Nails of the Day Roundup

Today I have a whirlwhind tour through the various strips and fakes that have adorned my hands in somewhat recent weeks.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Pitter Pattern is a nice graphic black and white design. I was a bit bothered by the way the bold square motif wasn't centered on each strip, but then realized that just made it look more like what I'd end up with if I stamped a similar design so who am I to judge.



I tried the Incoco Coconut Nail Art strips for the first time. These have fewer strips than the regular Incoco sets available from their website, so I didn't try to save half for another mani. The box contains a small orangewood stick and a small emery board along with the strips. English directions are on the back of the box; Spanish were on a printed insert.



The Hello Darling design has floral outlines in lilac or pink on a silver background. For some reason, I didn't manage to get a half decent photo of these on my nails until three days after I put them on.



I used regular Incoco strips after that, choosing the deep pink glitter of Razzle Dazzle. Sure, I could have achieved this same look pretty easily with glitter polish, but strips are so much more convenient. I am still trying to work out how it is that I'm so busy now that I'm no longer working full time.



I had some splits and peels so I had to go with shorties for a while. I covered them with imPress press-on nails in a neutral tan (if this shade has a name I sure didn't see it on the box). These fakes weren't fooling anyone but they did protect my natural nails underneath from being banged into things.



I followed those fakes with more fakes. I didn't even write down or snap a photo of what brand/style these were. They're some chunky pink and whites I got on clearance. Not my usual style but they did keep my nails protected while peelie recovery was underway.



After two weeks of covering my nails with fakes, I finally had a peelie-free free edge with just enough length that I could file off the excess from strips without sanding my fingertips, so I put on Sally Hansen Salon Insta Gel Strips (which near as I can tell are the same as Salon Effects but come with a gel topcoat) in Pink Pong and topped them with Sally Hansen Salon Gel Polish in Purple Prisms.



The manicure after this, I used real polish and documented it in my lightbox, so I'll save that for a future post.