Sally Hansen Pacific Blue DUPE?!?

Sally Hansen created the most amazing and unique nail polish called Pacific Blue. It soon became a favourite amongst YouTubers and everyone in the Nail Art community. I bought my bottle a little under a year ago and it doesn't compare to anything else in my collection. It's a beautiful dusty bright cobalt blue, it isn't at all like a Royal Blue as it's much lighter, but it's also not a sky blue. It's somewhere in the middle. It's very difficult to describe when you have nothing to compare it to...

Recently Sally Hansen has decided to change the formula of Pacific Blue. The original is a very creamy opaque colour that could easily be a one coater. The reformulated version, that still has the name Pacific Blue, is a much darker colour with silver shimmer and a jelly formula. The colour isn't unique at all as it's much for of a royal blue! It isn't an ugly shade, but not unique and opaque. 

As I was strolling around Boots, looking for any possible dupe options, I found the new Barry M collection for summer which included the colour Damson. It's again a bright cobalt blue, that's in between a royal blue and a sky blue. They look identical in the bottles. It's tough to find a dupe of Pacific Blue since the formula is so amazing, you want to find something that's equally amazing. The Gelly range from Barry M has very pigmented polishes too so I wan't too worried about the formula. 

In the swatch to the left I'm wearing the two polishes, can you tell the difference? 

I'm wearing Pacific Blue on my index and ring finger and Damson on my middle finger and pinky. They are probably 98% identical. Damson maybe has one extra drop of blue that makes it a TINY bit brighter. In all honesty, on my nails it's hard to tell a difference, and when I asked my mum (another nail polish lover) she couldn't tell them apart. 

Both applied equally beautiful. I used two coats for Pacific Blue and two coats for Damson. They both applied just as smoothly without any streakiness or bald spots. They both dried very quickly. Barry M Damson has a bit more of a shine since it's a gelly formula. 

The photo to the left shows the difference in colours the best. Damson is sliiiiightly brighter than Pacific Blue. In most lights however they look identical. 

This is a photo I took on my phone. The colours look identical. 

Which do you prefer? Are they dupes? Will you be trying out Damson by Barry M or faithfully sticking to Sally Hansen Pacific Blue? 

Here are some more similar colours: On my index finger I have H&M Serenity Now, on my middle finger Sally Hansen Pacific Blue, on my ring finger Barry M Blue Grape and on my pinky Mecca Cosmetica Cobalt. All of them have two coats. In the bottles they all looked much darker and didn't even think of comparing them, but they are more similar than I thought.

My friend steph.nails on Instagram told me that Serenity Now by H&M was very similar, although it's very dark in the bottle on my nails they are very close. It's slightly darker and has a little bit more blue than grey. Pacific Blue is a little bit more muted. Serenity Now is also a little more sheer so I would normally use three coats. The formula of this was is amazing though, it was very smooth and easy to apply. It's a nice wide brush so covered the nail very easily without getting streaky. After I took the photos I applied a third coat, Serenity Now is fully opaque, but the third coat also makes it much darker and it leans closer to Barry M Blue Grape now.

The second nail polish I picked out is one of my favourites, and also my most used polish (other than white, base and top coats), it's called Blue Grape by Barry M. It's part of the gelly range but it's actually a really sheer polish. With two coats you can still see my nail line and normally I would apply three coats. It's much darker than Sally Hansen Pacific Blue and also a much brighter shade.

Finally I tested Mecca Cosmetica's Cobalt. This also has an amazing formula, like every Mecca Cosmetica polish. It's a super opaque formula that's really easy to work with, it wasn't streaky whatsoever and dried very quickly. It is slightly more of a brighter blue, but still is quite a muted colour compared to the others.

None of these are as close as Barry M Damson though, I wore those two colours for a full 24 hours and saw it in every light, they are 98% identical and the photos above actually show more of a difference than in real life.

I hope this post has been helpful if you're looking for a Pacific Blue replacement.

Fragrance Direct Haul

Fragrance Direct is a shopping website that sells incredibly cheap fragrances, make-up, skincare, body lotions and much more. To me they're a bit of a holy grain website since everything is so affordable! OPI nail polishes retail for £3.99, Essie for £2.50 and Sally Hansen range from £0.99 to £2.50! I have placed many orders and pretty much all my Essie's are from them! This haul includes Sally Hansen Salon Manicure, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear and OPI.

