Today I've got the Insta Dri and Fuzzy Coat colors from the Sally Hansen Costume-ize Your Nails display they put out for Halloween: Fur-ankenstein, Night Fright, OMGhost, Pumpkin Queen, Scaredy Matte, and Witch-ful Thinking. One could make a very strong case that I should have left all the Insta Dri colors in the store, as they are all cremes, and I have plenty of cremes in my stash, way too many cremes some might say. But as I mentioned when I posted the display, I was hoping the white was a match for the discontinued Whirlwind White, my holy grail white creme, so I had to get that, and I use a lot of black creme for undies, both on my nails and on wheels, so the two blacks would get used, and as long as I was getting three of the four I might as well complete the set. That's the sort of thinking that has led to me having a lineup of Helmers in my basement.
The first order of business was comparing OMGhost to Whirlwind White. I bought a bunch of bottles of the latter when it was on clearance, because a good white creme is hard to find. Top to bottom below (2 coats each): OMGhost, Whirlwind White, OMGhost, Whirlwind White. OMGhost is not Whirlwind White's equal—it's better. Whiter. More opaque. Long term storage, even in a drawer away from light, had not kept it safe from yellowing. Worn by itself, the slight yellow tinge might not be noticeable, but next to the fresh OMGhost, I could definitely see it. The formula also seemed thinner than I remembered, which doesn't entirely shock me, as I've had polishes thin with age before. So yeah, if you want a good white creme, grab OMGhost while it's here, and use it while it's fresh if Whirlwind White is any indication of its future.
Post-comparison, I put OMGhost on all my nails as a base for the two Fuzzy Coat colors. Top to bottom (2 coats over the white): Witch-ful Thinking, Fur-ankenstein, Witch-ful Thinking, Fur-ankenstein. Like the previously released Fuzzy Coat shades, these have small matte bar glitter in a clear base; Witch-ful Thinking has black and light orange, while Fur-ankenstein has black and light lime green. The base in these glitters was fine, and it layed flat enough that I didn't add topcoat to my swatch. I'm much more comfortable with bar glitter now than I was in summer of 2013 when I swatched the original release of Fuzzy Coat. I still don't want to wear it all by itself but as a topper, I can see the appeal.
Pumpkin Queen is a straight up orange creme. Two coats gave me full coverage, and it was shiny even without added topcoat.
I tried the Fuzzy Coat colors over Pumpkin Queen, too. The light orange in Witch-ful Thinking blended too much with the orange base, I thought, but Fur-ankenstein over the orange made a very Halloween-appropriate combination. I still need to work on my bar glitter application technique, as I tend to get clumps when I try to push it around to ensure that the bars are pointing in sufficiently random directions.
I'm a bit surprised that Sally Hansen included two black cremes in this collection, one shiny and one matte, instead of doing a fourth color, perhaps a swampy lime green to coordinate with Fur-ankenstein, and putting their Big Matte topcoat in the display. But two blacks it is, so two blacks I swatched. Top to bottom: Night Fright, Scaredy Matte (maybe they just wanted to use this name, which I admit is a good one), Night Fright, Scaredy Matte. Both of these were nearly one coaters; I mostly needed the second coat to smooth out my ridges since I didn't put on any basecoat.
I used the blacks as a foundation for some colorblock dotted nail art incorporating the other two cremes. Taping off the colorblocks would have been neater, but I freehanded them because I was feeling impatient (and I need to practice my freehand skills). Dots of the opposite color from the diagonal block and topcoat finished the look.
Just for fun, I matte-ified the whole thing before I took it off. I didn't jot down which matte topcoat I used; given my mani box, it could have been one of several I keep in there.
I will probably buy a backup of OMGhost before this display disappears because it is quite a nice white (why they can't keep a white in the core line, I've no idea; that seems like a basic color to me). I hope I can find some time to experiment with these Fuzzy Coat shades over other bases, like the forest green and darkish orange that Jasmine at The Happy Sloths used. I wonder if we'll see red and green Fuzzy Coats for Christmas.
These polishes look great!
ReplyDeleteI like the swatches and the nail art looks just so pretty!
Julia
Great Hallowe'en polishes and like your design :-)
ReplyDeleteI use Whirlwind White for stamping because I think it's really good for that. OMGhost would probably do the trick too :)
ReplyDeleteThe most i like is Fuzzy Coat colors over Pumpkin Queen
ReplyDeleteSuper cute !
These nail polishes are perfect for Halloween :-) I like Fuzzy Coat colors over Pumpkin Queen :-)
ReplyDeleteI love the color-block + dots mani, the colors work so well together!
ReplyDeleteI love the Frankenstein fuzzy coat on top of the orange! I like your dot nail art - it has a bit of a 70's feel to me :) (or 60's or 80's, I can never seem to remember which one had the big vintage orange and brown wallpaper)
ReplyDeleteThe Fuzzy coat toppers look really fun, I might try out one of them! The color blocked nail art is cute :)
ReplyDeleteI'm so happy Sally Hansen has a couple white Insta-Dris now! I haven't picked up OMGhost, but I tried White Pick It Fence and was impressed. It's matte, but eh, it's usually an undie anyway!
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