Sally Hansen x Peeps Insta Dri Collection

Yes, Easter was a while ago, but I bought the Sally Hansen x Peeps colors and wanted to at least Skittles swatch them before they went into the queue to get on nail wheels. Left to right: PEEPS White, PEEPS Pink, PEEPS Lavender, PEEPS Blue, PEEPS Yellow, PEEPS Fruit Punch, PEEPS Sparkly Wild Berry.

 

I did the White, Pink, Blue, and Lavender together. They were what I expected from Insta Dri, plenty opaque in two coats. I'm sure I've bought the white at least a half dozen times now under new names each time it's re-released. That's okay. A good reasonably priced white is a good find. I probably have close enough shades for the others, maybe not all in the Insta Dri line, but didn't take the time to do comparisons because I didn't really want to know.

 

Sparkly Wild Berry is a topper with pink metallic and white matte hex glitters in various sizes.

 

I put one coat of Sparkly Wild Berry on top of the Skittles then added clear topcoat. The white glitter got lost on the white creme base of course, but on the other bases, Sparkly Wild Berry looked good.

 

 

Looking at the two cremes left, I didn't want to just swatch them on alternate fingers, and while Yellow would play nicely with Pink and Blue and Lavender, Fruit Punch seemed the odd one out. Then I remembered I'd bought Sprinkle Sprinkle, a crelly glitter with sky blue, soft orange, and golden yellow hexes in it.

 

I put Sprinkle Sprinkle on my index and pinky fingers, with Yellow and Fruit Punch in between. Neither of those cremes quite matches the glitter, but they both coordinate well enough. All were two coats.

 

I'm thinking I should do a couple wheels with Insta Dri cremes to carry around in my car so I can bring them into the store any time Sally Hansen does a new collection and perhaps not buy so many look alikes, but that probably won't work anyway. I have mostly managed to not re-buy the Pride colors every year, so that's something. This year I only got two, the orange and the brown. But that's another post, if I ever get around to it.

The New Black: In Love Set

While I've been working on my massive backlog of individual polishes that need to get swatched on wheels, I've been ignoring the much much smaller backlog of polish sets that I wanted to try on my nails before breaking the sets up and moving the individual bottles to the "get on wheels someday" pool. I decided to switch that up and grabbed a set of minis I got from the clearance section of Ulta (which I know from the price tag) probably sometime in 2014: The New Black In Love 5-piece set with four polishes and a bottle of rhinestones. Apparently endorsed or designed or something by Demi Lovato (whose face is somewhat obscured here by the residue from that Ulta clearance price tag I failed to completely remove).

 

Here are the three non-glitter polish shades (none of the individual bottles have names on them, nor are any listed on the box): white pearl on my index finger, lavender metallic pearl on my middle, and purple shimmer on my ring and pinky. Each of them were two coats for full coverage.

 

In direct light, the purple shows the most depth and glow:

 

I added embellishments to the two purple nails. I put the "diamond" rhinestones on one nail and the shredded glitter on the other. The rhinestones appear to have yellowed some over the years since I bought them, and the glitter, which once was lilac, is now silver. (I know about these changes because I Googled for photos from closer to the time this set was released.)

 

 

I wish I'd used this set when it was new and the bling was still its original colors. I like the purple shimmer polish best, but not so much I'm sad I only have a tiny bottle of it. I'm sure I have something similar in a full size. I think sets like this are convenient for folks who don't have or want a big collection of polish and nail art stuff, or aren't confident about creating looks with more than one or two polishes, but that's not me.

Fakes That Took an Unexpected Turn

There was never any doubt I'd wear fake nails for the start of my trip to Indie Expo Canada ... all those opportunities to break a nail when packing, loading suitcases into the car, wrangling them onto and off of parking lot shuttle buses, grabbing them from the luggage carousel, etc., etc. Thus a few days before I flew out, I put on a set of Kiss Salon Color nails in an iridescent grey that I could find no shade name for on the box but which based on some Googling, I believe may be called Eclipse.



The medium length was necessary as my natural nails have grown out nicely during the summer as usual (much as I try to protect them from the dry air and harsh weather in the winter, I continually fall short, which leads to short nails). The curve at the sides left something to be desired compared to how I shaped my natural nails but I don't think it was noticeable to anyone but me (well, and now, all of you, since I've pointed it out and posted a closeup).





The above pics are in the artificial light in my dining room the night I applied them. The next morning I got the following couple shots in natural light to show the different faces of the iridescent finish (like the ones the night before, they also show the tenacious end of a splinter I wasn't able to dig out of my palm):





That iridescent coating didn't live up to the "stays perfect for entire wear" line on the box—or maybe they just didn't anticipate how long I'd wear them—because by day five, a lot of it had worn off, revealing the plain grey underneath. (My index looks less worn below because I popped off and lost that one and had to replace it a few days in. Usually I notice when they come off and just reattach but in the whirl of getting ready for my trip that didn't happen.)



To distract from the wear, I added accent nails with a glitter topper I found just across the border into Canada when I was driving to Toronto to IEC from Detroit (I flew in there because it was cheaper and made logistics easier at the end of my trip). Quo by Orly What's the Big Teal has turqoise glitter in a clear base, both small hexes and larger triangles. I actually did this in my car, completely stopped for a construction delay on the 401 somewhere in the wilds of Ontario. I was so happy to find such an interesting glitter at a drugstore; I hope to play with it more soon.



My intention was to take off the fakes and do a regular manicure for IEC, but when I swatched the polishes I intended to use over the fakes, they looked good enough I decided to just go with it. Yes, I did have to get the glitter off the accent nails I'd done, but that proved to be not too difficult, especially since I wasn't worried about ruining the finish. I ended up using three polishes for my IEC look; top to bottom, RK by Kiss Holographic Fairy Wing, Fairy Wing topped with Morgan Taylor Bedazzle Me, Fair Maiden Violet Eyes topped with Bedazzle Me, and Violet Eyes alone.







I know, going to an indie polish event, I probably should have worn more indies, but I hadn't brought very many with me (what with wanting to save weight on the way there to have more allowance to bring new bottles back) and the holo and the glitter I'd bought on my drive just went so well with the Fair Maiden (an IEC purchase from a previous year) I had to use them. The holo in particular delighted me ... only $3.99 at a wig store and has rainbows just as flame-y as much more expensive ones in my collection.



On my way out of IEC on the Sunday, loaded down with shopping bags, I popped a nail off somewhere between getting on the elevator from the event space and getting into my rental car. Excellent timing. I couldn't find it (not that I looked very hard), so right there in the car, I just put on another iridescent one from the box I'd been carrying with me all weekend. It coordinated pretty well considering I hadn't planned to do this.





I wore these one more day after IEC, at which point, I needed to get them off so I could swatch a few of the polishes that came back with me from the event.



It's a long holiday weekend, and I have family visiting for the big festival that closes out the summer season here (dubbed "Mountain Drunk Fest" by a friend of ours ... I'm glad we're walking distance from the fun), but once that wraps, I hope to get through my IEC pics and what swatches I've done so far and do a post (or two?) on that next week.