Nails are super-hot this year. Nail polish is flying off the shelves. Nail art, nail polish with additives, matte as well as high-gloss are all in style. And women and girls of all ages are taking part in the trend.
I was at CVS earlier this week waiting for a prescription to be filled, so I wandered the aisles with a $5 Extrabucks coupon in my hand. CVS sent a $2 off Sally Hansen coupon to my phone. Were they mind readers?
I noticed the new Gem Crush line of glitter-filled polishes in the Sally Hansen section a few weeks ago, and this time, I pounced. I’m a sucker for sparkle, and with the two coupons, I got the nail polish for $0.79. Can’t beat that!
I chose Razzle-Dazzler, 06, a dusty rose shade.
Although two coats gives you some serious glitter, the pale shade somehow makes it seem more subtle or at least not so in-your-face. Another idea would be to use one coat of Gem Crush over a solid color — pink, lavender or white — for just a little sparkle.
Sally Hansen’s Gem Crush seems similar to the Zoya Pixie Dust line, but it’s more glittery. The Zoya Pixie Dust is applied without a basecoat or topcoat. I didn’t see any directions on the Gem Crush saying to avoid those. In fact, I noticed on the Sally Hansen website that it says to apply topcoat “for more shine”. So I applied two coats of Gem Crush over a coat of Sally Hansen Miracle Cure. Two coats gave me opaque coverage, but the bottle says apply 2-3 coats. Gem Crush dries quickly, and it dries to a matte textured finish. I covered Gem Crush with a coat of my favorite essence gel-look topcoat.
It has the typical Sally Hansen brush which is OK. The formula, which provides a suspension for the glitter bits, seems a little thinner than regular nail polish, but I found it easy to apply.
Gem Crush comes in 8 jewel-tone shades with bling-like names: a silvery-grey, purple, red, gold, turquoise, raspberry, black, dusty rose pink. The Gem Crush bottle contains 0.31 fl. oz./9.17 ml. It’s made in the U.S. It’s widely available wherever Sally Hansen is sold: supermarkets, mass merchandisers, drugstores, beauty supply stores. At CVS, it cost $7.79.
I applied it two days ago, and it looks great. (This is a later comment: after 6 days, it chipped in a couple of spots. But I still like it!)
One thing that they don’t tell you in the store is that you need to remove it with acetone-based nail polish remover. I always buy the non-acetone remover, so I will be making a trip back to the store to buy acetone-based remover. Also, the Sally Hansen website tells you how to remove it to make removal easier: “For easier removal, use any Sally Hansen acetone-based nail enamel remover. Hold a saturated cotton ball on the nail for 10 seconds before wiping. This should help saturate the polish and make removal easier.”
Speaking of polish removal concerns, I just read a terrific post by fashion blogger, Monica from Pear Shaped Gal, who recommends using CVS Gel Polish Remover Wraps. Here’s the link to her post to check ’em out: http://www.pear-shaped-gal.com/2013/08/gel-polish-remover-wraps-from-cvs.html
Several days later…
I wore this polish for 7 days, and I really enjoyed the sparkly look. I need fresh polish for Jeff’s birthday dinner tomorrow, so I had to remove the Gem Crush tonight. I did return to CVS during the week to buy acetone-based nail polish remover. It was ESSENTIAL! There is no way this nail polish would have come off without it. I didn’t feel like spending the $8 to buy the CVS Gel Polish Remover Wraps, which probably would have helped. And I was too lazy to make my own with cotton cosmetic rounds and aluminum foil. Instead, I stuck each finger in the top of the nail polish remover bottle to soak for about 30 seconds. Then I soaked a cotton round and applied it to the nail. The round stuck a bit unless it was completely saturated. Then I went back and forth over the nail till the polish began to come off. I would say it took about 3 minutes per nail to remove the polish — about a half hour total, and that’s kind of a long time. So you need to have patience and enough time to get the job done.
Next time, I may buy some straight acetone and soak my finger tips in a bowl filled with acetone for at least a minute or two like I do in the salon when they remove a shellac or gel manicure. Frankly, I think that would work best.
So was it worth it? Yes and no. I loved the look of the polish. However, it was a bit of a pain to remove. I will try the soaking method next time, and see if it decreases the total time it takes to get it off.
Ingredients
ETHYL ACETATE, POLYETHYLENE TEREPHTHALATE, BUTYL ACETATE, NITROCELLULOSE, ALCOHOL DENAT., ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL, ADIPIC ACID/NEOPENTYL GLYCOL/TRIMELLITIC ANHYDRIDE COPOLYMER, TRIMETHYL PENTANYL DIISOBUTYRATE, TRIPHENYL PHOSPHATE, ACRYLATES COPOLYMER, SILICA, D&C VIOLET NO. 2.
So what do you think? Have you tried Gem Crush or any of the other glitter polishes? If you have, how did you remove it??? Any tips are welcome, for sure!
I’d still give the non-acetone polish a try with the soaked cotton pad and kitchen aluminum foil .. let me know if it works.
And thank you for the link back 😉
Monica.
Monica P recently posted…Gel Polish Remover Wraps from CVS
Any time 🙂
BTW, Monica, the non-acetone polish remover didn’t work. I used regular acetone based remover after giving up on the other one. Next time, I’ll either do the aluminum foil/cotton round version or, more likely, I’ll soak my finger tips in a bowl of acetone based remover or straight acetone, lol.
I recently had to do the “cotton ball soaked in nail polish remover and aluminum foil” project recently-it worked …but it sure is a job(these days) to remove polish 🙂
You said it, Lois! But I love the glitter polishes and the others with “stuff” in ’em. Maybe I’ll just do one glitter nail per hand with the others in regular in the future lol.