Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Holiday Wishlist Collection

Today I have swatches of all eight of the colors from the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Wishlist collection for holiday 2021. Top row: Online Shop-bling, Living in the Presents, Gift for Blue, Snow What You Want. Bottom row: Red It Twice, Wrapped in Love, Under the Tree, Glitter to Santa. These bottles are gussied up for the holiday: the caps all have gift bows printed on them and multicolored tiny glitter embedded in them, and the labels have a silver holo background behind the Miracle Gel name.

 

The arrival of winter weather and me being out in it a lot, even with gloves almost all the time, means my nails are back to shorties for a while. I still have some swatches to post that I did before the big break/chop, but I wanted to get these holiday shades posted while it was still the holidays. Lving in the Presents is a warm milky pink with small silver glitter scattered through it. I used two coats and found it self leveled nicely especially for such a light color.

 

 

I topped Living in the Presents with Online Shop-bling, a topper with black hex glitter, rose gold skinny bar glitter, and small silver holo glitter in a clear base. I did one coat of the glitter only, no clear top coat.

 

 

Gift for Blue is a pale grey-leaning blue with the same small silver glitter as Living in the Presents. This was also a two-coater.

 

 

I paired Gift for Blue with Glitter to Santa, which has gold, silver, blue, and black hex glitter plus tiny silver holo glitter in a clear base. Again, I used one coat of the glitter topper alone.

 

 

Wrapped in Love is a raspberry shimmer. Two coats provided full coverage.

 

 

I used Online Shop-bling again over Wrapped in Love. The holo in the topper popped more over this darker base than it had over Living in the Presents.

 

Under the Tree is a deep green shimmer which can show a deep blue shift at certain angles in certain lights. I used two coats for my swatch, but one was almost enough.

 

 

I plussed Under the Tree with Snow What You Want, a topper with white glitter shards and tiny white glitter as well. This really did remind me of snow, which doesn't always come down in perfectly separated flakes but sometimes in irregular clumps.

 

 

Red It Twice is a red microglitter shimmer. Like Under the Tree, I used two coats but might have been able to get away with one. Unlike the other polishes in this collection, I used topcoat on Red It Twice as that seemed to bring out the sparkle in the shimmer.

 

 

I really like this collection. It's got the classic red one expects in a holiday release, but a really good variety of shades beyond that, from pale to deep, plus those great glitter toppers, each different from the other. Good job, Sally!

Wheel F15: Crelly Glitters from Smitten Polish

Today's Nail Wheel Wednesday takes us back in time in the indie polish scene, when Dreamland Lacquer was known as Smitten Polish. These are all from the early days of the brand, when the bottles were squat and the labels were paper (with handwritten names in the earliest days).

 

(all have clear topcoat in addition to glitter coats noted below) 1. Winter is Coming (2 coats)
2. Confection (2)
3. Ermahgerd Candy Corms (2)
4. Cookies & Cream (3)
5. Purple Polka Dotty (3)
6. Huckleberry Pie (2) [from the first collection in 2012; this was more purple when new]
7. Mother of Dragons (2)
8. Pink Lemonade (2)
9. Pastel Pixelation (2)
10. Adeste Fidelis (2)
11. The Holly and the Ivy (2)
12. Mint Chip (2) [from the first collection]
13. Pink Goes Good with Green (2)
14. Butter Mint (2)
15. Flurry (2)
16. Hydrangea (2)
17. Traveling by Bubble (2)
18. Blueberry Crumble (2) [from the first collection]
19. Robin's Egg (2)
20. Polka-Derp (2)

Bottles 1 through 5:

 

6 through 10:

 

11 through 15:

 

16 through 20:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kokie Spring Trio

PR sample provided for review

 

Today I've got three polishes from Kokie to celebrate the arrival of spring. Up here on the mountain where I live, the weather is still wavering between winter and spring, with plenty of snow still piled up (about three feet of it outside my back windows, for instance) but also some warmer days when it's comfortable to go out without multiple layers under my outerwear. Before too long, it'll be mud season, when the rains come and things get dreary for a few weeks. Then I'll really need pretty polishes like these. Left to right: Mystic Mauve, Celestial, and Blossom. (Yes, when the caps are tightened down, the elephant doesn't always like to be front and center; that I can look at this photo and not strongly want to reshoot is a sign I've made a lot of progress with letting go of my perfectionism over the years. Which has nothing to do with this post but my mind, it wanders where it will.)

 

I started with Blossom, a pale peachy pink crelly. Two coats gave my nails a slightly better than natural look, a nice palate cleanser. This is on the sheer side of crelly, but is buildable and self-levels nicely.

 

 

Of course I had to experiment with layering Blossom. I painted my tips with Kokie Iced Out, one of the polishes the brand sent me this past winter, and topped with two coats of Blossom for a bit of a twist on a classic French mani. This approach nicely took care of hiding the slight yellow cast my natural nails seem to have regardless of how careful I am to use base coat under polish.

