Sally Hansen Salon Effects Review

Because I loved the essie nail wraps so much I decided to give Sally Hansen's Salon Effects a try. I found them on sale so I grabbed as many designs as I could which included:

Red My Tulips 

Glitz Blitz 

Laced Up 

The Bold Rush 

I Love Lacey

Horse A Round

I didn't want to wait until some special event to wear them so I put them on that night while watching The Fault in Our Stars (again!).

The kit comes with 16 nail strips, a file and buffer in one, and a cuticle stick.

Firstly you're supposed to file any jagged edges, take off any old nail polish, wash, dry, and run some acetone over your nails before you begin.

These strips come in two little cases that remind me of contact lenses. Each set has 8 strips. Unlike essie's, these have two slightly different ends. You pick the end that will match your nail shape better. The ones I tried were the Horse A Round so the reverse French tip did look slightly different on each end - one wider and the other narrower.

The strip comes with a film of plastic that you take off and does nothing except keep the design on the strip from messing up.

To put them onto your nail you have to take off the back film and adhere them to your nails.

When you get them right where you want them, you press down and then run the cuticle stick over them to seal them in place.

 Then taking one side of the file you file them over your nail and they tear off.

I found these to be very similar to the essie ones. They are able to stretch a bit so that you get full coverage on your nail but if you do it too much you'll mess up the design or tear them. It sounds great but it's hard to do so I just left them as they were as opposed to trying to stretch them.

The side of the file it says to use isn't a true file. It didn't have that rough sandpaper you'd associate with a file and because of this, it was a lot harder to file off the excess. When I tried using the true file side it tore the strip and was much too rough for it.

After I finished, I had to admit that they looked pretty good. I only ended up tearing one and just used a different strip instead.

I found them to be comparable to the essie sleek stick nail wraps and I'm happy with their result. Even after a few days of wear they were holding up really well. Some of my tips were starting to chip but it wasn't anything too bad.

I only paid a dollar for each of these, but it seems that they start out at about 8.59$. I would pay full price for them for a special occasion.

Have you used these before? What's your favorite design? Have any tips or tricks for making them stay longer?