Sally Hansen Ghostly Glow

Getting this year's Sally Hansen Insta Dri Glow in the Dark swatches in under the wire while it's still Halloween. I chose to get these five: Purple Potion, Squad Ghouls, Gourd-geous, Ghosted, and Witch Please. (The other two limited edition colors were re-releases from last year, the pink Creep It Real and the pale yellow green Fa-boo-lous. I got and swatched those last year even though they were basically re-releases then too, just with the names changed from 2020.)

 

Due to my continued impatience, I quickly skittled four of these, doing two coats each. Top to bottom: Ghosted (sheer pale yellow green with matching hex and bar glitter), Squad Ghouls (sheer pale sea green with holo micro glitter), Purple Potion (sheer pale purple with pink/purple/blue shimmer), Witch Please (sheer pink with pink/purple/blue shimmer). You can see that the glitter in Ghosted needs care that I did not give it in order to distribute evenly across the nail.

 

The glitter in Squad Ghouls showed up better at some angles than others. On the nail, Purple Potion and Witch Please were pretty much indistinguishable from each other since the base colors are so sheer and the shimmer appears to be identical.

 

After charging, these all glowed about the same once the lights went out. My camera (at least as used by me) wasn't able to capture the way the glitter in Ghosted showed up against the glowing background; it made it more interesting to look at in the dark that the other three.

 

Gourd-geous (orange and black matte glitter in mixed sizes in a sheer orange base) hadn't gotten its time yet, so I did two coats of it on my index finger for my next hand of skittles swatched. I put a black creme base on my other digits and topped that with Ghosted on my middle finger, Squad Ghouls on my ring, and Witch Please on my pinky.

 

I had to fish for the bigger glitter pieces in Gourd-geous. I did a better job distributing the glitter in Ghosted this time around. Squad Ghouls shines over black, looking like a night sky, with the speckles from the glow in the dark base making a sort of Milky Way effect behind the glitter. Witch Please (and I assume Purple Potion, too) shows up as a blue shimmer over the black.

 

In the dark, Gourd-geous glowed brighter than the others, as it was two coats to their one. So much glow that it lit up the skin on the finger next to it. (The blue glow on the right side is my knuckles catching the dim black light I failed to turn off in the room ... I took some other shots after I did but I liked the ghostly hand effect here.)

 

I applaud Sally Hansen for giving us a Halloween collection when so many brands have given up on that. I don't even mind the two re-releases because new folks come into the nail polish world all the time and they should have a chance to get classic shades they missed.

Salon Perfect Bewitched Collection

Yes, Nail Wheel Wednesday is still on hiatus, and I'm still having trouble getting back into a regular blogging routine, but I'm here now with the Salon Pefect Bewitched colors from the Halloween display that showed up at some Walmart stores. Six shades here: On My Milky Way, Celestial Chic, I Need Space, Head in the Stars, Universal Glow, and Alien Apple Bobbin'. All of these are full cover glitter polishes, packed with small hex glitter in two colors.

 

I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to do full hand swatches of all six of these due to the time I had available, so I was glad that the collection naturally divided into two trios that I could swatch as groups. I started with On My Milky Way (white and gold glitters), Celestial Chic (red and gold), and I Need Space (black and gold). I did a not-quite-gradient on my index finger (over a skintone creme base) and three coats of each color individually on my other fingers, topping all with a clear topcoat. These were buildable to full coverage, as you see, though when I pull them out again I want to experiment with two coats over a base that matches the non-gold glitter as I think that will look just as good and be easier to apply and remove.

 

 

 

Then I gave the same treatment to the remaining three shades: Alien Apple Bobbin' (yellow and gold), Univers-al Glow (pink and yellow), and Head in the Stars (bright pink and silver).

 

 

 

I still love glitter, so am glad I was able to get these. I can see wearing the white, red, and gold through the winter then breaking out the three brights next summer.

Orly x Kelli Marissa Witching Hour

I have slowed my stash expansion quite a bit from the dizzying heights they once reached, yet I do still have my weaknesses. When an online ad for the new Orly and Kelli Marissa Halloween collaboration came across my screen with three glitter toppers, I pondered for just a while before ordering the whole set, glitters and jellies both. They came in a nicely decorated box with skulls and snakes and other spookiness.

 

As you might have guessed from the dimensions of the box, there are six shades here. Left to right: Wild Card, Mystic Jelly, Spellbound, Oasis Jelly, Wing It, Smoke Jelly.

 

 

I started with Oasis Jelly, a deep blue-leaning teal. At three coats, it's pretty much opaque, though definitely still squishy.

 

 

I used one coat of Wing It on top of Oasis then added clear topcoat. Wing It has black hex glitters, black bat glitters, and small silver and gold glitter in a clear base. The bats did mostly come out of the bottle on their own.

 

 

I thought the bats got a bit lost against the darkish teal, so I also tried Wing It over Orly Pink Chocolate. The bats did pop more against that dusty rose base.

 

 

Mystic Jelly, a cool vibrant purple, was up next. I used three coats of this jelly as well, and it seemed just slightly less opaque but equally squishy. Also shiny even without topcoat.

