Sally Hansen Coral Reef + Neon Hearts

Happy Valentine's Day! I bought a new nail polish recently - a Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Extreme Wear polish in the color Coral Reef. It was so bright and cheerful and eye-catching in its bottle that I thought it would be a great color for spring... or now... or whenever I wanted to wear it, really.

Incidentally, it's the same exact color as a sweatshirt I got recently while thrifting in Vancouver:

SO. Guess that color is trending... with me.

This past weekend I tried it out for the first time and ended up taking it two steps further to ultimately create 3 different nail polish options. #thisgirlisonfiahhhh (#ihatethatsonnnngggg) As it turns out you can even wear this today for Valentine's Day!

Starting off with the first option of just rocking Coral Reef, as is. This was a bit streaky after the first coat, but was pretty much good to go after the second coat was applied.

1 coat   vs   2 coats

This polish looks insanely different in different lights. Indoors, it can look either ultra peachy, ultra corally or ultra hooker chic. Like, crazy neon orange looking. Outdoors it looks much pinker and looks more like a neon pink. Look at the color differences below:

.  inside  .

.  outside  .

That shit cray.

So for the second option, I added white hearts to just a couple of nails using a dotting tool:

I was doing this solely for the ensuing 3rd step of adding more colors on top of the white hearts. Nail polish tip:  Just like with any painting project, you'll get a more vibrant color payoff if you begin with a white base. It will really make your top layer's color pop! So I was painting these white hearts as mere base hearts for my upcoming neon hearts, but I really liked the way the white hearts looked, too! I almost stopped there... but I really wanted to see how neon hearts would look, so I kept going...

... to my third nail polish option: Adding neon hearts! After the white hearts had sufficiently dried I used a few different neon polishes to add hearts right on top of where I'd laid down the white hearts earlier. I happen to have a nice selection of bright neon-ish colors:

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Flashy Fuschia

Neon Green by Love & Beauty

Sunshine by Claire's Cosmetics

(And that's Coral Reef on the far right)

.  artsy progress pics  .

And there you go! Which one do you like best?

Happy Valentine's Day biddies! I'd love to see what you end up rocking on your nails today. 

♡ Tweet me a pic @akaBailey! ♡