Long time no post! Because I'm the laziest human being in the world. I can't actually believe it's nearly the end of February and the amount of productive things I've accomplished so far in 2015 is a tragic number that I'd rather not spend too much musing about. Because I'm too lazy for that.
But anyway! I know this 'Electric Summer' collection by Sally Hansen is about nine months old but of course, living in Australia, I definitely only spotted it in chemists/pharmacies at the end of last year. So despite it being very late to land to our shores (which is not at all perplexing), I guess it was just in time for our summer!
The collection boasts eight new shades, and below I've swatched four of them. I've also included an old green shade from Sally Hansen which is incredibly similar to the one in the collection, so I couldn't justify buying near duplicates. For the most part, I found the formula in these to be quite consistently good, as with all of my Xtreme Wear colours. They're all super creamy, a little thick but still needing two coats for full coverage and no bare spots. I really love the colours too - they read like dusty, slightly muted pastel neons - bright but not outrageously so.
On to the swatches, ahoy! For each shade, I've photographed one photo with one coat, and a second photo with an additional thicker coat, clean up with acetone and a fast drying top coat.
Wet Suit - this is a fantastic bright pastel blue! The first coat went on a little runny, and spilled over the edges of my nail quite easily. The second coat filled in the bare spots brilliantly and built up the colour to a great hue.
Mint Sorbet - This is NOT from the 'Electric Summer' collection, but from an older spring collection of Xtreme Wear shades. A very dusty pastel mint colour, definitely more green leaning than some other mint shades (i.e. Essie's Mint Candy Apple, which is more blue leaning). Two coats, easy.
Floaties - I absolutely love this peachy colour! An extremely faded version of the traditional colour of water floaties. This one needed three thin coats for full coverage. First coat was really thin, second helped to build the colour a bit but there were still bare spots that showed streaky colour. For some reason, it really reminded me of the way that China Glaze's Flip Flop Fantasy looks in
some photographs. Obviously FFF is a thousand times more intense and neon but I kind of see Floaties as it's more introverted, shy cousin.
You're Crabby - Hm. This one is a bit boring to me. It's still a great, easy two-coater and is quite a pretty, dusty, rosy sort of pink. But I'm not a massive fan of pink shades so this is probably one I'd use for nail art or watermarbling but not for a plain manicure.
Water Orchid - Normally my sister and I swear off buying pale purple shades because they just have a habit o making our hands look kind of ghostly and ghoulish. But I'm relatively fond of this shade. Another two coater, this one's another dusty pastel. Slightly grey leaning but still bright enough to accompany the other shades in the collection.
The other shades I haven't included in this post are 'Pearl Up' (a white jelly polish), 'Peachy Babe' (which looked quite similar to You're Crabby, but lighter), 'Teeny Bikini' (yellow pastel) and 'Kelp Yourself' (muted mint green).
Overall, I really like these colours and the formulas are probably what give them ticks in my book. The Xtreme Wear formula continues to be fantastic - most boast fantastic coverage in two coats, and are consistently thick but not gloopy (brilliant vocabulary). I find it interesting that for a summer collection, they're all relatively dusty, muted pastel shades as opposed to bright neons but somehow it works! My pick: Floaties. Not only because I can't swim very well.
Happy polishing!
