Sally Hansen Salon Effect Nail Polish Strips Review

Sally Hansen Effect Nail Polish Strips in "Fly with Me" have a pretty, summery butterfly design and come in a box of 16 strips. I'm guessing that the extra strips are to allow for mistakes, different nail sizes or to use as accents.

Inside the box was a page of instructions, a small orangewood stick, a small pink file/buffer with two different grits and the nail strips. Following the instructions, I buffed my nails to create a fairly smooth surface and filed them to the shape that I wanted, before washing my hands to remove any nail dust and hand lotion before cleaning my nails again with nail polish remover.

I selected the strips that best suited the shape and size of my nails and lay them out. Working one at a time, I pulled the silver tab and peeled the strip away from the backing, lined it up with my cuticle and smoothed it onto my nail, pressing firmly before peeling off the clear protective top layer. I used orangewood stick to go over each nail, getting rid of any air bubbles but be careful while doing this because I did gouge a hole in one of the strips. File off any excess at the free edge (tip of your nail) with the nail file, using downward strokes to wrap the strip around the tip at the same time.

I managed to get two nails out of each strip by cutting them in half and I'll admit that I did top mine off with a clear top coat, just to make them a little more durable, as I felt the polish strip was quite 'soft' and I didn't want to damage it. I got a weeks wear out of them on my hands and nearly a month on my toes.

I did put the excess strips back in the box and saved them for a future manicure, even though it said on the box to discard any unused strips (which I felt was a waste). The next time I did a manicure, I found out why. The unused strips were exposed to air, which made them dry out and go brittle, causing them to shatter when I tried to remove them from the backing strip.

There was a solution to this problem. I simply heated the strips up for a few seconds under my hairdryer. This softened the polish strip and the glue and allowed me to apply them to my nails. Don't try heating the strip up against a warm coffee mug (like I did with the first one). I ended up with a butterfly design stuck on the outside of my favourite coffee mug and it stuck like crazy and went hard like concrete as soon as it was stuck! It won't budge, not even after being in the dishwasher!

Would I recommend them? Yes and no. They're easy to apply and fun to wear, especially for someone who doesn't like painting their own nails but if you don't get the application right, they can be frustrating and might not wear well. Would I buy them again? Probably not, unless it was for a special occasion where I only wanted or needed that design for one night.