Sally Hansen | Beauty and Fashion Tech

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure is marketed as base coat, strengthener, growth treatment, color, and top coat, all in one. I grabbed a couple of bottles of the polish to try. Pictured below is a swatch of the shade So Much Fawn.

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Right off, I didn’t particularly like the brush with this polish. It is wide and reminds me of the Borghese nail polish brush, which I don’t at all care for. However, the formula is fine and I got great one coat coverage with it. Without the extra coats from a bottom and top polish, it dried very quickly.

As for wear, it was OK. I didn’t think that there was as nice of a shine with this polish as I would have gotten with a top coat, but it looked generally OK. The polish wore about average in length for me. I am hard on nails and usually start chipping them a day later. Sally Hansen Complete Salon managed to make it to day two.

Popularity: 1% [?]

MAC Style Black Baby Goth Girl Nail Lacquer

I love, love, love, MAC Style Black Nail Polish in the shade Black Baby Goth. Interestingly though, it looks nothing like the swatch shown by MAC site. They show it as a light purple shade, but it really is a deep black purple that looks almost black in low light but shows frosted purple tones in bright light. It is a gorgeous shade.

Here is the website swatch. It isn’t very accurate:

Here is the MAC photo of the bottle, which is much closer:

And here it is swatched on my nails in indoor light, but using a flash:

MAC polish is also one of my favorite formulations (my other being Sally Hansen Salon polishes). It applies nicely and wears very well. I am terribly hard on nails, but usually I can keep MAC from chipping for several days.

Note: This review is based on a product provided to me by the company. For further information on my policies, including those concerning reviews of free products, please see my disclosures page.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Sally Hansen High Definition Nail Polish

Sally Hansen has a new set of nail polishes out that are bright, bold, and incredibly luminous. I love the shades, although they don’t really match my personal style.

Sally Hansen describes the HD polish as a unique, patented formula with real liquid crystals. Below is the shade Pixel Pretty, which is a lovely turquoise shade.

This polish was incredibly chip proof for me. I managed to get several days of heavy typing out of it without a mark. It is a bit sheer at first though. I applied two coats, and really could have used three.

Sally Hansen is also running an HD sweepstakes through September 15, with some great prizes. Visit the Sally Hansen Website to learn more.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Fourth of July Nail Polish

I decided to get festive with my nail polish for the fourth of July holiday. This look was done using Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Polish in Rapid Red, a Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in Blue, and Kiss 3D Nail Art stickers. I got all of the items at a local drugstore.

The look was pretty easy to do. Apply a base coat and then a coat of Insta-Dri. Put on the 3D star stickers, and paint on the blue polish. Then set it all with a clear top coat.

This was my first time using the Sally Hansen Nail Art Pens. I really like them. The color is water based, so if you make a mistake, you can erase it with a wet cotton squab. Once you have the design that you like, a clear top coat will seal it.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Tracy Reese for Sally Hansen Salon Nail Polish

I adore Sally Hansen Salon nail polish. Simply put, it is the best and longest wearing lacquer that I have used. That it is relatively inexpensive and easy to find is also a bonus.

The line is also full of great shades. Those are easy to get, but they also have a harder to find (unfortunately very hard to find at times) limited edition line from designer Tracy Reese. I tried out a selection of shades from the Tracy Reese for Sally Hansen Salon Fall 2008 Collection, and they are amazing! Below are two of my favorites that fit in perfectly with this fall and winter’s trend of purple and plum nails.

The shade Night Lily (above) is a neat fuscia plum shade, and is my favorite of the collection. The polish looks more red in this picture than it really is though.

The shade Alchemy (above) looks much more purple and shimmery in the bottle than it does on the nails. The shimmer is very subtle and the shade is nicely dark and muted. It is different from the other purple nail polishes that I have tried this fall and I adore it!

There are more interesting shades in the line and I will do some future posts on them. For a nice set of swatches of the full line, also take a look at Michelle’s coverage of them at All Lacquered Up.

My best luck at finding the Tracy Reese shades has been at ULTA Beauty stores. I recently found some from the spring 2008 collection still in stock at the one in Naperville Illinois, along with a few from the fall 2008 collection.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Foundation, Concealer, and Powder

A few weeks ago, I reviewed a number of products from the Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Makeup line. This new line of cosmetics inspired by Carmindy of the show What Not to Wear, and author of the book The Five Minute Face, impressed me so much that I went back for more! I am pleased to say that Sally Hansen Natural Beauty foundation, concealer, and translucent powder all were of excellent quality.