 

 

I topped Mystic with Spellbound, which has black, white, and orange satin hexes plus tiny silver holo glitter in a clear base. I did one thick coat of the glitter and didn't think it needed topcoat.

 

 

Smoke Jelly came next. Three coats of this one as well, and it was opaque and squishy and shiny.

 

 

Wild Card finally got its turn over Smoke. This is a clear base with black, lime, and vibrant purple hex glitters in various sizes.

 

 

Obviously the black glitter in Wild Card got lost on Smoke, so I tried it over Orly Color Blast Mulberry Madness.

 

 

I did also try Smoke over this last combination, to see if this would work for jelly sandwiches. If one is careful and does a thin coat over the glitter it could work, but there are other jellies better suited to the task, I think.

 

This is a fine collection overall. I love the glitters, can see using Wing It year round, just putting the bats back in the bottle. I do with the jellies were slightly less opaque so they were more versatile, but I have others I can use for sandwiches and other layering.

Big Display Catch-up

I need to paint more wheels before Nail Wheel Wednesday can resume. Today I've got displays collected both close to home and on my travels. It's been ages since my last display post back in June, so let's get going. I've been in a few Walmart stores lately, but only one them had a display for Bettina, a brand I don't recall seeing in a quite a while. This was pretty picked over, with colors in the wrong slots, but I still thought it was interesting.

 

One Walmart I was in had a display of various Dashing Diva nail strips, some with Halloween designs.

 

Also at a Walmart, I saw a new to me brand: Entity Clean. The bottles say they're breathable, so guessing they're like the Orly Breathable line. The ones I saw were shoved in a display for other brands, and I never found their proper place, so I'm not sure how many shades there might be total. The ones I did see: Pure Allure, Let's Be Honest, Light & Love, Lady in Pink, Top Coat, and Black Silk.

 

As far as I can tell, Essie's Handmade with Love collection came out this past summer, but I don't seem to have included it in a display post before. The best shot of it I have is this display at a Meijer I was in during my travels, which had the colors right next to those in Swoon in the Lagoon. Left to right: Piece of Work, Paintbrush It Off, Cut It Out, In Pursuit of Craftiness, Pencil Me In, Sew Gifted, Crochet Away, Handmade with Love, To DIY For. I did also see a display for this collection at Ulta which was seven slots wide and had the red/orange shades in the back.

 

Essie's fall 2022 offering is Off the Grid. I saw it first at Fred Meyer, where they'd tucked it under the fake nails for some reason. Left to right: Force of Nature, Risk-Takers Only, Hike It Up, Bold & Boulder, Off the Grid, Transcend the Trend. I've also seen the collection at Walgreens.

 

Fred Meyer had two shelftop displays of Halloween fake nails. This one has the imPress designs (and one set of nail strips from Kiss that maybe got misplaced).

 

And this one has the Kiss designs (and one Fright Night by Ardell set stuck in there that I never saw a whole display for).

 

At one of the Walmarts I was in, there was a section in the core nail polish area for Just Add Sun polishes, which change colors in the sun. There's space for 24 colors, though not all of them were there when I happened upon them.

 

You may recall the Kokie Green polishes I've shared this year. I did finally see them in the wild at a few Meijer stores in the Great Lakes states.

 

I try to remember to check the LA Colors section at Fred Meyer as that's where they slip in new stuff rather than have separate shelftop displays. This time the new stuff was Color Mania, some bright pearly shimmers. Left to right: Fandom, Hooked, Super Bloom, Squeeze, Fanatic, Chaotic, Lyrical, and Culture (of course the purple is sold out, so I'll have to check back).

 

I usually see Morgan Taylor at Sally Beauty if I see if anywhere, but this Plaid Reputation display was at Fred Meyer. Six shades: Follow Suit, Tartan the Interruption, Tailored for You, It's All About the Twill, Wool You Love Me, Tweed Me. I did later see a display of this collection at Sally Beauty, too.

 

I only managed to see one post-worthy thing at a CVS, four Poparazzi polishes in that uppper right section of the display where they seem to put the small seasonal offerings. The four colors here: Curfew, Snow Dusting, Into the Fog, and Not Your Basic Blue. Seems like more a winter set than summer but who knows how long they were there.

 

I got to pop into a Five Below store on during my recent travels and found a couple Pretty Woman displays I hadn't seen before. The first was Jelly Glaze. Six shades here: Royal Navy, Orange Crush, Yelly Jelly, Forest Glaze, Passion Fruit, and Mint for You. The two greens look very similar in the bottle, but I checked that they had different items numbers so can only assume they look different on the nail. I won't know because in a suprising turn of events, I didn't buy any of them, remembering how very many jelly polishes I have at home that I don't use much.

 

The second was the mostly empty Glow in the Dark, which was down to one polish of the six names on the display. The one color was in the slot for Light Show. The empty slots were Glow Up, Let's Rave, Luminous Ice, Flash On, and Fluorescently You.

