Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Polish Review

It's no secret I'm very lazy when it comes to my nails. I would love to do pretty designs or an elegant french manicure, but I'm clumsy and have no patience. When Sally Hansen came out with the "UV Free" Gel Manicure I was very curious. I've never had a professional gel manicure before, so I would be a bad judge of comparison, but I was only interested in one thing: Longevity.

Unfortunately, Sally Hansen's Nail Varnish was so popular that the top coat was sold out at my local Target. I was only interested in the light pink color, Creme de la Creme, but the only way I could get the top coat was to buy it bundled with something else. That something else was "Street Flair" and I hate it, but I'll get to that later. 

Disregard my shedding

 The brushes for the individual nail varnishes are ideal for application. They all have a rounded end and the brush size isn't too big. I have petite hands and nails and sometimes large brushes are unwieldy for me to use, so these three fit the bill for easy nail varnish application.

I actually ruined my brushes by taking these photos, so don't leave the brushes out of the varnish too long/leave them in direct sunlight. Seems like common sense though, right?

Usually with such a light color, like Orly's Powder Puff Polish, it takes three coats to four coats to reach full opacity. With Creme de la Creme, I only needed two! I was really pleasantly surprised. Although my nails were passably opaque, next time I think I'll apply a third coat for safety.

My cuticles. Poop.

The formula is really opaque and true to color. The color in the bottle is what you get on your nails, the only thing that surprised me was the finely milled glitter that gave my nails a pearlescent sheen. The finish to me wasn't like a "jelly-texture" it seemed more of like a shine-y hard coat. I've watched Jen, from From Head To Toe Fame, rave about the new Cover Girl Nail Gel finishes, but I don't find the same quality to be in the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel.

Left Hand After Two Weeks

The one thing that really, really impressed me was the minimal wear around the tips of my nails. The above photo is after two weeks of wear. TWO WEEKS. Besides the nail growth that you can see at the bottom,  the nail polish stuck. I'm so impressed!

Right Hand After Two Weeks

The only weird thing that happened was the weird "wrinkles" that appeared on my right hand's nails and a random chip in the dead center of my ring finger.

You can see a close up of the "damage" here.

Disclaimer: My Toes Are Gross. 

This is my swatch for "Street Flair." Ignore the grossness of my feet, I don't take care of them very well. The reason why I don't like "Street Flair" is that it's very boring and very unflattering shade to my skin tone. The application is great though! Although they say you should do at least two shades, I feel like you can reach full opacity with one. This is probably due to the nature of darker nail polishes.

It's a very dusty mauve-y, lilac-y, purple. Unlike Creme de la Creme, it dries very slightly darker than the shade in the bottle, as stated before, I just don't like the color.

After a week of wear

It wears well, just like its predecessor in this post, and I'm pretty impressed by these for longevity's sake and I think they have an expansive color range as well. If you can rock "Street Flair" do it, but I honestly, will just probably wear it on my toes through the winter just to use it up.

The nail polishes and topcoat retail for around $9.99 and the bundled topcoat and nail polish set retails for $14.00.

As of 9/11/2014 Ulta is having a sale on these nail polishes and are selling them for $7.49! Check out these links for purchase:

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