OMD2 - 31DC - Coral

For today's Coral prompt I pulled out Sally Hansen Coral Reef. I bought this polish pretty recently after the huge uproar about Pacific Blue (from the same line) being reformulated into something crappy. Young Wild and Polished's video rant will get you up to speed if you missed it! I've never tried Pacific Blue before and I wasn't able to find a bottle of the original version. I heard that Coral Reef was next to be reformulated though so I snatched it up to try when I saw an original bottle of it. Tip: you can tell the old from new versions by the large "X" in Xtreme on the bottle. The old X is symmetrical; the new X the bottom right line of the X extends downwards. It really bugs me when companies change a polish but keep the name. It can be really confusing especially if you're ordering online and you're not sure what you're actually going to end up with!

I personally have never been a huge fan of Sally Hansen. The formula is usually just okay, doesn't really blow me away, and since the bottles are a bit smaller, when you do the math they work out to about the same price as China Glaze at Sally's Beauty Supply or OPI on clearance so I usually pass on Sally Hansen. But I wanted to see what all the hype was about so I decided to give it a try. 

The formula wasn't difficult but I needed 3 coats to get it fully opaque and even. The color is really cute but I'm not super impressed by the formula. I think I paid $6 (in Canada) for this bottle which is 11.8 ml = about $0.51 per ml. In comparison Sally's Beauty Supply usually has China Glaze for $5 for a normal 15 ml bottle = about $0.33 per ml. This is about the same price as paying $8 for clearance OPI ($0.53 per ml) but I would rather have the China Glaze or OPI. 

Anyway back to the nail art itself! Here you can see my attempt at doodling a coral reef a bit better without the glare from my lamp. I originally wanted to do a coral gradient with the various corals I have in my collection, but my camera always has serious issues photographing corals :( My last attempt at a coral gradient photographed horribly. You could barely tell there was a gradient! Ugh. So instead of fighting with my camera I decided to settle for a doodle. I used acrylic paint for the coral.



Here are the other prompts if you're interested in joining! Full rules here

What are your thoughts on Sally Hansen reformulating Pacific Blue and other polishes from the Xtreme Wear line? Are there any looks that you avoid because you know they will be hard to photograph? What do you think of this mani?