First up is Gray by Gray a dark dusty grey blue part of the Complete Salon Manicure by Sally Hansen. These cost £1.49 on Fragrance Direct. I don't have anything in my collection similar to this. The application is really easy - it's a very opaque formula and only needed two coats. If you use slightly thicker coats you can definitely get away with just one! The polish dried quick was was super glossy. I really like how it looks against my skin tone and it will be a great polish for the cooler months.

The second Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure is Pumice. This is a really unique and interesting colour. It's a very green toned grey. Sometimes these colours can look really ugly, but I think this is so beautiful! It's a great colour for the winter, but I'll definitely be wearing it all year round. The application was very smooth, but I required three coats to get rid of any streakiness. Just looking at the swatch makes me want to put it on right now.

The next Complete Salon Manicure by Sally Hansen is Shore-ly. This is an amazing warm toned nude. I don't really know what to say about this, it's just beautiful!!

The application was really easy and I only needed 2 coats. Like the other two, it dried really glossy.

I'm not a huge fan of the applicators of these polishes. The brush is great, it's huge and covers my nail in one stroke. Amazing! However, I really dislike how thick the brush holder is. I wasn't able to remove any nail polish from the holder, so the polish kept dropping down onto the brush and I'd have WAY too much polish on my nail. It was such a pain! I'd try to get rid of as much polish as I could, but then I ended up with hardly anything on the brush.. It just made it really difficult to apply the polish. Does anyone else have this problem?

The final Complete Salon Manicure by Sally Hansen is Gilded Lily, the golden accent nail in the photo to the left. This is a dupe for OPI's Golden Eye. It's a flaky yellow gold glitter polish. I applied three coats for full opacity. It's so incredibly sparkly!

I also bought two nail polishes from the Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear line. The first is Wet Cement. I didn't really care too much for this one, but I kept hearing great reviews about it, especially from Misshollyberries on YouTube. Since it was only £1.15, I thought I'd add it to my order. It's a really pretty neutral grey colour. The application is really easy, I love these skinny little brushes much better than the huge ones from the Complete Salon Manicure. I used two coats for the swatch and no top coat.

This is probably my favourite Sally Hansen nail polish ever. Maybe even my favourite hot pink? This is Pretty in Hot Pink also from the Xtreme Wear line by Sally Hansen. It's so beautiful!! It's super bright and a hot pink that isn't too dark or blue toned. I first heard about this polish by YoungWildAndPolished on Youtube and I fell in love. This was the whole reason for the order!! The application on this is incredibly easy, I applied to very easy coats. It dries to a semi matte finish, which I think looks beautiful. I haven't tried it with a top coat yet though. This is the nail polish I used a few posts ago for my Sky nail art water marble for Nail Art June.

It's such a shame these Xtreme wear nail polishes aren't available anywhere like Boots or Superdrug. You can only purchase them online on websites similar to Fragrance Direct.

I also bought two OPIs on Fragrance Direct which cost £3.99 each. The first one is Tickle my Franc-ey. This is another amazing nude, but much darker than the Sally Hansen polish. This was a little sheer and definitely needed three coats, but for a very subtle look this was also great with one or two coats and the application is completely streak-free. It built up beautifully, but I definitely preferred it fully opaque. This is a great neutral for my skin tone, it's much darker, but still looked like mannequin hands. I love it.

Now maybe my favourite purchase? Tied with Pretty in Hot Pink and Pumice... is this amazing OPI called Steady as She Rose from the Pirates of the Caribbean collection. This is the nail polish I used for the swatch of Gilded Lily by Sally Hansen. It's a beautiful (I know I've used that a lot!) neutral pinky-purple colour. It's kind of like Don't Bossa Nova Me Around, but that was more pink, and this looks pink in some lights and purple in others. I have an obsessions with colours like this one... they're so elegant.

The formula was amazing, I used three smooth coats to get it fully opaque. It started off a bit streaky but that was easily covered up. I just love it!!

I have ordered from Fragrance Direct quite a few times now from nail polish, to mascara, eye liner, skincare, fake tan etc. Every experience has been great and the package arrives beautifully packed and very quickly.