Sally Hansen Your Skin Makeup is a silky smooth foundation with medium coverage. This makeup simply looks great. From the packaging in a glass bottle, to the smooth and blendable texture, it seems much more expensive than it is. I did find that it takes a minute though to blend in and settle, and I like it best when used in conjunction with a primer (this is true of most foundations for me though). Apply it and let it rest for a minute, and then apply your powder. The effect is quite nice. For fair skinned women, the lightest shade is very light– something I also appreciated. I would like to see a few more shades come out in this though.

Fast Fix Concealer is a nice creamy concealer, packaged how I like it–in a pot. The pot allows for good access to apply it with either fingers or your own brush. It is light and blends well, yet provide surprisingly good coverage for its light texture.

Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Fast Fix Concealer

Finally, the Natural Beauty Truly Translucent Loose Powder is a nice translucent powder for setting the makeup. The powder itself is lovely, and like just about everything in this line, it seems more expensive than it is, but I do have a gripe with the packaging. This one comes with a powder sponge in the cap that blocks most of the space for the powder to be shaken into the top of the container. The result is that it is harder to use your own brush with this one, not at least without risking a bit of a mess, and I don’t care for the sponge.

Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Loose Powder

I also tried out the Sally Hansen Natural Shine Lipgloss , which is wonderful stuff. For more on that see my review at Girl Gloss!The Sally Hansen Natural Beauty line remains impressive. You can find it at various drugstores and at ULTA Beauty.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Review: New Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Cosmetics Inspired by Carmindy

Sally Hansen Natural Beauty has released a wonderful full line of cosmetics “inspired by” Carmindy from TLC’s show What Not to Wear. I am a big Carmindy fan and I liked her book, The Five Minute Face (Read Review). I also have been pretty impressed with Sally Hansen as of late. The new Sally Hansen Natural Beauty line focuses on natural ingredients and is paraben free.

When I saw the line at CVS, I bought a number of items to try. I was left highly impressed and am willing to bet that several items from this line will make my year end best of 2008 list (Read the 2007 list)!

The Sally Hansen Natural Beauty line includes foundation and powder, but I have so many unfinished items of those, I didn’t buy any. Instead, I got the primer, eye shadow base, an eye shadow trio, cream blush, lipstick, and a mascara. The look I created with the products and each item is covered below. All items are worn in the photo below. I am also wearing Laura Mercier Oil Free Foundation (Read Review), Laura Mercier translucent powder, and M.A.C. dual edged eye pencil in a blue/gray shade from the Heatherette collection.

The Natural Beauty Luminizing Face Primer is a really nice silicon based primer. It has a lighter feel than the cult classic Smashbox Photofinsh (Read Review), yet worked just as well. I found that it primed my skin quite well in preparation for foundation by leaving it smooth and silky. The luminizing properties are also a welcome addition. At around $10, this primer is an incredible value, and I am not aware of any other comparably priced primers of this quality. Revlon has a decent primer, but it does not provide the perfectly nice skin surface that the Sally Hansen product does.

Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Fast Fix Eyeshadow Base is another great value product. There are not a lot of drugstore shadow bases out there and this one is quite lovely. It has a light, easy to spread cream texture, that feels like it must have a touch of silicon in it. I found that it made my shadow look smooth and crease free all evening. This will become a staple product for me.

The cream blush is another great item in Salley Hansen’s new line. It is silky smooth, and Bloom, the shade that I purchased, has a nice rosy color. It is pretty well pigmented and builds pretty well, so those with darker skin can likely wear it just fine. At the same time, it also blends well, so I could wear it well with my pale skin as long as I applied with with a light and well blended touch.

Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Cosmetics Carmindy

The Natural Beauty Instant Definition Eye Shadow Palette comes in basic and fairly neutral color sets. I decided to go for the Ocean Eye Palette, a gray/navy combo, because I seem to have acquired way too much brown shadow. The shadow is decently pigmented, blended fine, and lasted well. I did not have any creasing issues. It seemed like a standard decent quality shadow to me with nothing really outstanding, but nothing wrong with it either.

The Natural Beauty Lift & Define Mascara was nothing special for me. The brush is small (I tend to like that), but has rather wide spaces between the bristles, which I think can make things clump easier. It went on OK, and looked OK. I don’t think it would be my first choice in mascara, but it wasn’t bad either.

Finally, I loved the Color Comfort Lip Color! Perfect Pink, Rose Parfait, turned out to be perhaps one of the best pink shades I have found in some time. For a full review of it, head on over to my post at Girl Gloss!

The bottom line: The Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Cosmetics line is a welcome addition to the available drugstore makeup choices. I particularly recommend the primer and shadow base. These items are comparable to, or perhaps even better than, other much more expensive products. The rest of the line is quite nice as well. Well done Sally Hansen!

Look for the new Sally Hansen Natural Beauty at drugstore and at ULTA Beauty.