 

I keep being thankful for Sally Hansen. Maybe they're not coming out with new lines as often as they used to, or quite as many special collections, but they haven't given up entirely the way other brands have. This past summer, they came out with another limited edition neon collection in the Miracle Gel line, Make Your Mani Pop. I saw it at both Ulta and Walmart, in a separate area of the core section. Bottles at Ulta, left to right: Un-cone-ditional Love, Worth Melting For, Anything is Popsicle, Lemon Drop Pop, Sea-riously Cool.

 

The one polish missing from the Ulta display above is a topper called My Flavourite, seen here at Walmart.

 

At a Meijer on the road, I saw a Sally Hansen display I haven't seen anywhere else, though I have seen the polishes tucked into core displays at places like Walgreens and Ulta. It had Covergirl makeup on one half and Sally Hansen on the other: Color Foil, Insta Dri Luxe Finish, Xtreme Wear, treatments and top/base coats.

 

The Luxe Finish Insta Dri shades were the most interesting to me. There were eight of those: Triple Threaqd, Silk Is, Glos-Sea, Sleek-a-Boo, Spill the Velvet-ea, Lavish Lilac, The Queen's Velvet, and Extrava-grey.

 

In late summer, Sally Hansen put out the Back to School limited edition Insta Dri collection, another collaboration with Sour Patch Kids. I saw this at Fred Meyer in a display that also had the Luxe Effects in it and a few core colors, too. The Sour Patch are in the front row, starting after the empty slot: Main Squeeze, Tis the Sea-sun, Your Pine-ness, Tropink, Plum-believable, Maliblue Twist, Pink Punch. Based on the little circles of color on the display board, I could see there were two Sour Patch colors missing from here. Some online research told me they were Red Berry, a red shimmer, and Simply Sublime, a pink/blue/yellow glitter topper, which I then ordered online.

 

In stores now, there's a ten-color limited edition Miracle Gel collection for The School for Good and Evil. This shelftop display was at Fred Meyer. Left to right in the front row (the back is core): Can't Settle Won't Settle, Fresh Villany, It's Better Being Bad, Magic Mirror, Lesso Go, True Beauty Comes from Within, The Storian, Not What It Gleams, Lovey Dovey, Good is Great.

 

Here's the display for the collection I saw at Walmart. The limited edition ones are in the top two rows, with core filling out the rest.

 

And here's how it looked at Walgreens:

 

There's also an Insta Dri Glow in the Dark collection out now for Halloween. I saw it first at Sally Beauty. Front row, left to right: Purple Potion, Witch Please, Creep It Real, Squad Ghouls, Fa-boo-lous, Ghosted. Back row: Gourd-geous plus core colors Black to Black, White on Time, Clearly Quick, Hail Cherry, and Cinna-snap. A couple of these limited editions (Creep It Real and Fa-boo-lous) look like repromotes, though the bottles are a bit different.

 

I also saw a standing display for these at Walmart but it was very picked over by the time I got to it.

 

The Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Hispanic Heritage Month display is all core colors, but it's more than any other brand did as far as I know.

 

There are three new Miracle Gel toppers in addition. So far I've only seen them tucked into the core section. Here they are at Meijer: Crystal Top Coat, Sugar Top Coat, Unicorn Top Coat.

 

I was surprised to see a Salon Perfect Halloween display at my local Walmart just a few days ago, as they've had Halloween stuff out for weeks. Guess this just showed up later; it was in the beauty section rather than the seasonal area. It's called Bewitched and has fake nails, core and limited edition polishes, and false lashes as well as Fright Night colored hairspray.

 

The ten polish slots were nicely labelled. Four core at the left side: Crystal Clear Top Coat, Oil Slick (black creme, missing here), Heart Strings, and Traffic Cone. Six limited edition next to those: Alien Apple Bobbin', Head in the Stars, On My Milky Way, I Need Space, Universe-al Glow, and Celestial Chic (empty). The next day, I had to go down to the city and saw this display there (in the seasonal section). It was more picked over but did have Celestial Chic, which turned out to be a red polish. I was hoping for purple but oh well.

 

Walmart once again had the big four-sided Halloween display with SinfulColors and LA Color polishes, Kiss and imPress fake nails, and false eyelashes.

 

The interesting thing on the SinfulColors side was buried in among the core colors and Sheer Mattes and Essenchills that we've seen a lot of, there were the Bee Envious shades, only two of which were ever in any of my stores before.

 

I never saw all of the Bee Envious in one store; the most I found in one place was five: Busy Being Queen, Amazzzing, Buzz Off, She Stings, and Save the Bees. The one I had to dig out at another store was Honey Child, a pale peach.

 

The LA Colors side looked to have mostly the same things as last year.

 

The fake nails side had most (maybe all?) of the designs that were in the displays at Fred Meyer from earlier in this post plus some plainer colored ones.

 

Remember when Wet 'n' Wild would have a special collection nearly every month? That's been a while. Now we're lucky if we get one set of fake nails, as with this Care Bears collaboration I saw at Fred Meyer.

 

 

There was also one set of fakes in the Wet 'n' Wild Halloween display at Meijer. See if you can spot them.

 

Well, that was a lot. I've bought a fair few polishes from these displays so hope to get some swatching done soon.