Travel Essentials

Over the past month I have been traveling up the East Coast of Australia. We flew from Melbourne to Sydney, and from there we traveled through Port Macquarie, Byron Bay, Surfers Paradise, Brisbane, Noosa, Rainbow Beach & Fraser Island, Airlie Beach & Whitsunday, Townsville & Magnetic Island, Cairns & the Great Barrier Reef. We then flew to Tokyo and spent 5 days there before flying back to the UK. If you want to read more about all my travels check out my photography and travel blog!

We were real backpackers, with the huge rucksack on our backs and a smaller one of our fronts. Every place I had to completely unpack my bag and repack.... that combined with the dry air on the Greyhound busses and the water from the beaches wasn't the best combination for my skin and nails... That being said, I only slightly chipped one nail. That was on our flight from Tokyo back to the UK so that doesn't reaaaaally count does it?

These have been my travel essentials, but the spotlight definitely goes to Sally Hansen Miracle Nail Thickener. Alongside that I also used the Maybelline Express Remover, Essie Good to Go, and Crabtree & Evenlyn Ultra-moisturising hand therapy.

I have written about the Sally Hansen Miracle Nail Thickener before on my blog, but it has been so amazing that I had to mention it again. This is the best nail thickener that I've ever used, and I've tried out a fair few. I used OPI Nail Envy for a really long time, but I never noticed a huge difference, same goes for an Essie strengthener. This was worked miracles for my nails. I used to always have very weak and thin nails since I bit my nails until I was about 18! They were in a horrible condition and I could literally bend them. Now they are rock solid, they won't budge! But not only are they the strongest they have ever been, they also grow incredibly fast. During my travels I cut my nails twice and a third time the day after I came home... I only traveled for one month!

In a previous post I wrote that the formula was a bit off, that my bottle was super stringy from the start... that was just a bad bottle. I bought a new one, yes I love it so much I went through a whole bottle, and the formula is much better on this one. It's really easy to apply and dries quick. My bottle is starting to get a bit thick, but nothing to worry about yet. The photo to the right show my naked nails with any edits.

Another very useful product I took with me was the Maybelline Express Remover, an acetone free dip in nail polish remover. This has been so easy to use and I didn't have to worry about bringing a bottle of nail polish remover and cotton pads, and the bottle spilling everywhere etc. It's super easy to use, all you do is dip your fingers in one by one and twist them around a bit. I found that if I used a thick top coat I'd have to dip my fingers in twice, and sometimes bits of my base coat stayed on my nail, despite that it's still super easy and a lot more hassle free. I didn't find that it dried my cuticles like the Bourjois nail polish remover did. Another positive is that it's a small little pot so didn't take up much space!

My top coat was been Essie Good To Go. It's super shiny, easy to apply and dries super quick. I feel like it does end up dragging nail art, but since I wasn't doing any of that while traveling I had no problems with it.

Finally..... another holy grail product that I am hooked on is the Crabtree & Evelyn Ultra-Moisturising Hand Therapies. Oh my god they are amazing. First of all they come in a huge range of scents. My favourite is Pomegranate, but Citron and Pear & Pink Magnolia make a close second. I'm already on my second tube of Pomegranate and the second one and Citron are both almost empty. They all smell amazing, I did go round in the store smelling every single one of them. They come in this super handy purse size of 25g but they also have much larger bottles. I believe these cost around $10 in Australia. The second thing that's so amazing about them is that they are ultra moisturising, like it says on the front. They make my hands feel super soft and really make a huge difference to the texture. It improves the skins barrier function to reduce moisture loss for extraordinary softness and hydration as well as help the condition of nails and cuticles. It's free of paragons, laurel sulfates, mineral oil and propylene glycol.

Like I said, thanks to all these products my nails have been in excellent condition and the only nail that I slightly chipped was on the airplane back to the UK!

Nail Art Challenge June - Sky & Matte

Since I have a bit more free time this month, I decided to take part in a monthly nail art challenge on Instagram. Californails has been making nail art challenges since I've been on Instagram so I decided to do her June challenge! I'm also taking part in a second one created by a friend of mine on Instagram, Glamournailart. Click the photos to enlarge!

The first theme for #nailartjun (by californails) was the sky. I decided I wanted to recreate a photo I took in Byron Bay in Australia. Byron Bay was my favourite place from our travels in Australia and we saw the most incredible sunset. I wanted to watermarble using neon shades inspired by the sunset.

I really wanted to use this new colour by Sally Hansen called Pretty in Hot Pink. I bought it from Fragrance Direct for £1.15. It was a limited addition shade last year and I found it thanks to Nicole from Youngwildandpolished. This photo is just a quick one from my phone, but I will have a Fragrance Direct haul up soon!

