface); when I look at photos from my long ovals from early October, they look weird to me, like those aren't my hands or something. I don't know; maybe I'll get used to it again as they grow out.







I used a coat of Orly Nail Defense under these this time because my nails were feeling like they needed it. On day six, I noticed a couple of the strips starting to lift at the base of my nail. I don't know that the Nail Defense was to blame, though I haven't used it as an undercoat before, just Orly Nail Envy, but I'm wondering. The Nail Defense was from my last remaining old formula bottle, which has some old school chemicals in it that might not play nicely with the strips, which are 3-Free. On the other hand, if they didn't play nicely, why would that only show up on day six? Maybe it was a side effect of knitting; I started a pair of socks late that week. I don't remember doing a lot of knitting with these strips on before, so maybe the yarn is rubbing against the base edges and lifting them. In any case, they did last through the holiday weekend, which was my main goal.