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| Sally Hansen Salon Effects Manicure in "Love Letter" |
So last week, I ran into Danielle at CVS while running some errands, and we ended up meandering over to the nail section. I hadn't done my nails in a really, really long time (specifically, since December, while being a bridesmaid at a friend's wedding). I happened upon these nail strips and thought they might be fun to give a try. They were really great.
Review:
I think these are awesome. They took about 20 minutes to apply, stayed chip free for about a week, and since I have small hands, the cost (10 dollars for a box, but I have smaller nails and ended up discovering 1 box = 2 full manicures for me) is actually great, given that getting a salon manicure takes a lot longer including transport, costs about 15 bucks including the tip, and lasts for about the same amount of time chip free on my fingers. Also, they look cool! I've gotten compliments literally every single day I've had these on!
Everything else:
This was a photo from the day after I did these nails. I am really impressed and this is awesome. As a computer scientist, I type around 12 hours a day on average, and my nails take a beating, so I don't bother polishing my nails because the combination of me being a perfectionist with chipped nails is a super super bad thing. I also just have like no patience, so it drives me sort of insane if I have to wait for my nails to dry because I COULD BE DOING STUFF, so I think I fell more in love with these nail strips because they have no drying time. Also I'm a typography freak so this was cool.
I don't think of myself as a nail art person at all. I use my hands a ton, and am generally sort of fidgety, so I don't think I have the patience for the most part, not to mention that I type a lot and play the piano and knit, so I just assume the nails will get messed up very quickly and gave up early on. However, when I did this manicure, it was completed watching a Legend of Korra episode (EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH IT) and at the end I just felt so...pretty and polished. It actually inspired me to care more about my appearance for the rest of the week, because I had such pretty nails, and I wanted the rest of me to be pretty too! I actually sort of forgot what it feels like to have any part of me be pretty for a while.
This particular nail experiment also sparked an interesting memory that I'd kind of forgotten about. While I am not normally into nail art, I was extremely fascinated by the Klutz books as a kid - books that would come with small kits of materials for art projects, and then have project instructions inside. I ended up recalling this book:
Every time I went to the bookstore for about 2 years, I would stare wistfully as a kid at this book, fully knowing that there was no way in hell anyone would ever get it for me. Its actually still sold on amazon (I know! I know!!) but I am a little less enchanted by turning my nails into ladybugs. I might still do it, on principal though. Still, good times. It was incredibly exciting to remember this, look it up on the internet, and suddenly realize that I am an adult and if I want that book, I can have it. Yep. Thats what I pushed myself through college for - the ability to buy the book of my 8 year old self's dreams and have it delivered to my door, no extra charge.
Speaking of the internet, now that I'm excited about it, I went ahead and while the cost is ok, I was curious as to whether this could be cheaper. Answer: IT CAN. These are also sold on amazon at various much cheaper prices, and even cheaper on ebay! Ebay is also neat because you can get past limited edition patterns/prints that aren't sold in stores. I got excited and grabbed these shades at about 3-5 bucks a pop:
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| Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Shiny New Year |
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| Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Di-Vine |
You may notice as I continue to blog that my style tastes have some unfortunate addictions built in. Namely, basically all of my favorite clothes and accessories and makeup products are some combination of Gold, Black, and varying shades of Pink and Peach, Red, and Beige. This is mostly because I look good in these colors, and generally feel like its harder to pull off a lot of colors that are offered in the US since I have darker skin (approximately Jessica Alba colored), but I am aware that I should branch out, which is why I branched super super far out into a very adventurous monochromatic navy blue t shirt recently, but that discussion is probably best saved for another post. Regardless, I am pretty excited that my nails get to look like that instead of me having to painstakingly paint them gold and then have it ruined within 15 minutes after I've forgotten my nails are wet and started peeling an orange.
Other shades/patterns I've got my eye on and/or super like and may be trying out are:
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| Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Girl Flower |
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| Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Bold Rush |
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| Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Lustrous |
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| Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Frock Star, Laced Up, Misbehaved, and Glitz Blitz |
Overall, I'm looking forward to being excited about having pretty hands/nails, and am mostly trying to figure out which patterns I like look professional and pretty since I want to do well on my interviews, but not have my hands be distracting during them. We'll see. Might just go with something more tame like the gold with black netting in Misbehaved for that. I think in general, as small as it seems, these have been a huge step for me in terms of doing something that has been positive and encouraging for my body image, while not necessarily being too jarring or overwhelming or noticeable to others, which I think is pretty much what you want in the beginning.
What do you guys think? Are you going to give any of these a shot?
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