Budget-Friendly Feature -- Sally Hansen Pixel Perfect

Greetings ladies and gents!


Today's Feature is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear "Pixel Perfect". This is a glitter polish featuring different sizes of black and white hex, circle, and bar glitters.

I paid $2.49 for this at Target. 

Usually the Sally Hansen Xtreme Wears have pretty good formulas, but this was my first time trying one of their glitters. I have to say... I was not impressed. You have to do a lot of fishing and dab-placement to get a decent payoff of glitter. The sponging method doesn't really work with this because you end up with a big chunk of glitter in one spot and nothing on the rest of your nail. The clear base is also rather thin and has a tendency to pool in all the places you don't want it to.

In the photo I painted on the first coat, and then fished, and fished, and fished some more to strategically dab the rest on. (This is over Nabi "Pastel Minty", by the by)

While the polish has a pretty cool concept, the work required to make it look decent just isn't worth it, in my opinion. 

So was this glitter polish worth the $2.49 I paid for it? Sadly, I have to say no on this one. Thicken up the base a little bit and pack more glitters in there, then we might have something useful. Until then, I'd say go for one of the other black and white matte glitter polishes that are out there.

Don't Dilly Dally!

Okay, back to the nail stuffs!

Today I'll be talking about this here super simple mani. And I'm going to eat my words, too. 

For this mani I started off with the Bridge the Ridge base coat ($5.49 at Sally Beauty Supply with card). I only did one coat, since it doesn't seem to make that big of a difference with two. I figure I'll just use it until it's gone and then go back to my normal Pure Ice "Bottom Line" base coat.

For the base color I used the Sinful Colors "Rise and Shine" ($2.02 at Target) that I wasn't so keen on. At least on the swatches.... But WOW! Once I actually got it on my nails?? I don't know if it was due to my skin tone or what, but this color after two coats really popped! I can honestly say now that it's one of my favorites.

I then applied one coat of Sally Hansen "Pixel Perfect" ($2.49 at Target). Now, when I say "applied", I mean "fished and swirled and globbed". Then I applied a second coat. And then a third... Ugh, okay. I got all excited with the Sinful Colors, but I guess this stuff is still as lackluster as it was when I swatched it. Oh well, at least there's an awesome color under there. 

I will admit that after a few days it did grow on me a little. But I highly doubt it'll get worn very often.

And then there was the fact that I put on a regular base coat instead of a peel off... what the Sam hell was I thinking?! I figured this was a good time to see exactly how much product I needed to use to get glitter off. For all ten fingers I ended up using two pads and five soaks in the acetone.

I would say that's still more cost-effective than a $10 bottle of UNT. Albeit severely more time consuming...

And there's no peel porn...

Next up? Striped and sassy.

Target "Treasures"

Good afternoon folks!

Now, you might be wondering, "Why is 'treasures' in quotes?"  Well, see, when I was at Target all these polishes looked to be treasures. Then I got them home... 

Let's take a look at each in detail, shall we?

First up we have "Jazzy Jade" from the Sally Hansen Xtreme wear line. I paid $2.49 for this. In the store this looked like a gorgeous opalescent green jade. However, when I swatched it, it looked... well, it looked terribly boring. And it was very similar to Wet 'n' Wild's "Be More Pacific", which I already have. I'm not a fan of having dupes--that's a waste of my hard-earned money. To be fair, though, I do not top coat my swatches. Maybe the opalescence will pop if I do. I'll have to keep you updated on that.

Next I purchased Sinful Colors "Rise and Shine" for $2.02. I'm not sure why I purchased both of these, as they're very similar to each other. And again, it looks much like "Be More Pacific". This polish was almost opaque in one coat, though. You could probably get it opaque in one coat if you did a thicker coat. 




Then we have Sally Hansen "Pixel Perfect". This was $2.49. It's a black and white matte glitter in several shapes and sizes and has a clear base. From the look of the bottle, you'd think it was fairly dense. NOPE! Far, far from it. I had to do quite a bit of fishing and maneuvering to get this stuff to look decent on the swatch nail (the photo is over "Jazzy Jade"). I also tried sponging, to no avail. All I accomplished with that was getting glops of glitter in one spot. The swatch shows about three coats. 

I don't normally go for pinks, or holographics, or glitters, but this one... man, it just looked amazing in the bottle! This is Sinful Colors "Pinky Glitter", that I bought for $2.02. It's a sheer pink base with holographic glitter. It's... it's pretty, I won't lie. But it's so sheer that even three coats won't get it opaque. You could use it as a topper, but then of course you lose that pale pink finery, and there are better holographic toppers out there. I may try this over a white base in the future, because overall I really do like it.


The last polish I purchase was another Sinful Colors for $2.02. This is "Cinderella". It's a sheer baby blue with a lovely pink shimmer. And it, too, is so sheer that three coats won't get you to opacity. I tried this one over black and was surprised to find that I didn't like it--I normally like everything over black. However, I did try two coats over white, and that fixed the opacity issue, but the blue was much paler than it shows in the bottle.



Overall I was pretty disappointed with my purchases. Normally I get pretty good stuff from both these brands. I guess my game was just off that day. Here's to hoping for better luck next time!


Next up? I eat my words!