How to Make Your Sally Hansen Color Foils Look Perfect

...as possible.

If you follow the world of nail polish, you are sure to know that Sally Hansen has been busy with a few new collections, one of which is called Color Foils! A nod to the Chrome line from the early 2000's, these babies are infused with aluminum to make them as shiny and reflective as can be. (With that said, they are not Minx. Color Foils are pretty dang reflective, but you will not miraculously discover ten little mirrors on your fingers.) 

Although these polishes are indeed quite awesome, we do hit one little snag. Sally Hansen instructs not to use base or topcoat with Color Foils. On top of that, chrome polishes tend to show every little imperfection in your nails, like ridges, peelies, dents, and much, much, more-- possibly stuff you didn't even know you had. While some ladies out there are blessed with smooth nails, others are not, me being one of them. Sadly, Color Foils do not react well with ridge filling base coats, or any other type, as a matter of fact. I tried. The polish went all baldy and clumpy and draggy, and while you may be telling yourself (if you are nail expert) "Oh, I can avoid this, piece of cake," you won't be able to. Sorry to burst your bubble, but no matter how well you apply with however light a hand, you will not be able to make these work with a base coat alone. It's just not gonna happen. Instead of buffing my nails to the point where they're tissue paper-thin, I ventured out to find a way to hide my ridges and dents by still using a base coat. Be a rebel, guys, and read on.

So here is what Titanium Flush looks like alone, without base or topcoat. Titanium Flush is hot pink chrome with fuchsia undertones.

You can see all of my ridges and dents, especially on my middle and pinkie fingers. Joy. 

I then removed it and tried it over my Essie First Base base coat. I can now confidently say that Color Foils look their worst over any sort of tacky base coat. It dragged and clumped and looked awful. Back to the drawing board!

I removed that and realized that my smoothest, driest coat of all would be of my topcoat, Essie Good to Go. I applied my two base coats, Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Hardener and Essie First Base, which together do a pretty got job of concealing my ridges. I then applied my topcoat. I waited until that was completely dry, and then painted two coats of the Color Foil. OH EM GEE!!! CHROMEY PERFECTION! 

I'm so sorry, but by the time I got to this combo I was pretty impatient, and I pretty much slapped it on and had no interest in cleaning up. I hope you can forgive me! :(

But seriously... How much of an improvement is that!? I experienced very little clumping and dragging, but my additional advice is to use a light hand and not press on the nail with the brush.

So to recap the layers are as follows:

1 coat Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Hardener

1 coat Essie First Base

1 coat Essie Good To Go

2 coats Titanium Flush

Or...

1 coat ridge filler

1 coat topcoat

2 coats Color Foil

I hope this helps your Color Foils look as AWESOME as possible! Good luck!

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XOXO

Is