Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Wedding Collection 2013

As seems to happen all too often, here I am swatching a collection only when it's no longer the most recent one from the line. Today it's the Sally Hansen Diamond Strength limited edition shades which I'm calling the wedding collection because the hand in the display is wearing what look like engagement rings to me (big, flashy ones). I don't know what Sally Hansen is calling this group because the display doesn't say.



The above display was at one of my Ulta stores in April. Most of the colors were also included in a big endcap display that some Walgreens stores got in May, but most of them have since replaced it with the more recent one that has another collection of Diamond Strength colors along with the new Sugar Coat shades and some Insta Dri. I've read reports of the colors starting to show up at CVS stores recently but haven't spotted it at any of mine yet.

Looking at the eight polishes in this collection, I saw four base colors and four sheer toppers (which I suppose could also be worn alone or in French manicures but since I'm into layering, that's where my mind went). The base colors, left to right: Fancy Diamond, Brilliant Cut, Flawless Pink, Rock'n Wedding.



The toppers: Sparkling Jewel, Gold Setting, Opulent Opal, Diamond Jubilee.



Fancy Diamond is a cool toned pink with golden microflakie shimmer. I used three coats, no topcoat for this swatch.





The shimmer in Fancy Diamond is on the subtle side, but it does show up in normal room light (above) and glows nicely in lower light (below).



Sparkling Jewel has purpley pink microflakies in a clear base. At some angles, the camera sees yellow in the flakies, but this wasn't evident to my human eyes. I used two coats of Sparkling Jewel over Fancy Diamond.





Brilliant Cut is a light dusty pink with silver shimmer. I swatched it at two coats, no topcoat.



In low light, Brilliant Cut looked more like a greyish purple.



Gold Setting has pink and golden small flakies in a clear base. I used two coats of it over Brilliant Cut.





Flawless Pink is a bright pink with secretive orangey shimmer. I used two coats, no topcoat.





Opulent Opal is a pearlescent shimmer with slight frost tendencies (meaning it's a good idea to pay attention to how straight your brushstrokes are when applying this one, though it's nowhere near as big an issue as with old school frosts). I added one coat of it on top of Flawless Pink.





Rock'n Wedding is a light terracotta orange with golden shimmmer. Swatch is two coats, no topcoat.





Diamond Jubilee has golden, green, and orange translucent glitters in a clear base. I used one coat over Rock'n Wedding. Because the glitter has a slightly rougher texture than the other toppers in the collection, it would have benefitted from topcoat, which I did not provide for it due to my impatience.





I also swatched the toppers over a skintone base (Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Malt). Left to right below: Opulent Opal (1 coat), Sparkling Jewel (2), Diamond Jubilee (1), Gold Setting (2).



And here they are in the same order over black—just look at that green/purple duochrome effect that Opulent Opal shows over a dark base, and Sparkling Jewel showing a purple/pink shift.







This collection turned out to be more interesting than I thought I would be based on a quick look at the bottles in the store when I first saw them. I knew the base colors spanned warm to cool tones, but didn't notice the nice variety in the shimmers until I swatched them. They could have just dumped silver shimmer in all of them and called it good, but they didn't. I definitely really like the variety of visual textures in the toppers in this collection: single color micro flakies, a duo of larger flakies, a pearl, and a glitter.