Brand: Sally Hansen
Sally Hansen’s Complete Salon Manicure line is a funny one for me. I often find myself attracted to the well-executed, trendy colors, but there are many things about the formula and packaging that I dislike. Add to that the unreasonably high price—comparable to superior drugstore options in Essie and L’Oréal Le Vernis à l’Huile—and I’m rarely keen to purchase from this line.
Despite my misgivings, I did recently pick up a few more of these, so today’s polish is Pardon My Garden (530), a pale mint green cream with a hint of blue.
I freely admit that I mostly bought this one for the name! It’s cute, isn’t it? Plus, pale greens are nice and spring-y, aren’t they?
Sadly, a clever name and an Easter theme aren’t enough to save this polish from a scathing review.
I hate the Complete Salon Manicure brush, firstly. It’s too big, too thick, too unevenly cut (seriously? priced like Essie and you can’t provide a good brush?!), and the brush stem is very wide so it collects way too much polish. I’m constantly having to wipe down the stem on the inner bottle neck, but because the stem is flat and wide, it’s not possible to wipe a lot of the polish off on the small, round neck. So when I’m applying, there’s a constant stream of unwanted polish flowing down onto the brush.
Next, the formula is a bit too goopy. I know it’s a very whitened pastel, which normally is a pain to apply, so I am a bit more understanding here. But the brush is just so bad that it makes this polish that much harder to apply when the formula is not nice and smooth.
On the positive side, the pigmentation and coverage are good. Two coats are needed, mostly to try to smooth out the polish. As you can see in my swatches, the polish still does look a little lumpy and uneven.
With a good brush, I think this polish would have performed at least 50% better, but as it is, I really am not a fan.
Unless you really have your heart set on the color, give this one a miss.
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Sally Hansen Color Therapy contains 0.5 US fl oz / 14.7 mL and retails for around US$7.99 / CA$9.95. The formula is free from toluene, formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, camphor, and dibutyl phthalate (DBP).
Sally Hansen’s website states that Sally Hansen and her husband developed a Hard as Nails nail treatment in the late 1950s. (This begs to differ! How odd.) Sally Hansen, the company, was purchased by Coty Inc. in 1997 when the cosmetics giant acquired Del Laboratories, which owned brands like Sally Hansen, La Cross, and NYC (New York Color). Coty itself was founded in Paris, France in 1904; today it is headquartered in New York, NY, USA. Coty is the world’s third largest cosmetics company, with brands like OPI, Rimmel, and leading fragrances (including Calvin Klein, Chloé, and Marc Jacobs) in its portfolio.