Anyway the theme was the sky and I created this water marble inspired by the photo above. I was actually really happy with how it turned out and was scared to draw on it! I used Sally Hansen Pretty in Hot Pink, China Glaze Sun Worshipper and Kester Black Paradise Punch.

I'm really happy with the final result. I didn't want to make the trees too large and be too overpowering. The mountains in the background were beautiful in real life and I wanted to add them to my nails, without them looking to overpowering either.

The theme for the first #nailartchallengejune was matte, and these themes fit together perfectly. I prefer the look of watermarble when it's matte anyway!

ABC Challenge: C

I started this ABC challenge series on my instagram and really enjoyed it so I thought I'd blog about it too! Check out the rest of my ABC posts here.

Essie Chinchilly

C is for Chinchilly by Essie. Chinchilly is a beautiful tape grey colour that sometimes looks slightly more purple, other times grey, and other times brown. It's a beautiful colour. It isn't the most unique colour in my collection, OPI Taupe-less beach is almost identical, but when I bought this I had nothing like it.

It has a great formula, I feel like it's a little more liquid formula than most Essie's but that wasn't a problem for the application. The nail polish is also slightly sheer, but I used two coats for the swatch and everything is opaque!

Dwarf Hamster Chili

I love the colour, but it also has a sentimental meaning to me. I had a hamster called Chili, who was the sweetest and most adorable dwarf hamster ever. Is he not cute???

Anyway, the nail art I decided to create is Chili! I used Chinchilly for the base of all my nails apart from my ring finger. I used OPI's Don't Bossa Nova Me Around for that. I also used Chinchilly to create Chili. I used a black nail art pen from Barry M to create the paw prints and the face, and I used a pink nail art pen from Sally Hansen to create the nose and inner ears.

Sally Hansen Triple Shine Sparks Fly

Sparks Fly is part of the new-ish Triple Shine range. I've never been a big fan of sally hansen, but this range has come out with some beautiful glitters. I, again, have never really liked chunky glitter polishes but I'm actually starting to like them more and more.

I saw this beautiful nail polish in the store a while ago and bought it immediately. It looks like this gorgeous blue/silver chunky glitter in a clear base. Well… I was wrong. It's a silver chunky glitter in a very very sheer blue base. I painted my nails with a white base so the blue chunky glitter would really pop, my whole nail was covered in a blue jelly! So much for white nails, which are a pain to get streak free!!

After the initial shock of it all, I continued the application. The swatch looks really nice. It's a gorgeous light blue with larger silver hexagon bits of glitter and teeny tiny silver ones.

I'm not really too sure about the polish. It looked great in the bottle, and I do think it looks good in the swatch, but it's not what I expected at all! I'm looking for a chunky glitter that can be layered over any colour, whereas this is pretty limited to blues and whites (which turn blue anyway!). It also can't be used on it's own as the blue jelly is so sheer you'll never get it fully opaque and looking good.

Finally I wasn't a huge fan of the packaging and application of it. The bottles look nice, but you're not getting much. This bottle has 10ml, and the OPI next to it has 15ml. The cap of the Sally Hansen is similar to a Butter London cap, where you pull it off and then see a twist top.

The brush is a very thick brush. I'm a big fan of brushes like that since it's makes application super easy. It nicely spread along my nail. However the brush holder is just as thick as the opening of the nail polish bottle, which makes it pretty difficult to slide polish off the brush.

I also didn't have any problem with the glitter density, no was no glitter placement whatsoever. I just dragged the brush along my nail and tons of the small glitter came onto it. I didn't get as much of the larger glitters, but I did have a few on each nail. The jelly itself was a little more difficult. The first coat ended up being a bit uneven and streaky - which was enhanced because of the white base - so I ended up with two coats of it. A total of 1 base coat, 2 white coats and 2 glitter coats. Not an excessive amount of nail polish, but after waiting a full 30 minutes, the polish still wasn't completely dry and I could easily make dents in it. As a triple shine formula I assumed you didn't need another top coat over it….

Anyway, overall it's OK. It looks really pretty, but isn't versatile. I unfortunately don't like it enough to keep it so it'll go in my unwanted pile. I'm not sure whether that's just gonna get thrown out or whether I'll have a giveaway.