Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure

While attending a Royal Wedding/Birthday celebration, I had the opportunity to try out Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure in Purple Purple.

The color was great - really true to what it looked like it would be from the bottle. And best of all this picture was taken two days after I'd painted my nails and the polish survived a weekend which included washing dishes, doing laundry, and digging in my garden (sans gloves) with only the most minor chipping.

A day or two later while taking my break at work and perusing the cosmetics at the neighboring Walgreens, I was happy to see that this same brand polish was included in a BOGO free sale. I'm a nail polish junkie, so I looked for some nice springy colors and headed for the checkout.


The Purple Purple is no longer available, so I wound up with Plum's the Word seen at the right and I Pink I Can to the left below. I was really disappointed with the Plum color. In the bottle, it looked like a much creamier color and like it might even have a bit of a pearl glow, but on my nails, it turned out to look really muddy. Frankly, it reminded me of the color of Silly Putty when you've used it to transfer one comic strip too many.

The I Pink I Can was a much more fun color, I can really imagine myself wearing it in the time between my pastels of spring and hot pinks of summer. It's a little darker in person than it photographed, kind of a bubble gum pink with hints of coral. When I had it on, I couldn't help but think of Barbies and Disney princesses. I also got a few complements on it that day from 7th grade girls, so you know it's totally hip.

Sadly, the pink was really streaky, even after three coats (the plum took only two coats to cover my nails pretty well). In addition, both colors took FOREVER to dry! I found they were still slightly tacky over an hour later.

To add to the disappointments, these colors both started to chip around the tips of my nails the same day I had painted them even though I hadn't done anything that should have been very damaging to the polish. I was especially shocked by this after the experience I had had with the Purple Purple the week before.
After doing a little detective work I found reviews from users who had similar problems to mine, many of whom had loved the Complete Salon Manicure line before the company had revamped the formula.

So, if you have an older bottle of this, cherish it. Even on my toes this polish doesn't wear well. It's a real shame, there are some excellent colors I would have loved to try and the idea of having 5 steps in one bottle is really great. It's sad that this formula falls short.