Sally Hansen Salon Effects - Review

The kind folks at Sally Hansen sent me some of their Sally Hansen Salon Effects Real Nail Polish Strips to review for you. This particular design is called *Check, Please!, and my eye gravitated towards it immediately as my hubby, a born and bred California boy, is a lifelong fan of Vans checked sneakers. (In fact, he even wore a pair to our wedding. But I digress.) The strips come 16 to a pack and are packaged with a wooden cuticle stick and a mini combination nail file/buffer and, of course, detailed instructions. They suggest you begin with prep, which consists of the the basics, make sure your nails are completely free of polish, clean and dry, filed, buffed, etc.

I followed these instructions to the letter and here are my nails as they appeared prior to application (please forgive me, they're awfully yellow. In fact, you're lucky I'm even showing you this. I'm pretty embarrassed, lol.)

Okay, now that that ugliness is over, on to the actual application. The strips come in a variety of sizes, ideally designed to provide the optimal fit for every nail, but more about that later. They come with clear plastic coverings, which you remove, then you peel the actual strip from the backing paper to apply. I found it really challenging to find the "perfect" size for each nail which, I'd imagine, is to be expected. There is NO way they could make the perfect out of the box size for everyone. I suppose I could have trimmed some before peeling off the protective covering but honestly, when I eyeballed them, I thought the sizes I matched up to each nail would be just right. Alas, I was wrong. I found a few ended up being a bit too narrow for my nails so you can see a bit of bare nail on the side. That is my fault completely but it is frustrating. I also had a difficult time lining up the strips exactly in the center of my nails. I found them a bit challenging to work with (particularly when using my non-dominant left hand to apply to my right) and a few of my strips ended up with small creases. I tried SO hard to be meticulous with my application and it took me about an hour to get all ten nails prepped and stripped, for lack of a better word, but I had a tough time with them. Here is a shot of all my completed left hand nails:

You can probably see on my index finger where the strip creased a little and on my middle finger where the strip tore a bit. Here's another shot where you can see that the pinky finger strip was a bit too narrow for my nail (again, my fault, but it LOOKED like it would fit. It's hard to judge when you can't completely wrap the strip around the nail before applying.)

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not panning these strips. I'm just relaying my own personal experience with them. They, like everything else, have their pros and cons and I would imagine, with practice, application would become easier. Overall, here are my thoughts:
PROS: great designs, a nice alternative for folks who (like me) have a difficult time with nail art, long-lasting. I used these as directed, without topcoat, and they lasted a full week with only minor cracking and one small chip. (The packaging indicates that they are designed to last up to 10 days and very well might.)
CONS: challenging to center, crease easily
I'm certainly willing to give these another try in the future. Again, as is the case with most things, one's abilities improve with practice and I'm sure that will be the case for me, too. Plus, once you do get them on, they look REALLY cool!  If you have tried this product, do let me know what you think.

UPDATE:  As of today, July 27, the strips are holding up quite well.  I have fine thin "cracks" in two nails but honestly, I showed my nails to my husband and he couldn't even see them.  :)

UPDATE:  Aside from some more hairline cracks and a small chip in one nail, these strips are STILL looking good as of today, July 30.  I will be removing them (as directed, with regular nail polish remover) either today or tomorrow, not because they don't still look great, not because I'm sick of them, simply because I have SO many other polishes I'm eager to show you.  I am definitely more impressed with this product than I initially thought and honestly, I think that any "negative" thoughts would be remedied by my improved abilities with application.  Here's a shot of them today:

*Disclosure: Where indicated by an asterisk, the product(s) in this post were provided to me by the company for review. Please click HERE for further information.