 

 

Celestial has a clear base densely packed with small metallic glitter accented with a sprinkling of small holo glitter. I used three coats for full coverage, though two coats probably would have worked if I'd made them a touch thinner. I did add clear topcoat, too, though this wasn't especially bumpy. This color is a bit of a chameleon, sometimes looking more silver, sometimes more platinum or even light bronze, but it always looked nice and sparkly yet somehow also subtle (though my idea of subtle may be skewed by having used so much bright color and big glitters over the years).

 

 

Here's Celestial showing off its colors in regular room light:

 

Mystic Mauve is a warm purple creme, opaque in two coats.

 

 

You know I had to try layering Celestial over Mystic Mauve. I added one coat of Celestial plus clear topcoat. One could argue that Celestial is too glitter-filled to be a good topper, but I liked the combination.

 

 

Before I put these polishes away, I tried combining all three into one dotted pond mani, starting with two coats of Blossom, dots of Mystic Mauve themselves dotted with Celestial, then two more coats of Blossom. I think instead of "pond" I got "petri dish" but decided to share it anyway because experiments are good even when they don't quite turn out as hoped.

 

These shades (along with dozens of others) are available at Sally Beauty stores for $4.99 per 16ml bottle. They're also online on the Sally Beauty and Kokie websites.

Kokie Website    Facebook    Instagram

 

 

The polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider, and I get to keep the polishes for my own use.

SinfulColors Sweet and Salty Collection

Since I was hiding out at home (except for trips to the grocery store every couple weeks) when the SinfulColors Sweet and Salty collection came out this past May, I never saw the display for it. (I am still mostly hiding out at home even now, though have made a few forays outside my home/grocery store bubble.) I did manage to get the polishes online before they sold out on from the Target and Walmart sites, and today finally I have swatches. There are six shades in this collection, three sweet and three salty: Donut Even, Chocolate Cake, Cookies & Cream, Pizza Party, Cheese Puff, and Taco Tuesday. Note that on the sticker on the cap it says "avoid mouth contact" (it also says that on the bottom label); sad that it's necessary to have that. I tend to think anyone who thinks these are edibles isn't going to heed the warning anyway, either because they're too young to read it or too high to heed it. These are all scented, too.

 

Donut Even has bar glitter "sprinkles" (or "jimmies" depending on where you're from) in a pink crelly base. Unlike Sally Hansen's donut-themed bar glitter, Mixture Perfect, which I shared recently, I would wear this one on its own. My swatch is three coats; there is the tiniest hint of visible nail line at certain angles, but it doesn't bother me. This was a little lumpy; I should have added topcoat to smooth it out (and been more careful in application ... I was more focused on getting the glitters distributed than in keeping the layers thin).

 

 

I also tried Donut Even as a topper over Sinful Colors Quick Bliss Juicy, a medium pink creme. Top to bottom: 3 coats of Donut Even alone, then 1 coat of it over Juicy on the other digits. The layering works just okay; it lets the glitter show more, but it's a challenge to get the crelly base to look even in one coat.

 

Chocolate Cake is a deep brown textured creme. I used two coats for my swatch though one might have worked as well. I could see using this for nail art if I needed tree bark or something like that, but I'm not sure I'd wear it as a full mani.

 

 

Cookies & Cream is a french vanilla crelly base filled with various sizes of matte black glitter. The base here is a closer to the creme end of the crelly spectrum than the one in Donut Even; my swatch is two coats and that seemed like plenty. I did add a clear topcoat to this one but still feel it looks a bit uneven.

 

 

When I got to Pizza Party, I went right to experimenting with layering. This has a warm light tan crelly base with white bar glitter (cheese?), red and yellow hex glitter (pepperoni & mushroom?), and tiny black hex glitter (?). I did two coats of it alone on my index finger and one coat layered over SinfulColors Hot Toffee, a warm brown creme, on my other fingers. I added clear topcoat to all my digits. The bar glitter is on the longer side and if it's the cheese, there's not enough of it.

 

 

Taco Tuesday has a light yellow crelly base with small bar glitter, hex glitter, and shred glitter in shades of red, green, and peach. It's messy like tacos can be sometimes. I went right to layering with this one, too. Index finger has two coats of Taco Tuesday alone; my other fingers have a base of SinfulColors Raisin the Roof plus one coat of Taco Tuesday. All fingers have clear topcoat.

 

 

I saved the best and brightest for last. It's Cheese Puff, a yellow orange textured creme that definitely matches its inspiration. I did two coats for my swatch.

 

 

I decided it would be a fine idea to try layering the other two "salty" polishes over Cheese Puff, so below you see (top to bottom) Cheese Puff plus Pizza Party, Cheese Puff plus Taco Tuesday, Cheese Puff plus Pizza Party, and Cheese Puff plus Taco Tuesday. I don't hate these combinations; I think Cheese Puff is a better base color for the glitters than the two shades I tried with them first.

 

I give SinfulColors much credit for putting out this quirky collection. Donut Even and Cookies & Cream are the most mainstream of these, and even they are a departure from "normal" nail polishes. I'm not sure I'll wear these much, but they sure were fun to play with.