The Sally Hansen Chrome Nail Makeup Let-down of the Century
Written: Sep 08 '01 (Updated Sep 08 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Dries quickly, less offensive smell
Cons: Chips quickly, more expensive than most, few colours
The Bottom Line: At a cost higher than most polish in its class, the Chrome Nail Makeup fails to live up to the hype.
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| vein's Full Review: Sally Hansen Chrome Nail Makeup |
Nail polish, in general, is never released with any fanfare. Most people never eagerly wait for a new polish line to make its way into local drug stores. For the average new polish, supply usually keeps up with demand, with no major rush at drug stores first to have the new line.
The Frenzy
The release of the new Sally Hansen line Chrome Nail Makeup was the start of a new type of nail polish release, vastly different from new line introductions of the past. For the first time in possibly the history of makeup in general, the first bottles of Chrome Nail Makeup flew off store shelves literally seconds after they were put out on display, with people driving to literally dozens of drug stores in order to find a coveted bottle of the newest Sally Hansen nail product. Even eBay – the world’s favourite auction site – played a part in the nail polish frenzy. Bottles of Chrome Nail Makeup were selling for up to a mind-boggling $25, $20 more than the bottles originally sold for at most drug stores.
According to the ads, this new chrome polish featured an “exclusive micro-fine sterling silver formula” to give nails “100%” more light. While I personally didn’t buy this “catchy” wording used on both the Sally Hansen website and in print ads, I figured more than a few people would imagine little light bulbs in their nail color, helping to cause the buying frenzy.
I admit, I’d been reading all about this frenzy on various newsgroups I kept up with and was catching the excitement. I love shiny things, especially nail polish. To find a “perfect” shade of super reflective polish would have made my week. I did, however, keep my senses and waited until a recent trip to CVS to purchase this new polish. Unlike most drug store polish that usually didn’t cost more than $3, the Chrome Nail Makeup at CVS was $4.99 – thankfully, on the week I purchased my bottle, the whole line was $1 off each bottle.
The Tones
Unlike most nail polish, the Chrome Nail Makeup line is fairly dull in colour selections. Unless the colour is a glitter shade, I tend to opt for darker blues, greens, or even black polish. Sally Hansen however, has so far, only released shades that are on the pastel end of spectrum. The first “release” of the line featured 9 shades ranging from silver chrome (Pure Chrome) to very light pastel green (Jade Chrome) to a sickening four shades of pink (Amethyst Chrome, Garnet Chrome, Jewel Chrome, Ruby Chrome). Other colours (including a darker purple Royal Purple Chrome and a charcoal Moonstone Chrome) have since been released, although their presence is still lacking a mention on the official Sally Hansen website.
While I’d intended to pick up a bottle of Pure Chrome (the silver chrome shade) I failed to notice until I got home that I’d actually picked up one of the new shades, Black Pearl Chrome.
The Bait ‘n Switch
I cursed the one glaring flaw of the Chrome Nail Makeup line. The Sally Hansen line comes in a bottle that is opaque. In addition to not being able to see the true colour of the polish, it was impossible to distinguish between certain shades since the bottles were so coloured so similarly. It was also impossible to see how much of the polish was left, or even to see if someone had “tested” it in the store. I had to go by weight alone to hope that my .45 fl oz bottle was unused – not a very accurate test.
I started to wonder if maybe the company knew less would sell if the actual shade of the polish could be seen.
The Try-outs
Eager to try out my new polish, I prepped my nails as per usual – a single coat of Sally Hansen Color Wear Maximum Adhesion Base Coat fully dry, which I always found to prevent chipping for at least a day on polishes that chipped fast. I then applied a single coat of the Chrome Nail Makeup. True to the advertising claims, this coat was fully dry in about 60 seconds. Unlike some polishes, while this new line had the “normal” nail polish smell, the smell didn’t seem as strong or as long lasting as it did for other “quick dry” nail polishes, which made me quite happy. In addition, while some polish even smelled when dry, I barely noticed any scent once the polish was dry.
My initial reaction was mixed – although shiny, this slightly darker than pure silver shade was far from what I’d call “chrome”. It reminded me of the cheaper L’Oreal Jet-Set silver colour Concorde. On the other hand, I did like the thickness of this Sally Hansen polish, which was far from see-through like many other polishes.
I hoped that my second coat would produce more dramatic results.
The second coat when on as smoothly and evenly as the first coat did. On this second coat, I did notice that immediate touch-ups were impossible to do - creating bumps and smudges that were unable to be fixed even doing an immediate third coat to smooth the polish out. Again, after a bit over a minute, my nails were dry.
As with the first coat, while my nails were shiny, they were far from extremely reflective or even slightly reflective. A topcoat of Sally Hansen’s No Chip Acrylic Top Coat added a bit more to the shine, however, overall, I was quite disappointed. The shade was pretty, no doubt, but I knew the exact same results were available (at a cheaper cost) in half a dozen other drug store cosmetic lines.
I was still willing to give the Chrome Nail Makeup a chance for redemption. While I’d read from many different sources online that the new Sally Hansen polish chipped badly, I had hoped that the combination of the base coat and topcoat would hold off chips for at least 2 days. In the polishes that I found chipped the most, I could have my polish last at least half a day longer than any other previous combinations I’d found. Hoping for the best, I curled up on the sofa with a book.
When I finally got up around 3 hours later, I did a few minutes of typing before remembering to check my nails. I almost cried.
The four coats, which I’d taken my time to apply to perfection, turned out to be a waste of time. In less than 4 hours, without doing so much as washing my hands, I’d managed to chip 3 nails. Within the next 5 hours or normal activity, not a single nail remained un-chipped. To my dismay, this Sally Hansen Chrome Nail Makeup lasted a full day less than my $1 Wet ‘N’ Wild polish did. Despite the fact that the bottle and various advertisements claimed the need to only touch-up the polish every two days, there was absolutely no way under the sun I’d ever manage to make it to two full days with even half of this polish still on my fingernails.
The After-effects
A few days later, I reached for the Black Pearl Chrome polish again. This time, I didn’t bother with any base or topcoat, knowing I’d likely get a similar result with or without the extra work. True enough, I noticed my first chips about 3 hours after application, although, surprisingly enough, the amount of chipping was less, despite the fact that I’d done housework instead of lying around.
More testing around with this polish found that one coat (on bare nails) produced a nice opaque silver colour, although the polish did not look smooth – lines were visible on every single nail. Three coats of this Sally Hansen polish didn’t help with chipping either – while the results looked smooth, chipping occurred just as fast and the polish had the habit of peeling off in small sheets once the initial chip occurred. Like other polishes with the tendency to chip, I attempted to layer this colour – putting on a darker shade for the base coat, using the Chrome Nail Makeup as a top coat and colour “enhancer”. Unfortunately, because of the opaque colour, the base coat couldn’t be seen, although this time the polish did last for a grand total of a day.
While I’ll probably use at least half of this bottle of polish, unless dramatically different colours come out, I won’t be purchasing another bottle. Since this “chrome” polish is far from a true “chrome” look, other similar shades can be found in cheaper, longer lasting drug store nail polish lines. I admit that the wait for this polish helped to increase my expectations, which likely attributed to the severe disappointment I felt after using Sally Hansen’s Chrome Nail Makeup. Thankfully, the new Revlon chrome line wasn’t as much of a disappointment.
Recommended:
No
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Location: Detroit, MI
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